The Local News reported by Quinn Bender on Tuesday, October 21,2014:
Groups wage Dalai DuelBelow is a picture of members of the Lower Mainland’s Tibetan Buddhist community squared off against one another in protests outside the Vancouver Convention Centre Tuesday, as the Dalai Lama himself delivered a lecture inside.
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2014/10/21/groups-wage-dalai-duelAt issue was the spiritual leader’s ban on the ancient worship of a deity called Dorje Shugden.
The International Shugden Community, a California-based umbrella organization of Buddhists from all different traditions, organized a protest of about 25 people to shed light on the divisions and escalating intolerance the ban has allegedly created among Tibetan Buddhists.
Aspects of the controversy include whether Shugden is an enlightened being or a worldly spirit.
According to the ISC, Shugden believers in South Asia are routinely subjected to prejudice, intimidation and violence from other Buddhists because of their beliefs. Darren Krout, an ISC spokesman, said the goal of this and other protests planned across North America is to one day gain an audience with the Dalai Lama and begin a dialogue.
“It’s amazing that a man so renowned for talking about religious freedom and interfaith harmony … But by hanging onto our traditions, the Shugden traditions, we’re becoming more and more ostracized from the Buddhist community.”
As the protesters chanted “Stop lying; stop Dalai Lama,” supporters of the religious leader arrived in equal numbers with megaphones, drowning out the protesters with chants of their own.
Some of the counter-protesters said they suspect China’s communist government of infiltrating the Shugden movement with the goal of destabilizing the Dalai Lama’s universal popularity, and dividing Tibetan solidarity.
A spokeswoman, Mati Bernabei with the Canada Tibet Community, dismissed the protesters’ claims of religious persecution.
“What they’re claiming about how this has affected the Tibetan community, I know to be false,” she said.
