Where is Lama Yeshe?

Makes a lot of sense. Why are FPMT and Lama Zopa still revering Lama Yeshe. Lama Yeshe was a Shugden lama and therefore unqualified and disqualified. That is what Dalai Lama says. So all his pictures and teachings from FPMT should be removed. If they don’t remove it, something political is going on.

This post may be short but it carries an extremely significant message that may topple the Tibetan Buddhism system. Lineage is of great importance in Buddhism as it traces a teaching back all the way to Lord Buddha himself, give credibility to a teaching and practice.

Since Pabongka Rinpoche, Trijang Rinpoche, Ling Rinpoche and Zong Rinpoche are recognized as the most erudite teachers of our time with nearly every Tibetan teacher and practitioner having been their student either directly or indirectly. If we claim Dorje Shugden practice is a demon practice then all these teachers would be in the three lower realm (as indicated in the article) and all the teachings they taught will be “contaminated” and has no power.

What would this mean for all the students of these teachers including the 14th Dalai Lama? What about the students of these students? Imagine, all the people who take His Holiness the Dalai Lama have received contaminated teachings from His Holiness? I mean, if the teaching on DS is wrong, how can we be so sure that there is no error in other teachings?

Would all Buddhists have to start all over again?

In this case, what about lineage? Are all these teachers and students and centers prepared to start anew?

Quite unlikely. Nevertheless, it is a great opportunity for anti-DS people to reflect and see deeper into the significance and impact of their stance.

This post is short but very powerful.

The truth to it is so powerful. I do not understand why did FPMT still show so much respect for Lama Yeshe when they do not even do the main practices that Lama Yeshe does. If they really feel that Lama Yeshe is their true Root Guru, then why are they declaring that they do not practice Dorje Shugden? Why are they saying that they follow what the Dalai Lama is saying? Why do they claim that they will not do Dorje Shugden practice when very obviously that their Root Guru does this practice. When their guru entered into clear light, Lama Yeshe was not able to swear out yet. So what does this show? Lama Yeshe is still a Shugden practitioner.

In any situation where a person bites the hand that feeds it, it is sad. Even worse when the person is supposed to be a high Tibetan Lama. I have no doubts that Lama Zopa received the best of care, love and nurturing from Lama Yeshe. And in just about every picture I see of them together, there was such love, especially by Lama Yeshe who treated Lama Zopa like his own child.

The Dalai Lama’s banned turned people against those to whom they owe a debt of gratitude and this is just one example. By agreeing with the Dalai Lama, Lama Zopa essentially consents to his guru and spiritual father being regarded as a traitor and demon worshipper who by the Dalai Lama’s definition, is in the lower realms. By any stretch of even the wildest imagination, how can this be gratitude and if there is no gratitude how can there ever be attainments and how this be a good thing? Why then display such outward show of devotion to the statue of Lama Yeshe when you have desecrated his sacred memory?

I am saddest that Lama Zopa has chosen to become an example of ingratitude rather than to uphold the good name and reputation of his guru, Lama Yeshe.

In a nutshell this is what proponents of the ban want all to believe – show callous ingratitude and you are regarded as a high lama. Show true devotion to a Buddha who has provided for you and the Guru who has cared for you, and you become scum.

You guys are worse then communist, action speaks louder then words, what you guys wants to proved?

This is very true. Lama Yeshe was a Dorje Shugden practitioner all his life.

How can his follower ban the practice of Lama Yeshe, the founder of the center? This tells a lot about this ban and its background.

May the ban be lifted very soon!

FPMT is practicing double standards. This article is good. But I didn’t need this article to see the double standard being played out long ago. Why are they still using texts by Shugden lamas and still keeping images of Shugden lamas on their shrines? Because, if they removed them, they would have no foundation left. The very source of their foundations and teachings go down the drain. They are willing to persecute Shugden people, but not willing to be honest themselves. Their karma will catch up. Why do you think the current incarnation of Lama Yeshe (Lama Osel) is not performing and ‘failing’? Because FPMT’s samaya is broken. FPMT will not last for sure.

