It’s Time for the Tibetan Lamas to Defecate or Get. Off. The. Pot.

The Calcutta Telegraph, 19 Jul 09

….This is not the first time he has spoken of the need for ushering in changes for the institution of the Dalai Lama. He has often spoken of himself as the “last” of the line. “The new Dalai Lama does not necessarily have to be my own reincarnation,” he told Michael Harris Goodman, the author of The Last Dalai Lama, more than 20 years ago. He has also hinted at some new, democratic procedure to choose his successor several times in the past. His latest remarks do not elaborate on the nature of the democratic selection of his successor. He has given no hint as to whether it would be restricted to his own sect or to the entire Tibetan Buddhist community, what the electorate will be like or, most important, how he will deal with the Chinese response to such a choice. It is almost certain that China will do everything it can to scuttle the process in Tibet. …

India always has a more accurate grasp on the Dalai Lama’s significance than does China.

It’s true, the Dalai Lama has continuously been saying, in every possible kind of context, that he will not have a successor. So, then, why does the successor story never die? Because there are so many other lamas who are invested in it, is it not? It’s time for the Tibetan people to stop listening to corrupt lamas. Either the Dalai lama is real, in which case, you listen to him and do what he wants, or he is a fake, in which case you ignore him. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t, as a lama, act as if you and your buddies have the inalienable power to choose the next Dalai Lama, which means the ability to control a theocratic government from behind the scenes, when the Dalai Lama states, repeatedly and as a matter of course, that he is the last Dalai Lama. After that, it doesn’t matter who you choose to be his successor. Even if you actually succeeded in choosing the actual incarnation of Guan Yin (Chenresig), regardless of whether that choice actually was the reincarnation of the individual now known as Tensin Gyatso, your choice would not be accepted.

The tulku system, which involves choosing incarnations as infants, is broken. The most powerful and unquestionable extant tulkus, such as the American Tulku Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, were chosen in their maturity. Jetsunma was actually self-enlightened by the time the Nyingmapa found her. I think that’s the only way it’s going to work in the modern era, and the evidence to me is, quite frankly, that the Dalai Lama fundamentally agrees with me about this.

Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping

Black Christian Minister Stuart Lord Takes Helm at Naropa U.

Minister says his beliefs are in harmony with Boulder’s east-meets-west university

…Next chapter at Naropa

Lynne Katzmann, who led the presidential search, said members interviewed the Boulder mayor, alumni, parents, students, faculty members and others to come up with a list of attributes they wanted in a president. The committee selected Lord partly because of his background in higher education and commitment to lifelong learning, she said.

“Naropa celebrates diversity by having a person of color at the university,” she said. “It is an important statement of our values and commitment to diversity and spiritual plurality. We believe that President Lord understands our mission and represents the best of who we are.”

Naropa released a strategic plan last fall that outlined the school’s mission and calls for the university to grow its student body by 47 percent over the next decade, increase faculty salaries so they are more in line with similar schools and broaden Naropa’s reach into the community.

In fall 2008, there were 514 graduate students and 448 undergraduate students, according to Cheryl Barbour, assistant vice president of student administrative services. The school projects there will be 596 graduate students and 445 undergraduates enrolling this fall, she said.

About 44 percent of Naropa’s students are Pell Grant-eligible, which is double the national average.

Lord said carrying out the goals in the plan will be among his top priorities, and making sure there is enough financial aid available for students during the economic downturn is crucial.

Naropa’s endowment, which funds scholarships, has taken a 24 percent hit since last year. The endowment was $3.6 million in June 2009, compared with $4.9 million the previous year, said Sue Evans, vice president of business and finance.

The endowment does not fund the school’s general budget, and the university has not had to scale back the endowed scholarships it offers.

Amid the recession, Naropa has frozen employee salaries and the employer contribution portion of the retirement matching fund. The school has avoided layoffs.

Lord, who supervised the fundraising of $30 million for the Tucker Foundation while at Dartmouth, said “re-introducing” Naropa to alumni and the Boulder community is also a part of his mission.

“We need to inform the community about the jewel that is here,” he said.

Naropa U. was one of Chogyam Trungpa’s main projects, and I think we should consider this turn of events the official end of Trungpa’s transmission, such as it was. There is a trace of Buddhism – some ideas, some literature, some glimmer of preliminary meditation, and those values that are shared with Christianity, that will continue to go into the American mainstream via Naropa U. But the transcendant state of the Vidyadhara himself? Irreversibly not transmitted to any American individual.

