CAN ORDAINED NUNS ACT THIS WAY?

[mountains]

April 5th, 1996

H.H. the Dalai Lama addresses the Tibetan Youth Congress and the Women Association to encourage them to take up the cause of enforcing the ban. During this talk, H.H. the Dalai Lama is reported as saying that there may be one or two persons who might be willing to give up their life for him. Although this was later removed from the talk, it is believed that the talk was videoed by a Japanese film crew.

At 8 am, a group of nuns went into the abbot's chamber and dragged a Dorje Shugden statue into the street by using a rope attached to its neck. This statue in the Gaden Choeling Nunnery, which was consecrated by His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche, the junior tutor of H.H. the Dalai Lama, H.H. Ling Rinpoche, the senior tutor of H.H. the Dalai Lama, Kyabje Song Rinpoche and Kyabje Rato Rinpoche. The perpetrators, Lobsang Dechen, disciplinarian of the nunnery, assisted by nun Tenzin Tselha and Dolma Yangzom, spat at, sat on, broken up into pieces, and then thrown the remains into the town's garbage dump.[/color]
(from www.shugdensociety.info)


(Can nuns act this way? It is shocking. To think suddenly they can do this to an image of Dorje Shugden??? I am sad for the nuns to be so fanatical. Heavy negative karma, and very bad example of Tibetan Nuns to lose their 'cool' and show their lack of practice (sorry to say). Dorje Shugden can never be damaged. As proven by the 5th Dalai Lama who unsucessfully try to have him destroyed on numerous occasions through various rituals with the great lamas of his day, finally giving up to install him as an enlightened being, composing prayers, temple and images of Dorje Shugden. If the 5th Dalai Lama cannot destroy him, it shows you his nature. Also inside the statue had many holy mantras that the nuns spat and sat on. That is heavy karma of desecrating Dharma words.)

[ilikeshugden]

The actions that these nuns have made will create the causes for them to have suffering. This is because they have destroyed a sacred image of an Enlightened being.  I thought that Nuns would have elegance. I really dislike it when people go this far to stop the practice. It is pathetic. They should just allow us to do our practice and they should not interfere. Ordained nuns shouldn’t act this way.

[WisdomBeing]

Although this happened about 15 years ago, it is still very sad to read this news. While I do understand that the nuns wished to follow the Dalai Lama's instructions, it was not necessary to be so overtly disrespectful of a holy object. What did they hope to achieve? To curry favour with the Dalai Lama?

The fact that the statue had been consecrated by such highly attained Masters obviously did not make them pause in their desecration and yes, as ilikeshugden says, they will reap that karma. However, they are still representing the Sangha, so i do think that ilikeshugden does not need to be so harsh when talking about ordained people.

[Galen]

It is obvious that this action is not acceptable. I thought sangha members are suppose to be compassionate and kind. This action creates a bad image to other sangha members.

Destroying a statue of Dorje Shugden would not destroy the protector. He is a buddha and does not have the karma to be eliminated. And an image is for us practitioners to help us visualise better in our meditation. By them destroying the statue, they themselves will create heavy negative karma.

Even if they do not believe in Dorje Shugden anymore, they could donate the statue to a monastery. I'm sure a monastery will happily accept it.

[Lineageholder]

People are shocked when ordained nuns break up a Dorje Shugden statue and throw it into the local dump but you must remember that this happened because of the wishes of the Dalai Lama, who similarly has no respect for Dorje Shugden statues:

1983

H.H. the Dalai Lama orders the removal of Dorje Shugden statue from the main prayer hall of Gaden Monastery, the main monastery of Gelug Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. When the Dalai Lama is told that the statue was too large to get through the door, he replies that the statue should be broke up.

http://www.shugdensociety.info/historyEvents1996EN.html

Their actions have a precedent.

[DSFriend]

From the Buddha's side, they will never be offended.

I've read that it's better to have created a negative connection/action with a lama than none, as the lama will use that connection to plant imprints for our future.

I wonder if this works the same when negative actions are done towards a buddha statue as in this case?

[Big Uncle]

People are shocked when ordained nuns break up a Dorje Shugden statue and throw it into the local dump but you must remember that this happened because of the wishes of the Dalai Lama, who similarly has no respect for Dorje Shugden statues:

1983

H.H. the Dalai Lama orders the removal of Dorje Shugden statue from the main prayer hall of Gaden Monastery, the main monastery of Gelug Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. When the Dalai Lama is told that the statue was too large to get through the door, he replies that the statue should be broke up.

http://www.shugdensociety.info/historyEvents1996EN.html

Their actions have a precedent.

Are you sure that statue was broken up? According to these pictures and this post, the statue appears to have been moved over to this little chapel within Gaden itself and continues to be propitiated. According to this account, the Dalai Lama requested that the statue be moved out of the Lachi prayer hall. I heard the same story from a reliable monk friend within Gaden. Apparently, it is well known fact in the monastery that the statue was moved and not broken to pieces. 

[Big Uncle]

Sorry, 

the account mentioned earlier was from this post:-

http://www.dorjeshugden.com/forum/index.php?topic=1519.0

cheers.

[shugdenpromoter]

April 5th, 1996

H.H. the Dalai Lama addresses the Tibetan Youth Congress and the Women Association to encourage them to take up the cause of enforcing the ban. During this talk, H.H. the Dalai Lama is reported as saying that there may be one or two persons who might be willing to give up their life for him. Although this was later removed from the talk, it is believed that the talk was videoed by a Japanese film crew.

