I came across this post on a Christian blog, which of course dismisses Buddhism, and i do not agree with that, but he raises some interesting points to do with Dorje Shugden.
Firstly, he says that the Dalai Lama's opposition of China which is pro-Buddhist is self-defeating because the Dalai Lama and China has the same goal. I think the writer is mistaken in his view that the Dalai Lama's teacher did not want the Dalai Lama to study something else aside from 'Shugdenism'.
However, he questions, "Buddhism is about nationalism?! Buddhism is about unity with Buddhist traditions? No." which makes sense. The Dalai Lama's supposed beef with Dorje Shugden is that Dorje Shugden practice stops Tibetan independence and is schismatic, which it clearly isn't.
The writer of the piece below clearly does not understand or is deliberately misconstruing buddhism, which i definitely don't agree with. The only reason i wanted to share the article was how he is ironically putting forward a pro-Shugden stance in order to undermine the Dalai Lama and Buddhism.
He says: "Furthermore, the Dalai Lama, thee supposed master of religion, the highest you can get, doesn’t even know what religion is. He claims Dorje Shugdan isn’t a religion. Religion is a way of life that centers around the worship of something. And usually the religion has a method to it, some tradition. Do Shugdans have any method to their worship or traditions? Do they have their own morality? Or are they of the disorganized liberal group who reject “organized religion” and walk into trees and pray with a tomato on their head and roll around in the dirt babbling random things and worshiping whatever for the moment for their religion? If that were the case then okay, it’s not a religion, it’s insanity, but if the opposite, then the Dalai Lama is confused, lying and being a hypocritical leader and teacher."
Don't you think that is interesting?
Why Buddhism Is A Logical Fallacy, and Has The Dalai Lama Changed Since He Was Ostracized by the Chinese Government?
September 1, 2012
I wrote this due to the promotion of the idea by many that everyone should promote Tibet being free and that no country should be taken over by another, just because. It’s usually I find associated with atheism, whose individuals necessarily have “Because I feel this is true” morality, i.e. “just cause” morality.
There is a great irony in the DL’s ostracization of deity worship, his ostracization of the Shugdans: by opposing China’s rule, nonsensically, being that China allows Buddhism, and favors it over Christianity, he’s opposing atheism and so being self-defeating. He opposes Shugdan he claims because it’s spirit worship, not demon worship, not worship of an imaginary god, but simply because it’s not atheist Buddhism, and because it prevented him, PHILOSOPHICALLY, from being able to learn what he felt, as in, because his teacher was reluctant for him to study something other than Shugdanism he said that it wasn’t for him, does that sound rational? If an atheist says to me, “Be extremely careful about studying Christianity, for you may end up one of them, especially be weary of fundamentalism, and the worst, creationism,” should that mere reason alone be a reason to reject atheism and believe in theism, God or Christianity? He also claimed it was to unite the Buddhists. Because? To get them to lose their lives casting China off? Consider that mentality: I would have some of you die so that we can return to not just being a country on our own again, but unified atheist Buddhists, because you can learn about all the versions of Buddhism as one. He doesn’t even say, “Because theism is illogical, there are no spirits,” it’s just for the sake of unity and/or to put off China. What for? Buddhism is about nationalism?! Buddhism is about unity with Buddhist traditions? No. According to at least modern Buddhism, which the DL subscribes to fully: all ways lead to the truth, except the usual line from cults, which is that any religion that says ours is false doesn’t lead to truth, however Buddhists show their religion is false because they arbitrary approve of religions they don’t even know and don’t say “religions that rejects ours”, a sign of a cult, one that operates on the arbitrary arrogance of its leader rather than logic. According to one Buddhist, truth is reached by self-effort alone, so who cares about unity? It’s a contradiction. This too is a contradiction: the DL’s opposition to what he claims to be for: traditional Buddhism, which is this: nothing is lost, everything just changes, and whatever happens is due to karma. So then, if Tibet no longer exists as a nation, then that was simply part of the law of material change, and they were getting what they deserved. So it’s futile for the DL or anyone who supports him to CARE that change has occurred, especially when Buddha supposedly said, “The Buddha said, “No one can escape death and unhappiness. If people expect only happiness in life, they will be disappointed.” And what his solution? To stop desiring anything, which due to his ignorance, lead to another contradiction: if you don’t desire anything, you then shouldn’t desire to end suffering either, you would become like a heartless robot, something with zero motivation for its actions, something with no curiosity or lust or love or anger.
