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What do you think of Buddhist Theocracy?
In history, there are some Buddhist kings who supported religion and the ruling was great. But kingship is Autocracy (in the old days). Not theocracy.
Theocracy is power in the hands of religious organization.
I personally think theocracy works NOT well.
Real life history has shown examples like Gelug ruling forced a "cultural genocide" on Jonang. (notice the " " ? the irony)
Too bad there's no ideal system yet in this world.
Maybe it's better to migrate to pure land in next life... hehe
Theocracy is power in the hands of religious organization.
I personally think theocracy works NOT well.
Real life history has shown examples like Gelug ruling forced a "cultural genocide" on Jonang. (notice the " " ? the irony)
Too bad there's no ideal system yet in this world.
Maybe it's better to migrate to pure land in next life... hehe
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Comments
In the case of Tibet It was terrible many people suffered greatly under Buddhocracy, With a little wisdom you can see that there is no way to fulfill everyones wishes in samsara so why dirty the Dharma with worldly concerns it just results in Incredible suffering.
I can just see Je Tsongkhapa doing a facepalm now I dont think he would have been pleased with the way his followers treated members of other schools.
I highly agree with you about those in robes.
My dad always say that Dalai Lama as a monk/lama has renounced world matter yet he get involve with politics. The irony.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorje_Shugden_controversy
and got the feel that the current religious reader (his name cannot be mentioned. you know who) is sort of draconian. He might do another genocidal thing if he grasp political power.
A good reason for why Theocracy is not good.
Secularism is a much better.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_Dalai_Lama_the_Head_of_Buddhism
I have information from Victor and Victoria Trimondi, who have researched and translated the secret Tantric initiations, that the Dorje Shugden "sect" still practices the sexual initiation that is part of the esoteric aspect of the Kalachakra Tantra, while the Dalai Lama does not. This initiation involves the ritual rape of 10-, 12-, 15-, and 19-year old girls, as the Trimondis have outlined in their book, "The Shadow of the Dalai Lama" (www.iivs.de/-iivs01311/SDLE/contents.htm, or Google the book title.) I would assume that this has something to do with why HHDL is trying to suppress the Dorje Shugden practices. He has said that the Dorje Shugden practices are "damaging to the Dalai Lama", but he has never said why. Could be because of these secret ceremonies--he's maintaining the secrecy, as required, so he's not making all his reasons public for disapproving of the cult. Maybe he's thinking that if word got out that some Gelugs are still practicing these barbaric ceremonies, it could damage his rep. as a man of Peace, he being the head of the Gelugs, and all.
I have yet to find evidence of this. Would someone care to enlighten (pardon the pun) me?
Someone on another thread quoted research that said that themes of power, eroticism, magic, "absolute supremacy", and personality cults came to Tibet from medieval Indian society. I guess the SE Asian tradition missed that.
Where, in the SE Asian forests? If Thich Nat Han is typical, I'd say the Thais are a lot closer to the Buddha's ideal than the Tibetan monastics.
Ahem Dakini there are no secret sexual Initiations Into Dorje Shugden...It is a protector practise not an action Mudra Practise !
It has very little to do with the Kalachakra Tantra, And I can confirm there are no Barbaric Practises of Dorje shugden, No child sacrifice etc...:p
Such would be very non Buddhist and Dorje Shugden practitoners are no more Non Buddhist then anyother Buddhist.
Really, I'm hoping that no one is practicing those rituals anymore that use young girls. All I know is that there is so much secrecy around some of the traditions, that none of us can be sure of anything anymore. Coming across various abuse situations and cases has rocked my world. I'm just trying to arrive at the truth and find relief for some of the victims, and try to figure out if anything can be done to prevent further victimization. Let's hope there is none on the Dorje Shugden side. Thanks for your input, as always.
