Who is the 14th Dalai Lama?

A short documentary on the Tibetan community in India.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5sOm-uQH9Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aboblx-0zAs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1dILwsmwCQ

I suggest they give the peaceful was for like a month... China is rocking them.

You gotta be careful about what you hear about Dorje Shugden worship. There is a new splinter movement in the Tibetan tradition that is actively trying to split the Tibetan sangha, and they produce all kinds of material making it seem like there is some kind of serious Tibetan anti-Dalai Lama movement when there is not. They're very scary people, and they are very active in America. They call themselves the New Kadampa Tradition or NKT and they hold all kinds of seminars trying to get people interested in what they call Tibetan Buddhism, but they don't tell novices that they are a breakaway faction and do not tell them about Dorje Shugden until they are already committed members. This is very cult-like behavior, not unlike Scientology.

The reason that the worship of Dorje Shugden is condemned by the Dalai Lama is that it is considered (in the Tibetan tradition) to be the cultivation of power for its own sake, and not for the sake of wisdom. In that way it's very similar to Satan worship. Dorje Shugden has been a part of Tibetan Buddhism since the very beginning, but at the same time this kind of religious devotion to him has not been openly embraced until about 1996.

Add to that the interest that the Chinese government has in promoting anything that makes the Dalai Lama look bad, and ... well, it's best not to trust what you hear.

So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Thank you, b-diddy.

b-diddy totally lost me.

Carl Spackler.

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making it seem like there is some kind of serious Tibetan anti-Dalai Lama movement when there is not.
.....it is considered (in the Tibetan tradition) to be the cultivation of power for its own sake, and not for the sake of wisdom.

Are these just accusations or is there substantial evidence? I'd like to read about it if you could point me there.

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they hold all kinds of seminars trying to get people interested,
they produce all kinds of material

Don't like, uh, ALL religions do that?

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They're very scary people

like how? did they threaten and harm people like the victims in the film?

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They call themselves the New Kadampa Tradition... but they don't tell novices that they are a breakaway faction

Why is that even a problem when you have tens of thousands of denominations within Christianity? I never heard one Christian spreading the gospels by apologetically prefacing, "Well, we are sort of a cult and really not in the mainstream."

Besides, how do they call themselves the "New Tradition" while not telling their novices that they are a, you know, "new" tradition?

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... and do not tell them about Dorje Shugden until they are already committed members.

I don't think worshipping a protector deity is that much of a bad thing. It's pretty nasty comparing these people to the Satan worshippers. I don't think they are putting Shugden up against Dalai. And even if they are, so what? Dalai himself used to 'consult him', he admitted as much in his autobiography. Doesn't Dalai himself call for religious freedom and tolerance?

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Add to that the interest that the Chinese government has in promoting anything that makes the Dalai Lama look bad, and ... well, it's best not to trust what you hear.

Fine, no Chinese government. But what exactly does Swiss public TV has to do with it? Aren't we giving too much benefit of the doubt to the Dalai Lama? Just because he's been saying some nice fuzzy things we wanted to hear? He is, after all, a former slave owner and a theocratic dictator. Looks like you can't even put a 'former' qualifier on the latter count. With his CIA-fund-receiving and the ignominious friends he's had, I don't know what made him look good in the first place. Except the fact that the Chinese government doesn't like him.

Uh thanks Glenn. I didn't remember any of that from the film.