Trungpa was a huge Bodhisattva, and he actually held several lineages. The most important of them, the Kagyupa, was never transmittable to America in the first pace, in my never humble enough opinion; See my Vajra Varahi Mandala page. Naropa U. is named after the Himalyan Mahasiddha Naropa who transmitted the Kagyu lineage to the Tibetan Marpa, aka “The Translator.” Naropa himself, however, was a Shaivite Hindu. As shocking as this may seem to those who were led to believe that this was a Buddhist lineage, this kind of lineage-attribution shell game is not atypical of what has tended to transpire in the hidden cave temples of the Himalayas, since time out of mind. All Naropa could give Marpa was a Buddhist lineage, because that is the only thing that Marpa was prepared to recieve. Whatever it takes to enlighten someone, you know what I mean? For all of the Tibetan terminal fixiation on lineage, the point of the spiritual Path is not lineage. The point is Enlightenment and Realization. But a lineage this complicated will never cross both the continent of Asia and the Big Water to America. We’re going to grow our own locally. Promise.

Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping

Elect the Next Dalai Lama

Dalai hints at incarnation end
- Tibetan spiritual leader open to democratically elected successor
MANJEET SEHGAL WARRIOR
The Telegraph, Calcutta, India

Shimla, July 13: The Dalai Lama today hinted that his successor might not be an incarnation but a democratically elected spiritual leader of the Tibetans. This was the first time he had mentioned such a possibility.

“There are a number of spiritual leaders in the Tibetan community. A female (too) can be a Dalai Lama. It will depend on the decision of the Tibetan people, whether they decide to select their spiritual leader by continuing with the conventional method or adopting a democratic method,” Tenzin Gyatso, the current and 14th Dalai Lama, said while consecrating a new monastery in Kaza, 420km from Shimla.

He did not elaborate on the kind of democratic system that could be used for the “selection”. But community leaders believe that the Tibetan government in exile — based in Himachal Pradesh’s Dharamsala — could reach an agreement or the Tibetans could make their choice in a vote.

The talk of a successor is significant because the Dalai Lama has hinted at retirement several times over the past few months as well as at the possibility of a woman taking his place. The Tibetan spiritual leader, who celebrated his 74th birthday on July 7, has been insisting that he is already in “semi-retirement”.

Gyatso has been the leader of the Tibetans since November 17, 1950, when he was anointed at the age of 15, a month after China’s invasion of Tibet on October 7.

Like others in the past, the current Dalai Lama is believed to be a reincarnation of his predecessor.

Senior Buddhist monks are supposed to get to knowthrough meditation and spiritual training, an incarnation when one is born. They have secret rules to determine whether the child they have tracked down is indeed the incarnation.

One test is to have the baby recognise one of the possessions of the previous Dalai Lama. The search for the reincarnation typically requires a couple of years.

The current Dalai Lama was proclaimed the reincarnation of the 13th leader at the age of two by senior monks using the same set of rules.

This is the best idea I’ve ever heard from the Dalai Lama; deep-six the entire tulku system, and simply democratically elect the next incarnation of Chenresig (i.e. Guan Yin), aka the Dalai Lama. Doing that kills the hegemony of the entire cohort of theocratic toadies by which the Dalai Lama has been surrounded, and sequestered from reality, all his life.

And in my opinion, all this talk of a lady Dalai cannot have any other reference than one of my favorite ladies of all time, the Tibetan princess Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo:

Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um! She’s just SO Guan Yin!

Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping

The Largest Buddhasangha on Earth

Buddhism thrives as China relaxes religious policy

…”Twenty years ago, as we started recovering from the Cultural Revolution, the total number of monks here was just a few hundred,” said Yi Bo, spokesman for the Wutaishan Buddhist Association.

“Since then Buddhism has not stopped developing. More and more monks have come. The numbers hit 1,000, then 2,000, then 3,000. Three years ago we hit 5,000.”

At that time the government stepped in and began restricting the number of monks who could study here, he said.

Meanwhile, 2.8 million visitors came to Wutaishan in 2008, bringing in 1.4 billion yuan (206 million dollars) in tourist revenues, according to government figures. This year more than 3.1 million visitors are expected.

“The government supports us mainly with policy, but funding for our growth mainly comes from donations from the Buddhist faithful,” said Miao Yi, a nun at the Buddhist Institute at the Pushou Temple, China’s largest convent.