I use to be a part of FPMT till all the protector Dorje Shugden ‘conflicts’ arose. Lama told us Dorje Shugden is enlightened and beneficial and Lama himself relied on this protector completely. I am to believe what Lama said about Dorje Shugden and keep my practices up. So I cannot attend big functions and teachings with the rest of FPMT, but my purpose is enlightenment and not Dharma picnics. I liked it better when Lama Yeshe was operating FPMT with the senior students. They were less political. They gathered together to really practice.

It is a shame FPMT has degenerated into a large multi-national like company.

FPMT, was founded on the hard work and charisma of Lama Yeshe who engaged many Western practitioners. Kopan monasteries had the biggest Dorje Shugden monasteries ever and Lama Yeshe knew how to appreciate Dorje Shugden who is reason why, FPMT grow so fast and quickly.

Lama Yeshe was kind to connect all who came through FPMT, to his Gurus Trijang Rinpoche and also Zong Rinpoche WHO both were loyal to Dorje Shugden till the end..

It is not far fetched at all to associate Dorje Shugden with Zong And Trijang Rinpoche closely. FPMT members have been on witch hunts before, so it is surprising they do not remove their connections to Lama Yeshe. Lama Yeshe is an iconic gelug lama who was loyal to Dorje Shugden and his Gurus, removing the connection to Lama Yeshe will help FPMT ensure their lineage is pure and removed of Dorje Shugden. Though that cuts them off their lineage of their teachings and practices that came from Je Tsongkhapa, so their half gap measures makes no sense to me….. I would say FPMT now is still has elements of Dorje Shugden with in their organisation.. yet they perpetuate witch hunts and talk to others about how bad Dorje Shugden is….

The ban must come down, else FPMT people will carry on destroying their own organisation, help its members create more negative karma to and so forth Om mani padme hum!

I have heard and read many funny and inspiring stories on Lama Yeshe. He was truly outstanding and highly revered. He proliferated Dorje Shugen teachings and brought it to great heights in his FPMT centre. DS benefited many people.
One story which stood out for me was that of the Russian socialite Zina Rachevsky. She purchased the Kopan hill and offered up to Lama Yeshe. The first temple was constructed in 1971 -72, funded almost completely by the lama’s increasing number of Western disciples.
There the lamas established the Nepal Buddhist Mahayana Center Gompa. The vision Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche had when they founded Kopan Monastery in 1969 was to produce human beings with a good heart and the wisdom needed to serve others all over the world. Lama Yeshe’s idea was to create a monastery for young himalayan monks and nuns, and a center for the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism for foreign students, and he moved to actualize his vision. Over the next 30 years Kopan developed and grew into one of the biggest Gelug monasteries in Nepal with 380 monk and 360 nuns, and an extensive program of Buddhist courses for foreigners. In 1994 they established a nunnery which housed 360nuns. It is also here that Zina (who made tremendous mind transformations) became a nun and stayed in retreat in Nepal till the last days of her life.
All these inspiring results came about through the hard work and determination of a monk who highly revered Dorje Shugden, who according to some, is an evil spirit ! Can evil spirits do so much good for others ?
For those who are still worried and doubtful of Dorje Shugden, do your reading and studies into many great stories of great DS Lamas who did a lot of good work for sentient beings. Then contemplate and judge for yourselves whether it is worth listening to all the bad rumours that simply makes no sense. Even if you do not wish to pray to DS, do not participate in more rumour mongering as you may be charting up lots of negative karma due to your ignorance.

FPMT owes everything to Lama Yeshe. Without Lama Yeshe there will be no FPMT of today nor Lama Zopa’s status in FPMT today. It would be throughly ungrateful to simply ignore the greatness of their founder and lineage Guru, Lama Yeshe by removing him from their centres and teachings.

However, the Dalai Lama had said that his followers are not to associate themselves with any Shugden Lamas or teachings. Since FPMT decided to be followers of the Dalai Lama and denounced Dorje Shugden, then all the more they should make a clean cut and remove everything of Lama Yeshe from their centres. They should not associate themselves with Lama Osel, the incarnate of Lama Yeshe, recognised by the Dalai Lama. Isn’t it ironic that on one hand the Dalai Lama bans Dorje Shugden as the devil and declare all Lamas practising him will go to the lower realms and on the other, the Dalai Lama recognised the Shugden Lamas’ incarnations. Always the contradiction.

