The Dalai Lama visits a Sikh Shrine

[Ensapa]

His Holiness the Dalai Lama during his visit to Rewalsar Sahib, a Sikh shrine in Tso Pema (Rewalsar), HP, India on April 3, 2012. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL


And HHDL is doing some damage control with India on behalf of Tibet while Lobsang Sangay is oblivious to their position and situation. How kind the Dalai Lama is to do this on his own initiative, duties that should be done by ministers…instead he does it himself. How useless the CTA is. Harvard educated…but not behaving like one. CTA still not taking responsibility but leaving it up to Dalai Lama to do it….We love you Dalai Lama! That is why we let you clean up after our shit! Way to go in respecting your Lama, CTA.

[samayakeeper]

When would we be able to see HH hugging DS practitioners and their children in a huge DS shrine? Would the CTA be instrumental in making this happen?

CTA should gather all resources and ensure the word Tibet and Tibetans are not erased from the lips of the future generations instead of wasting time, effort and resources in keeping the ban on the practice of Dorje Shugden.

[Ensapa]

When would we be able to see HH hugging DS practitioners and their children in a huge DS shrine? Would the CTA be instrumental in making this happen?

CTA should gather all resources and ensure the word Tibet and Tibetans are not erased from the lips of the future generations instead of wasting time, effort and resources in keeping the ban on the practice of Dorje Shugden.

After clearly offending their host country, India, the CTA is still nor aware than they did and that they should do something to actually undo the damage and what they have done to the Indian government. They act if there is nothing wrong at all with their choices, decisions and what other people truly think about them. How arrogant and deluded!!

If the CTA is aware that some of their recent actions has caused their host country a lot of problems and that they should actually stop before it gets worse, then they would have actually visited the indians personally and on their own accord, without the need for HHDL to go in personally to actually do something abuot the situation and do damage control.

HHDL, to placate India once told them before that he is a child of India and that he belongs to india. CTA should already take a hint from there on what they need to go with the direction of how CTA is run at the moment, if not why call the Dalai Lama your Guru when you dont even observe what he says and actually do it and replace him so that he does not have to do these duties all the time?

The people who should be visiting the Sikh temple is not the Dalai Lama but Lobsang Sanggay or the person in charge of the foreign affairs. Why make HHDL do things that you are supposed to do? That's a rude way of saying thank you to the Guru.

[thor]

Be that as it may, there is nothing wrong with the Dalai Lama visiting a Sikh temple to pay respects. As a former spiritual leader, it is in fact very respectful of him to do so. Whether the CTA themselves visit or not is irrelevant to me. Why place such expectations of leadership examples on a group of so-called "leaders" who cannot lead their own people out of the woods? Why is Tibet still in dire straits, with no country or land to call their own, no proper systems or plans in place to advance them educationally, financially etc? What is the CTA working on that is more important than helping their own people grow in a way that has real effect?

As for the Dalai Lama, i love this expression of interreligious harmony, tolerance and understanding from one religion to another. Now, if only that could be applied within Gelugpa Buddhism too.

[pgdharma]

How kind the Dalai Lama is for visiting the Sikh temple to repair the damage caused by the CTA when it should be done by the Prime Minister. The Dalai Lama has always promote inter religion, tolerance and understanding except for the Dorje Shugden ban which we know he has a reason for doing that.

I pray that the day will come when the Dalai Lama visit Dorje Shugden monasteries and hugs Dorje Shugden practitioners

[DharmaDefender]

My thoughts exactly thor. Irrelevant if the CTA visit or not. What kind of expectation is that to place on Lobsang Sangay when hes got more pressing issues?

After all the Dalai Lama in his capacity as a religious leader is SUPPOSED to visit places of other faiths to promote inter-faith harmony, but the CTA as a secular institution has no such obligation. In fact their only obligation is to provide sanitation, health care, education, welfare, democratic governance, etc to their people...and even in that, they are already failing!

And much more so in fact if they were gallavanting around India meeting up with different religious leaders and not doing their actual jobs (which theyre not doing as it is!), we wouldnt be best pleased would we? Wed wonder why theyve remained mum about the Dorje Shugden issue, and continue to allow the suppression of its practitioners, but are happily meeting up with people who are NOT from their faith.

[DharmaDefender]

Sorry just want to add this video here:

Dalai Lama Visits and Speaks in Mongolia

Yeah I know its an old video but see the Dalai Lama himself very often travels on a religious capacity and since hes stepped down as the leader, thats technically all he can do. And its his prerogative to do so but the CTA, as a secular and supposedly democratically elected government, doesnt really have that option.

If the CTA are to do anything with the Indian government, its to apologise for the ruckus that the ban has caused, to lift the ban and get on with raising the standards of their peoples way of living.

[dondrup]

HH Dalai Lama is well known for his harmony with other faiths or religions.  Hence it is not a surprise if HH is seen visiting a Sikh Shrine.  However, his inter-religious harmony falls short of one other faith i.e. Dorje Shugden!  Why the biasness? 

We know that for the sake of the “greater purpose”, HH Dalai Lama has to bear with much embarrassment over his ‘biasness’ towards Shugdenites.  The sooner the ban on Dorje Shugden is lifted, the better the religious harmony of Dorje Shugden practitioners and anti-Shugdenites. 

