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Thank you.

Simon

Thank you so much for the new section, teyes.

but teyes, is it possible to remove the section for 'New Kadampa Tradition' which is a movement discouraged by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, His Holiness 100th Ganden Trichu Rinpoche and His Holiness 101st Ganden Tri Rinpoche?

May this trying-to-be-humble Newbie express his concern at any limitations of the list?

Can we not keep out of disagreements between what HHDL's friend, Thomas Merton, called 'vaticans'?

Metta,

Simon

Anent New Kadampa, I am not a New Kadampa practitioner myself, and in fact began in this life to take Refuge as a direct result of contact I had the opportunity to make with His Holiness the Dalai Lama (More about that perhaps some other time and elsewhere).

Nevertheless, I have gotten to know one or two New Kadampa folks, and have been able to learn quite a lot from them. There are in that tradition, as in any other, people on the fringe who are wont to outrageous, even criminal, practices. Still, I'm by no means ready to write off any and all members of that movement as crackpots. To the contrary, those I've had the pleasure of getting to know are nothing other than human beings whose karma has led them into contact with the Dharma through that, rather than some other tradition.

Please keep them on board; we gain by diversity.

Lyn

I have to agree with lynwillw on this one.

The NKT is growing, and gaining popularity in the west. They aren't the only school to have sectarian views, and harbor ill views of other Buddhist teachers. We can't close the marketplace of ideas, so caveat emptor everybody! Let the buyer beware.

If these masters, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, His Holiness 100th Ganden Trichu Rinpoche and His Holiness 101st Ganden Tri Rinpoche, who are the Heads and Senior Teachers of the Gelug tradition (Gelugpa), have discouraged New Kadampa Tradition, why are we turning our ears away, not listening to them?

"If Je Rinpoche had introduced this New Kadampa Tradition in order to distinguish between the worshipper of this Red god and the rest, then it would be appropriate. But, it should be known that Je Rinpoche did not introduce this tradition in order to distinguish the worshippers from the rest. It is quite improper if one does not have any understanding on these extreme consequences. If one continuously swaggers on acquiring some wealth and status like a little son rejoicing on receiving some gifts from his parent, we need not explore the whole world to find an example to wholly prove and validate Je Rinpoche's prophecy:

"My teaching will be destroyed by wealth and riches."

Kindly ponder over the contents and practice it as this had been written out of strong resolute intention by a person inept in politics."
~ His Holiness 100th Ganden Trichu Rinpoche, 20 Sep 1996.

For the full statement, please refer to the link below:
http://www.tibet.com/dholgyal/ganden-tripa.html

Since my primary practice is Dzogchen, I can't help but heed the words of these great beings, as well as my own Rime (Non-sectarian) Lamas, since Dhogyal is all about Gelug (NKT considers themselves "pure" Gelugs) supremacy over all other schools.

I do not run this board, nor do I run the world. It is not my place to proscribe, or ban even non-Buddhist thought. What then of a Buddhist school?

Yes NKT is a Buddhist school. Dhogyal aside, I can find no fault with their teachings as I have seen reflected in their students. Some of the nicest people you'll ever meet belong to this school.

Just because a school, or practice was banned by a Dalai Lama doesn't automatically make that a bad thing in my book. After all, the great 5th HH Dalai Lama (The same one who was at the beginning of the Dhogyal controversy) banned the Jonang school, and suppressed the teachings of great beings from Taranatha, to Dolpopa. To the great fortune of all, our current HHDL is no longer suppressing this lineage.

sigh.....

btw... do you know what are the main reasons for Great Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, to ban Jonang tradition and yet allow Jetsun Taranatha's incarnation to be included within the Gelug lineage?

Henry, lots of support here.

I think your advice is a sound one.

Let us vote whether we should include New Kadampa into our database. The vote will end on 30.09.2003. So have your say here.. Thanks.

Henry. I have replied to your last question on a more appropriate forum

http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php...ct=ST&f=4&t=148

that's a little problem here.... how many people know abt the reasons for the senior heads of Gelug tradition wanted to ban the practice of the Red Worldly Deity and New Kadampa Tradition???

please click this link for more infos for the above issue:
http://www.tibet.com/dholgyal/index.html
The Tibetan Administration on Controversy Surrounding Dorjee Shugden Practice

fyi... His Holiness the Dalai Lama's response to media a question on Shugden at the press conference in Indianapolis on August 16, 1999:

Question: The practitioner of Dorjee Shugden, will they be permitted to the Kalachakra?

Answer: Now here, you need lot of explanation. Basically, for the last more than 300 years, this controversy remained. And then particularly in the last 60 years, lot of controversial things happened. Here controversy means, lot of sectarian, unhappy things occurred in eastern Tibet, Central Tibet, and Southern Tibet. In any way, in my own case, due to my ignorance, I practice this spirit. I practiced worship of this spirit. Eventually I realised that this is not the right way, this is a mistake. Then I carried further investigation. I found, the fifth Dalai Lama actually considered this spirit to be a malevolent force which may have been born as a result of misguided aspirations.