There are other problems with Buddhism I’ve mentioned earlier, which you can learn about through the Buddhism category I linked to.
For those who have studied narcissism disorder and religion/who are theologians, but not Buddhism in depth, if you read a large portion of Buddha’s supposed sayings, his self-affirmations (literal self-affirmations that would only apply to him, not others despite how they sound or what his followers give the impression of), you’ll find that they are the sayings of someone with narcissism disorder and all narcissists are insincere and despite their words, they act with, in general, a cold attitude towards those they give their smaller than a grain of mustard seed and hypocritical self-serving kindness too. That is why, despite the beautiful appearance Buddhism had and the peaceful demeanor the DL has, that Buddhism overall has a negative effect on those who practice it, a stagnating effect. The stagnation is due to giving priority of all you learn being directed by the limited teachings of the cult leader (especially limited if that person is a narcissist or one of his top leaders is or one directly above you is), and especially if you’re trying to memorize the sayings of Buddha and what you feel he taught or what some Buddhist teacher repeating what he said plus the usual claims of what they claim he did and also from doing the Buddhist practice of endlessly blanking your mind afterwards or simply focusing on those teachings, to achieve peace. Is stagnation good? No. Stagnation implies not going further along in truth, and according to Buddha even, one of the mistakes people make that prevents them from reaching “the truth” is to stop walking in it, to not go through with it. But what he meant by truth, who knows, since he himself was a liar. But the truth that matters, is the truth God says matters: who God is, what right and wrong truly are, and worshiping him with a morally clean heart, and one with a sincere love for him. How can you know what is truly right from wrong? Is it by worshiping the Pope, or the Dalai Lama, or believing in Catholic traditions because the Pope or your Catholic teacher told you to, or certain Buddhist traditions because the Dalai Lama said so, or memorizing the Book of Mormon because Joseph Smith said that it’s the most correct book of any other (and what happened to God having a perfect word and being able to say what is fully true and not being a liar, Mormons?)? No, you can learn it by believing who God is (the God who gave the ten commandments and who said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you” and “The Lord your God is One, and you shall love him with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your spirit and with all your strength” and, as someone who is far from obedient to those laws, you will only learn the truth so far as you properly fear him, because he truly can, unlike karma, give you what you deserve, pain or pleasure, uncontentment or peace.
Furthermore, the Dalai Lama, thee supposed master of religion, the highest you can get, doesn’t even know what religion is. He claims Dorje Shugdan isn’t a religion. Religion is a way of life that centers around the worship of something. And usually the religion has a method to it, some tradition. Do Shugdans have any method to their worship or traditions? Do they have their own morality? Or are they of the disorganized liberal group who reject “organized religion” and walk into trees and pray with a tomato on their head and roll around in the dirt babbling random things and worshiping whatever for the moment for their religion? If that were the case then okay, it’s not a religion, it’s insanity, but if the opposite, then the Dalai Lama is confused, lying and being a hypocritical leader and teacher.
One more thing to consider for rejecting Buddhism: did Buddha say that truth can’t change? Or did he truly mean that all things change? Because if he meant that truth also changes, they he broke a law of logic (which, unlike physical laws/physics laws/laws of nature) is permanent, that is he broke the law of Truth aka Absolute Truth, which is that truth can never become a lie and a lie can never become a truth. And don’t think that you can make a thing either by simply doing something, like if someone says you didn’t murder someone and then you go out and murder to make it true, no that’s not breaking or showing that law false, because that doesn’t change that it was a lie at the time and still is since it can’t be undone at that time. It would be like someone murdering someone and then you bring that person back to life after they were dead and saying, “See he didn’t murder anyone.” Yes he did, he just was brought back to life afterwards, so the sin remains. Anyone who teaches against that law therefore is absolutely a liar.
