For whatever reasons the self-immolations have taken place, it is sad that they have not and will not achieve any of their desired result.
In China, I don't think Tibetan monks and lay-people are affected by the ban on Shugden practice. I think Lobsang Gendun feels a strong sense of despair that the cause of freedom of Tibet is not supported by a 'united force' of all Tibetans in China. I somehow don't think His self-immolation is connected to supporting the cause of the lifting of the ban .
The real heroes in their struggle to not break samaya with their Gurus and to maintain their unwavering Guru Devotion to their Gurus, are still the staunch Shugden practitioners who have suffered tremendously for practicing Shugden in the face of the ban. These are the real Dharma practitioners, for whom suicide has never been an option.
Yes, it is rather sad and bewildering to see that self-immolation mostly involves young monks, who should be focused on their spiritual practice and not be committing suicide for a political cause. This is especially more tragic considering that this is happening in China, where , for the sake of maintaining political stability, each time a self-immolation takes place, the Chinese government will come down hard on the Tibetans, both the sangha and the lay community. The futility of it all, the waste of a precious human life! Yes, that young people are involved in self-immolation does suggest that they have been 'brainwashed ' into doing it. The perpetrators have a lot of blood on their hands!
Yes! it is a horrible waste of life indeed to have people immolating themselves because their contributions alive would be a lot more than their deaths. Self immolations only can bring attention to a short amount of time before people move on to something else. There are other things happening in the world that is more important than the self immolations of the Tibetans and people would for sure shit their attention to those instead of just the self immolations. Also, too many of them has been happening and people are getting numb to this sort of thing, and then from the way the sikyong and the Dalai Lama reacts to the self immolations, people would have guessed that the CTA was behind it. i am sure that they are aware that these people are sacrificing themselves for them and their causes, but they just dont care enough to not keep using them to get the world's attention.