Sorry But thats incredibly laughable Dakini-la
Kyabje Pabhongkha Rinpoche, Or his guru did not set anything in motion that involved human sacrifice they wouldnt be very good Gelugpas if they did, As for the unfortunate buisness involving the Dharmasala killings no one has been caught of course due to the witch hunt climate the finger was pointed at the Dorje shugden society...But following that great tradition of innocent untill proven guilty people should not be assumed to be guilty untill proven innocent.
As for the abuse of young girls ? Seriously ? Who on earth set that rumour in motion ? as I said earlier Dorje Shugden as practised is seen as a fully enlightened Buddha, His practise Involves requesting him to protect and increase our realizations and protect and increase the practise within the community of the sangha and the well being of our gurus not to mention the continued flourishing of Je Tsongkhapas doctrine.
There is certainly nothing sinister about it...no animal or child sacrifice, No sexual rituals with young ladies ( Thats action Mudra by the way, which is not something that is performed in conjunction with Protector practise...another topic anyway ) No praying for the harm of others etc...
If you have a few tons of salt somewhere...now would be the time to apply it to peoples gossip you hear Ive honestly not heard anything so laughable for a long time.
Anyone who thinks that the twilight language of the tantras is meant to be taken literally is neither an initiated practitioner nor an academic that has kept up with modern scholarship on Buddhist hermeneutics.
If we could not turn discussions into a slap fest about controversial sects, that'd be great.
Theocracy bad...bad...bad
sincerely John
I'm sorry to hear that.
What is "evil" enlightenment? Sounds like a contradiction in terms..
To me, the most puzzling bit out of the Buddha's history is why the elite governing authorities and especially the priestly class that practiced the sanctioned Brahmanism religion didn't come down hard on this upstart Gautama fella when he started making waves with his preaching about freedom from suffering coming from within and the equality of everyone and how people don't need the Gods.
The only thing I can think of, his rich and powerful family must have pulled a lot of strings in the background to keep him from being killed and even then, he was only a minor Prince. Somewhere, we lost an interesting bit of political theatre to the sands of time.
sincerely john
Since HHDL has gone out of his way to restore the Sakya lineage connections within the Gelug tradition I am sure your opinion is in the minority among Sakyapa's.
The current Dalai Lama has done more to break down the sectarian walls that existed in Tibet than any of his predecessors.
Understood, no hard feelings. ^_^
With Metta,
Todd
With Metta,
Todd
Yes, it was Emperor worship and Racism (nationalism) that drove their war machine, although some Buddhist temples got caught up in the crusade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War
I think anyone who considers themselves a practitioner of Buddhism needs to understand that it's not this perfect counterpart to "warring, antagonistic" Abrahamic religions. Since its development, kings and rulers in India (and, eventually, the rest of Asia) that supported Buddhism used various means (colonialism, warfare, etc) to establish their own power. It helped spread their religion too, but let's not be naive and claim that Buddhism is somehow this "untainted" religious system.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, but I've noticed that some people (offline) seem to act as such.
Unfortunately, Crusades seem to come more naturally for other world religions.
I agree. And would even go on to say that the work of many other great Tibetan lama's would be lost without them.
It is if it is practiced correctly. If you kill, make war, etc. you are not practicing Buddhism. The religious system is pure, it is deluded human beings that corrupt it and call it Buddhism, when it really is not Buddhism. You can call a cat a dog, but simply doing so does not make it a dog.
Karmadorje, I've answered some of these questions on another thread ("Criticisms of Buddhism", I think). The conversation on this thread has moved on, I don't want to take up much space here. Yes, you're absolutely right, I'm nosing into abuse issues, out of compassion for the victims. I give more explanation on the other location. Why shouldn't practitioners be concerned? Think of how the Catholics feel; they probably want the problem fixed so their faith in and respect for their Church can be restored. Would you rather these problems be ignored and swept under the rug, to fester and eventually explode into the national/international media? Western Dharma leaders met with HHDL about this, and he told them the women should take their grievances "to the newspapers, and, if necessary, to the police".