And then many Tibetan masters, particularly among the Geluk tradition, yellow hat tradition, like Purchok Ngawang Jampa, one great master, very famous; and then the teacher of the seventh Dalai Lama, Trichen Ngawang Chokdhen, very famous. Then another Tibetan lama, of course, well known, Kyangja Rolpai Dorjee, and then the teacher of the eighth Dalai Lama, Yongzin Yeshi Gyaltsen. All these and other masters considered this an evil force. So then things became clear. And also, as mentioned before, for the last 300 years, particularly in the last 60 years, if you investigate and meet more people from all major four Buddhist traditions of Tibet, then you will get the clearer picture, what really happened in the last few centuries and particularly in the last few decades. So the basic thing is firstly, I mean there are three points. Number One, Since the fifth Dalai Lama considered this an evil force, evil spirit, and he once tried to destroy that. So therefore, me as the Dalai Lama, the 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama, I am among the lineage of the Dalai Lama, so I have to follow. It is logical. It is better to follow the fifth Dalai Lama and also the 13th Dalai Lama. The 13th Dalai Lama also placed restrictions on this evil spirit. So then I realised my mistake and then I stopped completely worshipping this.

Number Two. As you know I always try to promote non-sectarian spirit, not only among Tibetan Buddhist traditions, but also among other religious traditions, as many people by now know. Particularly among the four Tibetan Buddhist tradition, I myself receive teachings from Nyingma tradition, Sakya tradition and Kagyud tradition. So this is my approach. So this spirit, you can see from some books in order to praise this spirit, it is made very clear that if one follower of the yellow hat sect, if that even touch the scripture of the Nyingma tradition, this spirit will destroy you. In fact the ninth, no the eighth Panchen Lama, because he practised the Nyingma tradition, follower, I mean worshipper of this spirit believe that this spirit destroyed the eighth Panchen Lama because he practised the Nyingma tradition.

So you see in my effort in promotion of non-sectarianism this becomes a great obstacle. So this is Number 2 reason.

Then Number 3, unfortunately among Tibetans, our Tibetan Buddhist tradition is actually very rich and very authentic. However, there is a sign of danger of degeneration of this rich Buddhist tradition into spirit worship. It is a great pity. And then that spirit is also not reliable, very controversial and many great lamas considered this an evil force. So, therefore, I put restrictions. Then some people who practice this distorted my standpoint. Since I carry this attitude with sincere motivation and sufficient reason, so I want to continue with the stand. Therefore, now in religious tradition, in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition there is a concept known as the importance of the sacred bond between the teacher and the disciples. So in order to be safer for the students side, if you worship this spirit then please don't come to listen to my teaching because it is for their own sake. So this is no change. My position is still like that. Same.

And the Sera monastery sacked Geshe Kelsang Gyatso becoz of this reason:

"The Dalai Lama has been very successful in destroying this ancient religious tradition. He is very clever at destroying the spiritual practice taught by his root Guru Trijang Rinpoche, but he is very ignorant and foolish at achieving Tibetan independence. This should be his main job because he is the Tibetan political leader, but in this he is paralyzed, without any direction. Everyone can see this situation now. The Dalai Lama is using these three reasons, repeating them over and over like a weapon to destroy the spiritual practice taught by his root Guru. He is continually saying these things, and people believe him, and their minds are gradually changing. In reality he is misleading people in order to fulfil his wishes. His main wish is to destroy the practice of Dorje Shugden and then to change the entire Gelug tradition. He wants to integrate all the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism into one so that the leaders of the other traditions will no longer have a role and he will become the only leader of Tibetan Buddhism. In this way he can easily control the spiritual life of all practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. I know this is his wish; he has been working towards this for many years."
Ven. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, "Re: RELIGIOUS ISSUES - related to DORJE SHUGDEN and the DALAI LAMA", 01/12/1997

this was posted in the newsgroup alt.religion.buddhism.tibetan. if you want to read the entire msg, please feel free to email me.

thanks, bro....

p.s. remember what i had written in a PM to you via this forum?

This is a msg posted by my Dharma friend last year:

Subject: So soon...? (was: Cult & mainstream)
Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2002 22:06:32 -0000
From: <censored>
To: <geleg@pacific.net.sg>

Dear Henry

Nooo, you're calling it quits just like that?? C'mon -- you back down way too easily!

Julio Pitanga is an NKT follower and practitioner of their protector. You could find some of his posts over in the http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NKT-chat/, where he was quite active until the beginning of this year. Pretty learned guy -- but then so is their teacher! -- so it is quite a pity that he and his fellow practitioners somehow took the wrong bend.

The protector practice is, to me, not as big a problem as the underlying motive and history. Throughout this whole so- called "debate" -- which really was more like one side kept yelling the same words to the other side regardless of what this other side tried to reason with the yelling side -- much to my chagrin, we had a case of "the pot calling the kettle black." The one who accuses others of "slandering" and so on is actually the one who is slandering (i.e., making statements known to be false with the intent to defame); the one who is accusing others of being "sectarian" is the one who practices in a tradition that puts up walls; the one who admonishes others to stop breaking vows and so on is the one who follows a teacher(s) with major vow-breakage problems!