[Ensapa]

Although it is true that HHDL does visit a lot of other religions, but has anyone noticed that he has not visited india's religious centers until recently, or rather during the beginning of the Karmapa's affair with the indian government? Is that a coincidence or something that was planned or triggered by the recent events? And even when he does have religious visits, it is always far and rare in between and it is never an annual affair.

So, why is it that HHDL decides to visit indian religious places ONLY after the Karmapa issue with the indian government broke out? The sikh visit came after the banning of TYS's president from entering india. Isnt it uncanny? Time to really think about this situation and see what really is happening because it cannot be that much of a coincidence.

One thing for sure is that if he can be tolerant towards other religions and even the traditions that were previously banned like Jonang and Bon, and also being friendly with the traditional enemies of Buddhism, he definitely can be tolerant towards Dorje Shugden practitioners but due to something that needs to be achieved now, he cannot show that he is.

To me, the recent shift of policies and visits do raise red flags on to why HHDL pays visits to these indian religious places as he has never done this before, and it was only when there were problems with the indian government that he is doing this. Somehow, they seem somewhat related.

[AnneQ]

What Thor and DharmaDefender said earlier are spot on. HHDL is only doing what is in his capacity and privilege as a spiritual leader irregardless of whether the CTA supports it or not. It would indeed look ironic and somewhat ridiculous if CTA went around India to visit other religious to promote harmony and inter-religion tolerance while they are discriminating their own people at the same time.
But the fact that HHDL visited a Sikh centre is in itself rather contradictory too. That he would promote tolerance with other religions but not with other Buddhists practicing DS...quite strange.

[tsangpakarpo]

I would say the CTA is busy defending their misconducts..hence the Dalai Lama has to step in to take charge. Dalai Lama= spirituality but when people look at the Dalai Lama they also think of TIBET.

That is why Dalai Lama cannot just let things go. He is the face of Tibet no matter what. Many people say that the Great Masters should focus on teachings and teachings only. But honestly in my opinion, whatever a Lama does, such as a caliber of the Dalai Lama, it is Dharma.

Take this topic as an example, the Dalai Lama visits a Sikh Shrine. What Dharma can we learn from this? I see compassion. I see values of unity, humbleness and acceptance. Everyone knows how high of a position the Dalai Lama represents. For Him to come down to visit Shrines of other faiths, speaking in Mongolian language shows how humble the Dalai Lama is. No ego at all. This is something we can all learn.

Of course this is only a basic example. If one contemplates deeper, you can see that whatever a Great Lama does is Dharma. They only act for the benefits of others which encompasses all sentient beings! Never about the self! Even if they want to be famous, the reason is definitely to spread the Dharma.

[triesa]

Take this topic as an example, the Dalai Lama visits a Sikh Shrine. What Dharma can we learn from this? I see compassion. I see values of unity, humbleness and acceptance. Everyone knows how high of a position the Dalai Lama represents. For Him to come down to visit Shrines of other faiths, speaking in Mongolian language shows how humble the Dalai Lama is. No ego at all. This is something we can all learn.

Of course this is only a basic example. If one contemplates deeper, you can see that whatever a Great Lama does is Dharma. They only act for the benefits of others which encompasses all sentient beings! Never about the self! Even if they want to be famous, the reason is definitely to spread the Dharma.

I am on the same page as Tsangpakarpo, whatever an attained being such as Dalai Lama does, we should see what we can learn from his actions. It is always revolving around compassion with skillful means. Dalai Lama is seen in the world as a world peace icon, and this is what he is doing the best, promoting inter-religious harmony.

Nothing wrong with visiting a Sikh Shrine....

[Ensapa]

What Thor and DharmaDefender said earlier are spot on. HHDL is only doing what is in his capacity and privilege as a spiritual leader irregardless of whether the CTA supports it or not. It would indeed look ironic and somewhat ridiculous if CTA went around India to visit other religious to promote harmony and inter-religion tolerance while they are discriminating their own people at the same time.
But the fact that HHDL visited a Sikh centre is in itself rather contradictory too. That he would promote tolerance with other religions but not with other Buddhists practicing DS...quite strange.

Which cements my conclusion that the visit was more for political purposes rather than for religious harmony. What does it not make sense again? CTA is still a government, but they are not doing their duties as a government but rather playing around with various things that bring little or no benefit to people. Governments visit each other for goodwill and to cement ties, but does CTA do that?

DS is a religious issue, but visits between different countries send a strong statement to both countries that their ties are strong and that the leader of the country trust the leader of the other country enough to visit them without getting assassinated or harmed. Now, has the CTA ever invited any Indian officials to their country or have they ever visited the Indian parliament out of respect?

I dont see HHDL's move as promoting religious harmony but they serve more of a political purpose since he has no real excuse to visit the parliament as a president, he can visit holy places as a religious icon, but the message that he reinforces to the Indian government is the same: That the CTA recognizes India as its benefactor, although this does not reflect what CTA thinks about India.

Sooner or later the government of India will be aware of the ban and will see it as something harmful to them and will pressure CTA to lift the ban. Perhaps this is the way that the ban will be lifted. CTA is oblivious to the Indian government and this will cause a lot of problems for them in the future.