I guess they can’t really remove Lama Yeshe from FPMT’s history as then all the practises Lama Zopa received and passed on to the students will become invalid without any lineage Guru. Stuck somehow?? The saying goes “Do you die, don’t do you die”. If it was me, I would have gone with my Guru who had given me the precious dharma and practices to get out of Samsara. Its just not worth being seen proper to follow the ban as it does nothing for my enlightenment. We are in dharma to be free of suffering and not for politics which creates more negative karma.

In FPMT’s centre called Tushita in Dharamsala, North India, they have a statue of Lama Yeshe in the form of Vajrasattva with consort. Now the question is simple: If Lama Yeshe practised Dorje Shugden, then he is a bad lama, so why doesn’t FPMT stop the homage/respect to their founding father Lama Yeshe? If they trust him, they will go to three lower realms for worshipping Lama Yeshe who worshipped Dorje Shugden. And all statues of Lama Yeshe should be discarded from all their centres right? In fact, in nearby Gaden Choling Nunnery in Dharamsala, the nun’s took their Dorje Shugden statue out of their main prayer hall where it was worshipped for decades and destroyed the statue in the garbage dump and jumped up and down on it to further desecrate it.

Furthermore they make a Dorje Shugden worshipping Lama Yeshe in the form of divinity as Buddha Vajrasattva. That is a double-whammy no right? Why is FPMT so contradictory? Why are they blind to this double standard?

If they wish to disassociate from Dorje Shugden lamas, they have to disassociate from their own centre-founding Lama who is Lama Yeshe. They must set the example right. Everyone knows Lama Yeshe worshipped, trusted and believed in Dorje Shugden till the end of his life. Lama Yeshe is the one that founded FPMT, so they have to be clean across the board and be honest right? If disassociate, then do it all the way. They should have no pictures, statues and images of Lama Yeshe at all. They should not be making images of him as a deity (Vajrasattva) as that is even more wrong according to their stance against Shugden and Shugden Lamas.
Why encourage their members to worship a Dorje Shugden loving Lama like Lama Yeshe? That is what they are doing when they keep all his images in their centres around the world. They are sending the wrong message out. Lama Yeshe was wrong in their view to practice Dorje Shugden. Lama Yeshe broke his refuge vows by practicing Dorje Shugden. Lama Yeshe’s lineage, teachings, initiations and commentaries are all corrupted because he worshipped Dorje Shugden. So they should ritually expel his images from their centres with immediate effect to be in the clean arena.

Dalai Lama said if you worship Dorje Shugden, no one should associate with you and you will go to hell. So how come FPMT still keeps a statue of Lama Yeshe in many of their centres? Is that not hypocrisy?

Photos attached: Lama Yeshe as Vajrasattva with Consort housed in Tushita Centre-Dharamsala AND Lama Zopa prostrating to a statue of Lama Yeshe

I do not understand how a Lama like Lama Rinpoche can write things like this, when it is well-known that he himself gave Dorje Shugden initiations and told the initiates that they were incurring a lifelong obligation to continue the practice, and that breaking such an obligation would incur grave negative karma. It is very confusing and frankly, depressing.

Lama Zopa has written some excellent books, such as his work on the Medicine Buddha. However, his logic in this foreword is gravely flawed and perhaps even essentially anti-Buddhist. For instance, he says, “If the Precious Victorious One, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, is not the actual Buddha and Arya Avalokiteshvara, then you can say that in this world there is no emanation of Buddha benefiting sentient beings. In this way bodhicitta and the entire teachings of the Buddha become false.”

Say what??? I do not know whether the Dalai Lama is or is not an emanation of Avalokiteshvara, though, based on his words and actions, I sincerely doubt it. (I mean, the man has repeatedly stated in countless interviews that he is not enlightened, and seems to relish scoffing at the notion that he might be). Regardless, the fact that the Dalai Lama is or is not such an emanation has nothing whatsoever to do with whether there are other emanations of Buddha currently on earth benefitting sentient beings.