More than 600 nuns are studying in the Buddhist Institute which has received generous funding from Buddhists in Hong Kong and Taiwan, she said.

Still the government remains wary over religion and monks here refused to discuss Tibetan Buddhism or its spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who once asked communist leaders if he could make a pilgrimage to Wutaishan’s 10 Lama temples.

“We must work to support patriotism and national unity. We must embrace the leaders of the Communist Party and the socialist system,” Gen Tong, a senior Buddhist leader said on the occasion of 50th anniversary of the Wutaishan Buddhist Association in late 2007. …

Three years ago there were 5,000 *monks* studying at this pilgrimage site which hosted 2.8 million visitors last year. There are many such sites in China. And unlike in any other country on earth, Chinese Buddhism is non-sectarian. The Buddhists there are one unified and cohesive Sangha, and they speak with one voice. One of the things they say is “Only orthodox Buddhism is real.” Another thing they say is “We love our country and we support its government.” This most definitely signifies that dissident lamas who foment civil disorder in Tibet will not prevail. It would be futile to fail to hear the voice of the largest Buddhasangha on earth, if we claim to be Buddhist at all.

Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping

Some Facts Leak Past the Dalai Lama’s PR Job

Living Buddha chides Dalai Lama
By Xie Yu (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-06 07:49SHANNAN, Tibet:

The Dalai Lama’s call for Tibetans to “embrace the democratic system of electing a leader” is ridiculous, said Shingtsa Tenzinchodrak, a living Buddha of Tibetan Buddhism.

“According to Tibetan Buddhism, the choosing of the Dalai Lama’s incarnation should follow historical conventions and religious ritual,” said Shingtsa Tenzinchodrak, who became the 14th living Buddha of Shingtsa Temple in Tibet’s Nagarze county in 1955 when he was five.

The 59-year-old, who is also a deputy to the National People’s Congress, the top legislature, said politics was behind the “ridiculous” suggestion, which was reported by Reuters.

“He (the Dalai Lama) is once again doing something political with a religious pretence but his argument has no market in Tibet,” Shingtsa Tenzinchodrak said.

“As a living Buddha, I understand my people. What they want is a stable society with a developing economy instead of a disrupted Tibet.”

Shingtsa Tenzinchodrak visited the US and Canada in March and said he believed there were many misconceptions in the West about Tibet, including its religion, culture and human rights.

Since 1987, the Dalai Lama has frequently spoken with the US, but not until March did any other living Buddha from Tibet make an appearance in the Western world.

“Most Western people have never been to Tibet, nor seen the real Tibet. They get their information from the Dalai Lama,” he said.

“I feel the necessity to go out more and tell the world what actually happens here,” Shingtsa Tenzinchodrak said, adding that he would take another trip this year. …

His argument, which is quite valid, is based on the fact that there is already a democratic secular government in Tibet; it’s called the Tibetan Autonomous Region. If the Dalai Lama were a religious leader, he’d be acting like one. No Asian Buddhist lineage is a democratic institution.

This is what we need to hear more of in the West; more independent indigenous voices from Tibet. Not more whiners and sectarian trogdolytes introduced by the Dalai Lama, please, but more bona fide independant voices from Tibet. Idiot compassion* by ignorant westerners from afar is NOT where it’s at.

The Dalai Lama is not a “Buddhist Pope.” There is no such authority structure in Tibetan Buddhism or the Vajrayana (Central Asian lamasic Buddhism) in general. He doesn’t speak for a centralized Buddhist hierarchy, and he certainly doesn’t speak for the people actually living in Tibet.

*Idiot compassion – Chogyam Trungpa’s term. This is mostly a western obstruction, because westerners tend to get all warm and fuzzy inside about all the wrong stuff, and the Dalai Lama’s PR job about Tibet in the western media is a first-class case in point.

Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping

Gwine Dyer on the Dalai Lama

Gwine Dyer on the Dalai Lama

… The Dalai Lama held temporal and spiritual leadership over the last 400 or 500 years. It may have been quite useful, but that period is over,” he says in the video. “Today it is clear to the whole world that democracy is the best system despite its minor negativities. That is why it is important that Tibetans also move with the larger world community.”

It’s a nicely crafted statement that does not trample on anybody’s religious sensitivities, but what it means is that political leadership of the Tibetan exile community must move from the Dalai Lama to an elected prime minister.

Such an office has existed since 2001, but until now its holder has deferred to the Dalai Lama in all important decisions. That has to stop, says the man himself–so maybe now it actually will.

