I just wanted to share this which Ven Lozang Gyaltsan posted on his facebook - it was in response to someone who was criticising Shugden practitioners. You can read more here
https://www.facebook.com/notes/lozang-gyaltsan/personal-observations-of-an-american-shugdenpa-in-india-more-about-my-position-o/10150392998125955 although the person who was criticising Ven. Lozang Gyaltsan eventually took herself off the thread:
Please understand this is not Shugden propaganda.. I don't care to convince anyone to do this practice or to convert anyone to my way of thinking or to disrespect HHDL.
Imagine, just briefly, being told that you could no longer practice part of the religion you have chosen, read certain scriptures, sing certain songs and, if you refused to comply, had a religious leader persuade your family to disown, businesses to refuse to sell or provide services to you or your government provide the same rights to you as to any other citizen. I won't try to imagine how you'd react, I'm not asking how you'd react, just to imagine for a moment. to answer about what we are discussing earlier and some background: Now, having re-read what we both have written, I think I may see where the confusion lies. I did not mean to create the impression that I did not think the experience you related did not happen or that it not was a real one. I think the confusion may be one of both language and interpretation.
I do think that HHDL, or any other human, does have Buddha-nature or illusory-body qualities, but that no human has any God-like qualities like omniscience, omnipresence, etc. The position of Dalai Lama arose as a political one and its only connection to the spiritual side came from the fact that the Dalai Lamas have always been monks and had, as a result, some spiritual influence within the Gelug order. The institution of the position “Dalai Lama” was established during the period of the man known as the 3rd Dalai Lama. The first two never existed as DLs, they were so named after they had been dead some years in order to justify the choice of lineage from which the man known as HHDL 3 was chosen.
There was at the time open warfare between Kagyu & Gleug monasteries in the central Yarlung valley of Tibet. The shooting each other with guns, stabbing with swords, killing each other kind of warfare. The newly-emerging Gelug order and the Kagyus were struggling for supremacy in the political arena. The Gelug order held greater influence with the Mongolian leader and they convinced him to send soldiers into central Tibet to protect the smaller Gelug monasteries. He did this and set-up the political office of Dalai Lama and used the Mongol army to enforce this new political power structure. This power structure grew until the Gelug order became increasingly powerful and finally dominated Tibetan politics and the Dalai Lamas ever since ruled Tibet the way the early kings of Tibet ruled, with absolute political power. This power struggle has always existed.
Very few Dalai Lamas have lived to be old enough to hold office. Most were murdered. They have always been politicians. This one is no different. As to the Shugden matter, HHDL has the right to practice whatever Guru Yoga he chooses and for whatever reason he chooses. What he does not have, never has had, and never will have is the spiritual authority or the right, to force others to do as he does or to follow his wishes.
HHDL 14 counted on his influence and the blind devotion that most of them have enjoyed all these centuries to work in his favor. It has not and will not. Tibetans in Tibet are free of the domination of the Dalai Lamas. They are oppressed by the Chinese now but HHDL has no control there. The Tibetan populations of America and other countries are beyond his control and of those who live outside India, the only place he has any real influence now, many are Shugdenpas.
I have lived among the Tibetans in America for many years and this is first-hand knowledge. The Gelug Lamas who came to the west before this “ban” was proposed were Shugden practitioners, as were the Tibetans who were also Gelug who emigrated. It is how so many Americans who became Tibetan Buddhists of Gelug Lamas were introduced to the practice of Dorje Shugden.
After the ban, the Shugdenpas among the Tibetans in India {who could afford to do so} fled to the west where they would be safe from the violence, the persecution and the social isolation in which this Dalai Lama has been able to persuade other Tibetans to engage.
I now reside in India. I came to teach English to young monks at Serpom Monastery. I live in a place where there was no problem until recent years. For the first 35 years of the attempts of HHDL 14 to ban this practice, the monks of Sera continued the practice of Shugden with no problems until HHDL decided to force the issue here at the Sera monasteries in Bylakuppe Tibetan Colony.
Of the approximately 1200 monks at Sera mey, 900 were members of Pomra House. Sera Mey had more than 50 such “houses” mostly comprised of small numbers of monks.. 5 or 6, a dozen or so. The monks of Pomra house, nearly all 900 of them, refused to follow his orders, left Sera Mey, taking with them their personal belongings, their real estate properties, acquiring more land supplied by the Indian government {which refuses to endorse or support the political aspirations of HHDL 14} and formed the new Serpom Monastery over which HHDL has no power and no influence.
This should give you just a brief glimpse into one small part of the suffering and negativity that has ensued because HHDL is not satisfied to give others within his own society and his own religion the freedom to choose what Guru Yoga they practice. He wants the freedom to choose for himself whether or not to practice Dorje Shugden. He just doesn’t want that freedom for anyone other than himself.
These are the facts. This is the truth.
All of this I know from first-hand experience as a monk who has lived among Tibetans in both America and India. The historical background comes from my undergraduate and graduate school studies at Indian University in the Tibetan Studies Program where my university mentor, my professor of Tibetan language & history and graduate school advisor was Thubten Jigme Norbu, the Tagster Tulku Rinpoche , the older brother of HHDL14.
You may not like the truth of this matter. But it is the truth. It is not offered to persuade you to not follow or believe in or to convince you to disrespect HHDL. It is offered so that you know the truth about what he is doing. Whether you think he has the right to deny religious freedom to Tibetans is something you must decide for yourself. As you can see from all the conflict and suffering that has ensued, most people do not support his attempts to deny religious freedom to his people.
He cannot deny it to me or the many thousands of non-Tibetans who practice Dorje Shugden. He has no control over us and we really don’t give a crap what he thinks. As I stated in a comment earlier in this thread of comments, the only person whose opinion of me matters even the slightest is that of my own Lama.