Logically, one does not rule out the possibility that other living Buddhas exist today, or other emanations of Avalokiteshvara, simply by denying that the Dalai Lama is such a one. If I deny that my wife is a panda bear, I am not denying that pandas exist. Indeed, to make a claim of exclusivity on the Dalai Lama’s behalf, as Lama Zopa has done, is really anti-Mahayanan in spirit, for it belittles and denigrates the efficacy of all other Buddhist schools and traditions. Someone seems to have imported the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility into Dharamsala, and now they are beginning to round up the infidels and burn them at the stake.

It is the height of irony that Lama Zopa urges practitioners to examine their beliefs openly and honestly, and then states as a matter of fact that the Dalai Lama is omniscient and one must adhere to what the ‘omniscient one’ says. Am I not permitted to question whether the Dalai Lama is truly omniscient, and to judge this claim by the evidence of the man’s words and actions? Am I not allowed to take him at his word when he says he is NOT omniscient? Am I not allowed to question his lack of success in defending the cause of Tibet, or his lack of compassion in his treatment of Shugden practitioners, or his bumbling manner in any number of interviews, or his willingness to be used as a CIA puppet or guest editor of a highly immoral fashion magazine?

Sadly, the recent actions of Lama Zopa and the Dalai Lama have completely soured me on Tibetan Buddhism. I have been forced to turn back to the Theravadan and Chinese teachings, because I will never again turn my will and intellect over to a guru who demands total obedience, even when he teaches one thing today and a completely different thing tomorrow. With this version of Buddhism, it’s a heads-you-win, tails-I-lose situation for the sincere follower … any faults of the guru are really the fault of the practitioner, whose bad karma has caused those faults to manifest. And even when the guru manifests obvious error, he still is not to be questioned because the error again is in the eye of the practitioner and only through blind loyalty can he cleanse his karma to the point where sincere questioning is of any value. If this is the case, then there is no point in advising practitioners to question and judge the teachings, because their bad karma will not allow them to make reasonable judgments. Reason itself is banished; it has become soiled and fallen and no longer can be trusted. Blind obedience becomes the only permitted path … you must believe in the Dalai Lama because he is a priori infallible and any evidence to the contrary is not credible, because ONLY the Dalai Lama represents Buddha in today’s world and EVERYONE ELSE is deluded.

And so the question arises: if I am required to have blind faith in the Dalai Lama in order to be “saved”, what separates this form of Buddhism from any other exclusivist, country-club members only, religion? What separates Buddhism from the monotheistic religions once reason has been outlawed? You can use the same “your bad karma prevents you from seeing things as they are” argument to justify any religion, any cult, any superstition, any belief whatsoever. It might take a slightly different form — “your ways are not God’s ways,” or “your reason was broken in the original fall from grace of sinful man,” but the essence is the same: don’t trust yourself, look to others, particularly those who are held up as masters, for the truth. In this way, Lama Zopa’s attempt to defend the Dalai Lama becomes an atomic weapon capable of destroying any and all religious belief, or empowering any and all zealots of every stripe.

I find all of this unworthy of the spirit of inquiry I believe Buddha Shakyamuni promoted, and the spirit of compassion that Avalokiteshvara represents. I hope that one day all the confusion that these modern-day avatars have sowed will be cleared up and those of us who relied upon them as examples and guides on the spiritual path will have our disappointments honestly and frankly acknowledged and rectified.

Comment left by a Howard from http://www.dorjeshugden.com/all-articles/the-controversy/recognized-by-dorje-shugden-but-speaks-against-dorje-shugden/comment-page-1/#comment-911810

Picture attached: Kyabje Zong Rinpoche performs last rites for Venerable Lama Yeshe. Both these lamas were totally devoted to Dorje Shugden until the end of their lives. Decades later, Lama Zopa who has abandoned his guru Lama Yeshe’s practice of Dorje Shugden, to befriend the Dalai Lama.