That is a neat solution to the succession problem, but it has implications that should concern the Chinese government. A Tibetan prime minister elected solely by the exile community cannot hope to have the political authority of a “living Buddha” within Tibet.

For almost half a century the Dalai Lama has used that authority to restrain Tibetans from open revolt against China, always seeking negotiations with Beijing on Tibetan autonomy and discouraging talk of outright independence. A prime minister elected only by the diaspora could not do that even if he wanted to–which he might not.

China has never appreciated the Dalai Lama’s services, of course. In classic imperial style, it assumes that material improvements in the living standards of its subjects will make them forget their nationalist aspirations.

When it turns out that Tibetans have not forgotten them, as was brutally demonstrated in last year’s anti-Chinese riots in Lhasa, Beijing blames “outside agitators” and “plotters” like the Dalai Lama, whom it calls “a jackal clad in monk’s robes.”

In fact, he has been feeding tranquilizers to the Tibetan population for decades, in the (probably accurate) belief that Tibet cannot win its independence by violence. But a lot of Tibetans would like to try, and Beijing will miss the Dalai Lama when he’s gone.

Wrong. It doesn’t matter what the Dalai Lama feeds the Tibetan people; the Tibetan lamas in Tibet are fundamentally out of his control, and they do what they want, or more accurately, what they know how to do. What they know how to do is foment civil disorder in the name of the Dalai Lama. The actual physical presence of the Dalai lama, either in Tibet, or on the planet at all, is beside the point. The Dalai lama’s death will change nothing in Tibet. The renegade lamas will use it as yet another excuse to get further out of hand, and this will change absolutely nothing. It will be simply yet another civil disorder in Tibet, by lamas violating their vows and disobeying the Dalai Lama in his name, and hopefully it will be the last.

What could change this dynamic is for the Dalai Lama to demonstrate that he is a religious leader and not a secular leader, by leaving Dharamshala, and taking up residence in America, in one of the Dharma Centers here, IN COMPLETE SECLUSION FROM THE PRESS AND ALL POLITICAL ACTIVITY WHATSOEVER, and spending 100% of his time reviewing the sexual and other abuses of Tibetan lamas in America, for the purpose of causing resititution for those abuses, and the banishing of the offending lamas from America, and while in the neighborhood, he needs to transmit his lineage to Geshe Michael Roach, for the purpose of following up on these reforms, and thus rescuing his role as a viable Buddhist religious leader. That is the kind of thing he took birth to do. His idiotic relationship to the Chinese government is simply a distraction for him.

Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping

Tsam Dancing

Mongol News

“Tsam” is the ancient religious mask dance and it is one of the important religious ceremony reflecting Buddhist teaching right images and essence. The means of the word is in Tibet “Dance”. In the first, Tsam’s ceremony used to organize just among of blessed monks without any spectator in the temple, very secret. Tsam’s dancers dance to shake their body, flip with head and do many kinds of arm-action also they can show much kind of brilliant displays for example: jump, bounce, warm and override. Every dancer can’t dance Tsam and Tsam’s dancer has to be really special and for example: Blessed young monks must dance the Tsam and they have to be hearty and it mustn’t any scare on the young dancers’ monks’ body. In other words, it was necessary to cast young and strong monks who were able to wear and carry these heavy masks and costumes, richly decorated with corals and jeweler. Also their chest must to be width, strong and narrow waist and fervent eyes. Young monks are chosen in Tsam’s ceremony because some Tsam challenge powerfulness and skill from dancers and also tsam’s mask and clothes are really heavy and they dance for many hours. So each part of the dance ceremony has substitute player and substitute player must to dance when another dancer tried. Unfortunately, now, there are no photographs taken, also pictures of the costumes. There were two kinds of Tsam dancers. The first, “Mil Bogdo”, this kind of Tsam is called the “Geser” or “Jahar Tsam” or “Erleg Nomun Khan Tsam”. The “Geser Tsam” was famous for its perfectly rich decorations and it is famous in all the monasteries of Mongolia. The “Tsam of Erleg Nomun Khan” or “Jahar Tsam” was the most popular Tsam in Mongolia. This Tsam was staged as a big religious ceremony on the 9th day of the last summer month every year. The opening ceremony, enacting, musical maximum, scenery, and outcome to the Tsam dance reflect the character of the participators in different ways, for example: cruel, calm, or humorous. There are numerous personages from several of popular stories as well as different animals showing positive and negative affect. Also the color and decorations of costumes and other means were used during this ceremony as clues to the personality of the characters depicted. Song and dance, music, decorative arts and other kinds of folk art are included in the Tsam ceremony. …

In general, Asian Buddhists dance, all of them. And all of the dances are great for your practice. Tsam can be incredibly powerful. It takes a huge amount of work, and it goes on for hours, but it’s worth it. I’ve never seen it done in Hawai’i, but it would work great here, because the spiritual environment supports all forms of the dance.