At 8 am, a group of nuns went into the abbot's chamber and dragged a Dorje Shugden statue into the street by using a rope attached to its neck. This statue in the Gaden Choeling Nunnery, which was consecrated by His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche, the junior tutor of H.H. the Dalai Lama, H.H. Ling Rinpoche, the senior tutor of H.H. the Dalai Lama, Kyabje Song Rinpoche and Kyabje Rato Rinpoche. The perpetrators, Lobsang Dechen, disciplinarian of the nunnery, assisted by nun Tenzin Tselha and Dolma Yangzom, spat at, sat on, broken up into pieces, and then thrown the remains into the town's garbage dump.[/color]
(from www.shugdensociety.info)

I have heard that the nuns from Gaden Choeling Nunnery do go over to Trijang Ladrang in Gaden to make offerings and circumambulate very discreetly until today. I am happy to hear that.

I am sure not all nuns were involved in "getting rid" of Shugden statue. They could have done something at that time, they didn't. It is sad and I hope they regret what they have done and NOT DONE. I cannot imagine in amount of negative karma these nuns have accumulated just because they wanted to be politically right. And this was what TGIE has done ;- Make people break vows, make families separate, causes death, fights and etc. Sigh 

[whitelion]

This is totally unbelievable.  Even nuns would do something so ridiculous.  By making a statement it won't prove anything.  Why show the world whether Shugden is evil or not?  Shugden don't need to know and clearly the world don't need to know.  The lineage is based on real record and time, text, stories, testimonials, materials from hundred of years ago.  So why deny the truth?  Even things changed, the core meaning of dharma and protector shouldn't change.  An enlightened protector is an enlightened protector. Simple!  Even you don't practice don't have to make the situation so bad.  Moreover they are nuns.  Great disappointment.  This is exactly what the ban entails.

[pgdharma]

If they are really ordained nuns, they would not have acted this way. Destroying holy images collects heavy negative karma yet this nuns defied their vows and behaved in this ridiculous manner. What a shame! If Dorje Shugden cannot be destroyed during the 5th Dalai Lama's time, how can he be destroyed now? Did the nuns think that by destroying, sitting and spatting the statue will destroy Dorje Shugden or break the faith of DS practitioners? I feel so sad for these nuns who destroyed the statues as karma will catch up with them eventually. I wonder if they will have any regrets when the truth prevails that Dorje Shugden is an enlightened being and not a spirit.

[Dolce Vita]

As a buddhist, we should show respect to people, we should be kind and compassionate. We should not encourage fight or behave badly. We are taught in schools that spitting is not a good bahaviour, destroying things is also not a good behaviour. If these behaviours are not acceptable in a non-spiritual level, I believe they are also not acceptable in the monastery. I am shocked by what these nuns have done. 

[thor]

Why would nuns be so afraid of a statue of Shugden? Last I heard, refuge in the Three Jewels give protection from harm by spirits. So there is no necessity to conduct a public display of condemnation and complete disrespect, even if it was to a worldly deity. I mean, when lamas conduct exorcisms or consecrations of places, there are many spirits and worldly beings present but the Lama usually treats such beings with extreme compassion. Not out of fear but from kindness

So why did these nuns act so unbuddhist to shugden? Were their actions justified? What were they afraid of - Dorje shugden or Dalai Lama?

[Poonlarp]

It's really sad to hear this.

Statue can be destroyed, but not the enlighten beings. Where were their wisdom and compassion when they were doing such actions?

As a Buddhist, we are not worshiping to statues, we are paying respect to the qualities of the statue which represent the enlighten beings, and hope we can have higher attainment to achieve enlightenment.

By destroying the statue, it doesnt hurt the enlighten beings at all but they gain their bad karma, this such basic knowledge even like a newbies to Buddhism like me can understand, how could sangha members don't understand?

The Tibetan Buddhism is getting chaos by the ban. Let's pray hard, hope the ban will be lifted very soon, and free everybody from this contradiction and confusion.

[shugdenprotect]

It is horrifying to witness such unbecoming acts by these nuns. As Dolce Vita said: even lay people define the acts of spitting and destroying property as poor behavior. To have ordained individuals perform such acts reflects very poorly on the 3 jewels.

Well, damage has been done as this event occurred 15 years ago. So, as Dharma practitioners, we need to use this "bad" situation as a "good" reminder of what we should never do. These nuns' behavior on this occasion is a lesson for us to develop an understanding on why people cause such damaging results with their actions: why did they do such a thing?

It must be out of fear. Fear stems from ignorance. Perhaps, these nuns acted this way as they were ignorant of the truth about Dorje Shugden.

Based on this result, we can learn that we should not act out of fear because, in doing so, we almost always create consequences that is damaging to others and ourselves. In Dharma, we are taught to act out of love to benefit others. If the nuns had acted out of love, they may be able to uphold their respect for the Dalai Lama and fulfill HH’s request while also keeping their vows to treat ALL sentient beings from all 6 realms with kindness (assuming they truly believe that Dorje Shugden was a spirit at that time). Example: As written by Galen, donate the Buddha image to another monastery etc. By acting out of love, we will, at the very least, not cause harm.

Similarly, we should not act in ignorance. Before taking action, we should develop understanding because as Dr Brian Weiss (a doctor and author on regression hypnosis) puts it understanding dissolves fear and develop love.

Despite the damage that is done, we can still somewhat salvage the situation by taking the lessons to be learnt from this sad situation. There is a silver lining in every cloud, may our study of Dharma empower us to also search for and find this lining.