Why didn't you counter with the writing of Trijang Rinpoche found in one of the empowerment texts for the protector and attributed to Pabongkha Rinpoche, which can be found in George Dreyfus' article you archived in your site:

"[This protector of the doctrine] is extremely important for holding Dzong-ka-ba's tradition without mixing and corrupting [it] with confusions due to the great violence and the speed of the force of his actions, which fall like lightning to punish violently all those beings who have wronged the Yellow Hat Tradition, whether they are high or low.[This protector is also particularly significant with respect to the fact that] many from our own side, monks or lay people, high or low, are not content with Dzong-ka-ba's tradition, which is like pure gold, [and] have mixed and corrupted [this tradition with ] the mistaken views and practices from other schools, which are tenet systems that are reputed to be incredibly profound and amazingly fast but are [in reality] mistakes among mistakes, faulty, dangerous andmisleading paths. In regard to this situation, this protector of the doctrine, this witness, manifests his own form or a variety of unbearable manifestations of terrifying and frightening wrathful and fierce appearances. Due to that, a variety of events, some of them having happened or happening, some of which have been heard or seen, seem to have taken place: some people become unhinged and mad, some have a heart attack and suddenly die, some [see] through a variety of inauspicious signs [their] wealth, accumulated possessions and descendants disappear without leaving any trace, like a pond whose feeding river has ceased, whereas some [find it] difficult to achieve anything in successive lifetimes."

Now, if THAT wasn't slandering, divisive, vow-breaking and full of hatred, I don't know what is!

Furthermore, I am rather upset that Mr. Pitanga's allusion to Devadetta as an example that Buddhists should NEVER point out the faults in heretics and so on was allowed to stand without refutation for so long. In the Lotus Sutra, where the Lord prophesized his "arch-enemy" to also attain Perfect Enlightenment, He did so citing a good act of Devadetta in a past life, specifically the preaching of the Lotus Sutra to one of His former lives, which is taught to be extremely meritorious, to be the seed. But nowhere in either the Lotus Sutra or other sutras did the Lord teach that Devadatta's current bad acts (in slandering the Buddha and dividing the sangha with those slanders) were wholesome and commendable; quite the contrary, Devadatta's jealousy toward the Lord and his impure motivation of toppling Him so he could take over the sangha (http://www.kalavinka.org/jewels/nagajuna/mppu/webpati/devdestr.htm and http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/btg/btg40.htm) were not only ill- received by the sangha then, but eventually ripened to get him in big trouble, both at the end of his life and thereafter. Although Lord Buddha never "bad-mouthed" Devadetta the person (except maybe http://www.tipitaka.net/tipitaka/kn02v017.htm), He clearly taught in many places, such as the Jataka Sutras and the Agama, that his example was not to be followed. That Mr. Pitanga would pick Devadatta, whose actions remind us so much of some of the figures in Mr. Pitanga's "tradition," is indeed ironic.

In the Lankavatara Sutra, it is quite clearly pointed out that defaming the Dharma as "tenet systems that are reputed to be incredibly profound and amazingly fast but are in reality mistakes among mistakes, faulty, dangerous andmisleading paths" simply because they have not come from one's own tradition is the behavior of an Icchantika, who lacks the capability of attaining Enlightenment. Je Rinpoche Lama Tsongkhapa, in the very first chapter of his Lamrim Chenmo, also clearly points out that putting down others' traditions and Dharma to be a major fault. Therefore, the NKT position against non-NKT teachings and non-Gelug teachings is not only contrary to the Lord's teachings, but even the teachings of the founder their "tradition."

The central issue seems to be whether your web-site's section on cults and so on is appropriate to be published. For that, we probably could resort to the rules taught by the Lord at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/majjh...hima/mn058.html, and more specifically:

"In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, but unendearing & disagreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them."

Since you did not march into a room full of NKT followers to force your message down their throat or something like that (an act which, in an exact reverse manner, Mr. Pitanga is undertaking in a Nyingma forum), but the web-pages are only there when people look for and feel like reading them, the "proper time" condition, I feel, has been satisfied.

If Mr. Pitanga and his NKT friends are really so open-minded, let's see them invite a regular stream of Nyingma Rinpoches to go teach in their centers and stock some non-NKT books in their libraries. If they are really so against "splitting the sangha," let's see them putting their protector practice aside, as advised by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, thereby closing that gap, not only within the Gelugpa School, but throughout the whole Tibetan Buddhism community. If Mr. Pitanga has the "right view" that he seems to profess, let's see him display some of his realization on the non-duality of appearance and emptiness by loosening his grip on the solidity of the protector. But most of all, let's see him heed Thogmed Zangpo's advice on how a bodhisattva should behave!

May we all heed so as well! Take care!

<censored>

and i have a lengthy debate with a NKT member early this year:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/4886/msg3.htm

I had currently deleted NKT from our list til the voting results are out. So continue voting here. Members may have your say at the voting booth too. Thanks.