Please excuse any abruptness - time is limited...
Honeydakini:
"At our level, there is no way we can tell if someone is a Buddha, even if Buddha himself manifested right in front of us and is talking directly to us."
No, but we can & must find a valid basis of imputation to impure Buddha on.
"it can be dangerous for us to criticise beings - especially those which are clearly within the 3 jewels,"
Depends if we have a worldly motivation or not, but you're right, we have to be scrupulous in checking that. & is the DL 'clearly within the 3 Jewels'?
"...be careful that it doesn't cross over to becoming criticism against DL himself."
Pretty difficult that. We call him a liar because those are the actions he's engaging in. We may understand that "the DL is not his faults", but we can't not call him a liar because some other people may not be able to make that distinction & therefore see us as having a personal vendetta on him. If this was just a debate amongst Buddhists who were all acting like Buddhists then we'd be ok - but it's not. We're trying to stop the actions of an unreasonable person, who won't debate directly, by bringing attention to his unreasonableness to the poulation of the World - most of whom are not Buddhists. We need to show in effect that by the standards & discriminations of most people he is in fact a liar & a hypocrite who is engaged in evil actions.
"Ultimately, the karma of speaking ill against a being that could possibly be enlightened can come back to us in a way we can never foretell. "
Well yeah - that could be anyone which is why we need to check our motivation & be VERY careful ALL the time. So agreed.
"I think the message by our lineage Lama is pretty straight-forward"
I'm not so sure. See AFriend's comments about 'secret view' at the start of the thread - I agree with him (her?).
"But I am pretty sure that many will be able to with enough information and interpretation of these plus the eager propagation of the benefits of our Protector. "
Hmm. Not if DL's speech is more powerful than ours & everyone thinks we're devil worshippers cos he said so.
Lee Dhi:
"In my point of view, it is more beneficial to fight for point i) above compared to point ii). "
Sorry - I think without weakening the DL's speech by exposing him as a liar you've got no chance.
"I agree with Honeydakini that we should always respect the teachings of H.H because those are the teachings of Lord Buddha Shyakamuni."
Fine - if you've got the wisdom to discriminate his lies from his truths then go ahead - but we can deffinitely say much of what comes out of his mouth contradicts Buddha Shakyamuni.
"However, in making the choice that H.H is not one’s Guru does not mean that one should criticize or attack him on a personal level (with accusations directed to him as a being)."
Can't say I'm happy about doing it, but how can I point out he's a liar without referring to him? Anyway, I'm not crticising him because he's not my Guru - I'm criticising him because he's destroying the lineage.
"On a similar note, I was once taught that we must always show respect to persons wearing monk/nun’s robes, not because we respect that person per se but because we respect his/her representation of the 3 Jewels."
This sounds like giving someone robes grants them 'diplomatic immunity' - do what you like cos no one should point out faults in a monk.
Nice quote from Geshe-la. You'll be aware also then, that Geshe-la makes it clear that accepting defeat etc. is an inner practice and does not necessarily mean allowing people to harm us. It just means weighing up what's of most benefit to everyone with a mind of love, selflessness, humility & service, then acting - which may mean defending ourself, locking people up etc. Of course we should always maintain deepest respect even for persons who are acting abysmally & whom we have to try & stop through forceful methods.
"it seems like the practice and worship of our Great King – Dorje Shugden have flourished all over the world as a result of the ban. "
Please see the various points earlier in this thread to find out why it is completely contrary to the Dharma to state that a ban is a cause of the banned thing flourishing. This needs also to be viewed in light of A Friend's arguments against openly expressing secret view, as it is true that 'evil' actions done with bodhichitta motivation do not produce evil, but if we hold the view that the intention behind evil actions is pure, we keep that to ourself and still act in accordance with convention.
"I read your arguments and thank you for your insight while maintaining my view."
...Because? In a debate you need to provide reasons otherwise you should exit the debate.
"in my belief, that all Dharma practitioners should (choose to) see a clear reason to move away from criticizing the Dalai Lama (because, in my point of view, the time for that is over)"
Why?
"To cause the choice above and create a new focus on pure Dharma, I understand that more efforts and supporting arguments are required. I will continue to work on it!"
Working on reasons to support a belief is the wrong way around! You should examine a belief to find out if it is valid then change your view to suit! Is this a very revealing statement?!? If you've got this basic thing wrong then this is going to be a very long thread where your view gets refuted again & again without ever learning - you'll just go away & find more reasons to believe what you want. Worse - people will give up on you. Worse still - people will give up on you & you'll create negative karma by spreading a wrong view which you've held on to out of attachment. Please please consider - you've got a good heart, don't make this mistake.
"Lastly, I thank you for your posts, which are always kind but challenging ?"
And thank you for your good heart which I try to emulate even though it might not be obvious...
Wisdom Being:
"In the meantime, like Lee Dhi says, let's focus on our Dharma practice to represent our Protector Dorje Shugden well. This will create the causes for the world to take a different view of Dorje Shugden in the near future. "
Did anyone ever lose sight of that?
Afriend:
Great post! So just how old are you then