Namu Amida Butsu
Xing PIng

The Dalai Lama Finally Appears to be Listening

The Independent, UK

My job is too big for one man, says Dalai Lama
After 500 years of autocracy, Tibetan leader calls for democracy
By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent
Monday, 22 June 2009

In a speech that underscored the pressures he has had to bear during his life serving as both a spiritual and political leader, the Dalai Lama has said there is no need for his successor to perform the two roles.

In a video clip shown to hundreds of monks, nuns and lay people gathered in the mountain town of Dharamsala, the 73-year-old said it was essential that the Tibetan community in exile embraced democracy if it were to keep step with the wider world.

“The Dalai Lamas held temporal and spiritual leadership over the last 400 to 500 years. It may have been quite useful. But that period is over,” said the Nobel prize winner. “Today, it is clear to the whole world that democracy is the best system despite its minor negativities. That is why it is important that Tibetans also move with the larger world community.”…

Hello? Tibetans? Will he make it stick this time? In the past the other lamas have always succeeded in persuading him that they need him to fulfill this impossible task.

THE DALAI LAMA IS UNDOUBTEDLY RIGHT ABOUT THIS. HE’S 500 YEARS LATE, BUT HE’S RIGHT, AND THE REST OF THE TIBETAN LAMAS SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM, INSTEAD OF PLAYING EVEN MORE SELF-ABSORBED POLITICAL GAMES, AT THE EXPENSE OF THEIR PEOPLE.

Oh, and hey, the Karmapa should not try to be the secular leader of Tibet either. He could be the single most significant lineage holder left in Tibet. Secular means lay person. Political power is a full-time job, and you just can’t do that and keep full Precepts. No way. It was a serious Dharmic error for the lamas to take the secular government away from the Tibetan noble class, who were designed by nature to be Tibet’s secular government, in the first place. It was that grave error by the lamas that led to Chinese political hegemony in Tibet. The Tibetan noble class still exists, and they are undoubtedly who can run Tibet. I nominate Renji.

Tibetan Princess Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo, “Renji” the only child of the late 10th Panchen Lama

Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping

The Vajra Varahi Mandala – Proof that the Kagyu Sect is Descended from Shaivite Hinduism

(click image to enlarge)

Read the Whole Story.

Oh, and hey, you did see it first on American Buddhism. Please remember to attribute my work to me. Where I come from, we call that Right Effort.

Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping

Ani Paldron ki Jai!

oregonlive.com

Former nurse, now a Buddhist nun will teach that change is inevitable
by Nancy Haught, The Oregonian
Monday June 08, 2009, 4:42 AM

Ani Gilda Paldron Taylor was a nurse in the 1960s, confronting death and dying on a daily basis, when she began to think about suffering. A Christian at the time, she asked her Episcopal priest to explain why suffering seemed to be inevitable.
“It’s God’s will,” the priest said.

“That did nothing but cause frustration,” says Taylor, now 74 and a survivor of breast cancer, a brain injury and at least one economic recession.

She’s also now a Tibetan Buddhist nun who thinks her own experience with suffering might help others who are struggling in today’s economy.

Taylor, a native Oregonian and the leader of Portland Sakya Center, is offering a free series of conversations about fear and suffering. It’s time, she says, to set aside the tongue-twisting jargon of Tibetan Buddhism and offer help to people (My emphasis -xp), whether they have spiritual backgrounds or not, who are jobless, living on reduced incomes or facing the loss of their homes.

“If you were working in an emergency room,” she says, “and someone came in with a headache and someone else was bleeding out of their belly, who would you attend to first?

“There’s a lot of bleeding going on right now. Let’s try to control the hemorrhaging.” …

Only in America. The Sakya lineage is comparatively obscure, comparatively far from the influence of the Dalai Lama, and comparatively run by women. I think it’s great that there’s this lady who just happens to be a lama, and who just happens to want to reverse, single-handedly, the entire accumulated karmic tendency of Tibetan Buddhism.

Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping