It is a BIG MISTAKE

 Dear Sirs,

I have respected the good works of your spiritual leader the Dalai Lama for many years, since he became so well known in the West. From being just a quiet, unknown place in the East, everything about Tibet is now respected everywhere in the world because of the Dalai Lama and his message of peace. I do hope you know that many people in the West have a huge amount of respect for the Dalai Lama, especially for bringing the peaceful teachings of Buddhism to so many in the East and West.

With all the respect I have for the Dalai Lama, you can imagine how shocked I was to discover recently that he has a section on his website that is dedicated specifically to degrading another religious practice! Here it is: http://www.dalailama.com/messages/dolgyal-shugden. This totally contradicts everything that His Holiness teaches about kindness, compassion, tolerance and patience. How can you publish the Dalai Lama’s messages and teachings on peace, harmony and compassion on one part of his website and then also publish an entire section that so openly puts down his own people?

I don’t know much about this Shugden issue. I myself am not a Buddhist and it is of no concern to me. But it is clear that Dorje Shugden practitioners are also Buddhists and a majority of them are also Tibetan. How can a spiritual and political leader write such things, in such a way to exclude, suppress and intimidate his own people?!

I dare not imagine that the Dalai Lama chose to put this kind of intolerant, negative, degrading writing on his website. It can only be his advisors and followers who would make such mistake. Yes, it is a BIG MISTAKE that you have allowed this. You make your own spiritual leader look like a fool. You make him look like he doesn’t practice anything that he preaches. You make him look hypocritical, narrow-minded and petty. The Dalai Lama is none of these things, but you allow such silly, negative things to be published which reflect so badly on him. You make him look like he just came out of a village yesterday and doesn’t know anything about his own teachings!

If you care for your spiritual leader, you should be protecting him from anything that would give him a bad reputation. Well, this section on the website makes him look very bad indeed. On an international level, it makes him look very small and ignorant. There is no other spiritual or secular leader in the world with anything like this on their official websites. If there are, I’d like to request you to please find them and to show them to me. How can you expect anyone to take the Dalai Lama and his people seriously if he has posts on his official website that are totally against everything he has been teaching his entire life?

I appeal to you, on behalf of all the millions of people throughout the Western world who have such great respect for the Dalai Lama, to remove this big stain on his website. It may seem like something small to you, but this section on the website carries many very negative connotations – it makes the Dalai Lama himself look very uncompassionate and intolerant towards fellow Buddhists. It turns Tibetan Buddhists into political, unkind people. After all, even if these people are practicing something different, they are still Buddhists. You should at least be respectful and harmonious within your own religion.

I urge you to remove this Shugden section on the Dalai Lama’s website. It would be a much more beneficial and peaceful way for everyone involved.

My best wishes to you,

(YOUR NAME)