There's been a few mentions of this piece of writing by Helmut Gassner, Dalai Lama's interpreter. I thought of reviving it here, with a link to the full article. Gives many very interesting perspectives to the Dalai Lama's relationship and reliance on Dorje Shugden in the good old days.
Download the full article here:
http://www.dorjeshugden.com/articles/HelmutGassner01.pdfor here:
http://www.dorjeshugden.com/articles/HelmutGassner01.docxA few interesting things to note:
Robert Thurman begged for Dorje Shugden initiation (??)
"For his part, Robert Thurman thought it appropriate to portray for Newsweek magazine a murderous Dorje Shugden cult describing it as "the Taliban of Buddhism." Yet Robert Thurman, presumably before he begot Uma, had been one of the first Western monks with Buddhist vows and had tried twice to obtain Dorje Shugden initiation from revered masters well before the controversy began. Both masters, however, had refused on grounds of his fickle character. Thurman should know quite well what Dorje Shugden actually is
about."
Dalai Lama's escape from TibetAnother, particularly impressive figure of old Tibet was the Dalai Lama's Chamberlain, Kungo Phala, whom you may vividly remember seeing in the movie Kundun. He was a guest in my home in Feldkirch on several occasions. It was he who in 1959 organized His Holiness' escape from the Norbulingka summer palace. He
sometimes spoke to me about it, perhaps because he was pleasedwith the progress I was making in my Tibetan language studies. The preparations for the escape were made in absolute secrecy and strictly followed instructions received from Dorje Shugden. I asked him what thoughts were on his mind when he had to make his way through the crowds surrounding the Norbulingka with the DalaiLama, disguised as a servant, just behind him. He said that everything happened exactly as the Dorje Shugden oracle from
Panglung Monastery had predicted. (Panglung Rinpoche now lives in Munich.) In particularly dangerous situations, he felt he was moving within a protected space, his feet seemingly not even touching the
ground. I later heard many more accounts about the escape fromother people who were personally involved in it, like Trijang Rinpoche's attendants and monks of Pomra Khamtsen of Sera Mey Monastery, who had been chosen as the Dalai Lama's personal bodyguards."
Dorje Shugden: an integral part of the tradition" The great master Pabongka was in the first half of the twentieth century the pivotal or key lineage holder of the Oral Geden Tradition. Many other teachers before him mastered certain aspects of the tradition's teachings, but it was Pabongka Rinpoche's particular merit to locate and find all these partial transmissions, to learn and realize them, and bring them together once again to pass them on through
a single person. In his lifetime there was hardly a significant figureof the Geden tradition who had not been Pabongka Rinpoche's disciple. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche was the one capable of receiving and passing on the entirety of the Oral Geden Tradition once again. The Dorje Shugden practice is an integral part of that tradition."