TibetInfoNet - Tibet News Digest

31 May 2008

ISSN: 1864-1393

31 May 2008
Dalai Lama gives advice concerning Shugden
(TibetNet) The Dalai Lama has issued a statement advising his followers against the worship of the Dorje Shugden (Dolgyal) deity. He claims that veneration of Shugden creates the danger of Tibetan Buddhism degenerating into a form of spirit worship, causes obstacles to the emergence of genuine non-sectarianism and that engaging in this controversial and divisive propitiatory practice is inappropriate in the current context of Tibetan society, where unity among the Tibetan people is vitally important. The statement makes clear that he personally feels strongly about the negativity of this practice, and has requested that those who continue to propitiate Dolgyal, do not attend his formal religious teachings, which traditionally require the establishment of a teacher-disciple relationship.

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Bubble [From Trijang Rinpoche, Spiritual Guide to the Dalai Lama:] "Furthermore, the definitive point of view, that these holy beings [previous incarnations of Dorje Shugden] were already fully enlightened innumerable ages ago, is clear if one examines the accounts of their lives, and if one were to say that a fully enlightened being could take birth as an ordinary gyalpo or tsen spirit, then one would be asserting that degeneration is possible from the state of full enlightenment or that someone could be both fully enlightened and an ordinary preta at the same time! Or else one would have to say that the accounts of those great beings’ lives are worthless. A mountain of absurd consequences, previously non-existent distorted ideas, would have to be accepted." (Trijang Rinpoche, Music Delighting the Ocean of Protectors, p. 9, circa 1967)

Posted by KZ on 17 June 2008 at 06:26