I've seen comments that the practices are done "live", that, for ex., Lama Govinda was wrong when he insisted the ceremonies were done in meditation only. I'm sorry, I don't have those sources, I'll see if I can find something. I realize this is a controversial issue, everything I've raised is. I'm alarmed and shocked to find reports of abuse of students, and other issues in a tradition I was devoted to. For further comments, please see the other thread. Same to Caz. I'll keep looking for definitive confirmation or denial of the D.S. issue, and the secret ceremonies, keeping everyone's comments in mind.
It's fallacious to try and extract Buddhism as a religious system from its practitioners. The religion is formed by those who practice it - the idea that there is some metaphysical "true Buddhism" that we need to be in touch with is a concept that does not jive with me. The socio-historical development of Buddhism is the way that we need to understand it, as that is how it is practiced and developed.
Do not conflate the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church with Tibetan Buddhism. The claims against the Church were *specific*, *corroborated* and presented in a court of law which found in the favour of the plaintiff. On the other hand, you have presented mere rumour and anecdotes with the defence that "well somebody couldn't just make it up!". Guess what? Over a hundred thousand people and counting have died over the last decade in Iraq because claims of weapons of mass destruction were just made up. Investigate your sources. Tara and Charles Carreon have a large and growing corpus of work on the Internet to judge them by. It is quite clear from my investigation of her writing that she suffers from at least mental imbalance of some sort and more likely psychosis. I don't doubt that she is in a lot of pain and I am very sorry that her life has turned out the way it has after such a long involvement with the Dharma. However, the vitriol they have been spewing has long since departed ways with reality.
What you are saying runs counter to my more than 20 years of experience with Tibetan lamas, monks and the numerous teachings I have received. Like Shenphen Nangwa, I have received teachings from all four schools at the highest level and I have never once encountered anything even remotely resembling what you are describing. In fact, I have found exactly the opposite. If your claims were factual, who would be against exposing such behaviour? The problem is they are not. As they say, you are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts.
True, but if you are going around killing, oppressing people, etc., then you are not practicing it.
I see what you're saying, but at what point do we not hold Buddhism as an institution culpable for the actions of the people in that society? If a man attends a Buddhist temple every week but one day goes home and kills his wife and family, we would assume he did it in spite of what Buddhism was trying to teach him. However, in Thailand the class warfare has pitted traditional Buddhist families against traditional Muslim families. That has as much to do with Buddhism as the Catholic-Protestant civil war in Ireland had to do with Christianity. It's just a handy way to identify classes of people in conflict. I agree with you, separating religion from other social institutions like class can be impossible.
If there is one criticism that can be made of Buddhism as a religious institution in the cultures where it's established, it's that the temples and monks tend to retreat from secular life and don't end up having much of a voice in society. The socially engaged Buddhist movement is an interesting experiment, and in the West we are used to our religions being front and center in our movements. I suppose only time will tell.
Whatever the Carreons' feelings, they don't detract from the testimony of various people who have posted on the site. Which you choose not to believe. The woman who posted the testimony you read was involved in the case against Sogyal, see Wikipedia under Sogyal. There was another court case in the US, but I don't have info on that one. There haven't been more in part because many of the incidents took place in India, where it takes years to push a case through the judicial system. "Don't even try", people who live there advise.
Finally, please try to consider the possibility that some (many?) teachers behave very differently toward the Tibetan community than toward Westerners. (I believe you, that you've checked out your own teacher/s thoroughly.) This is what I'm gathering from your and others' statements. Including Western women's statements about that disparity. There seems to be a problem in the attitudes towards/beliefs about Western women on the part of lamas and monastics. In the future, if you have any more comments, please use the "Criticisms of Buddhism" thread, so we can stay out of the way of the discussion here.
I can't imagine practicing Buddhism in any other way than "engaged Buddhism". Doesn't the practice of compassion motivate one to engage with the world, either on the level of individuals, or groups, society? Or is there a different understanding of compassion in some parts of the Buddhist world? I'm starting to understand that the teachers understand their teaching role to be an expression of compassion. But don't the Thai monks have social welfare projects, some of them? Such as orphanages and other projects?