Prisoners of Shangri-La

by Donald S Lopez, Jr

  Heinz Bechert coined the term “Buddhist modernism” to describe tendencies that began in the late nineteenth century when monastic elites in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia sought to counter the negative portrayal of Buddhism by colonial officials and Christian missionaries.8 Although the characterizations of Buddhism put forward by figures such as Anagarika Dharmapala in Sri Lanka (with the initial help of Colonel Henry Olcott of the Theosophical Society), Tai xu in China, and Shaku Sōen in Japan are not sufficiently consistent to be labelled as a movement, they share a number of general characteristics. The first is the representation of Buddhism as a “world religion” fully the equal of Christianity in antiquity, geographical expanse, membership, and philosophical profundity, with its own founder, sacred scriptures, and fixed body of doctrine. Buddhists, however, have no compulsion to convert Christians, but instead wish to engage them in “dialogue.” This Buddhism is above all a religion of reason dedicated to bringing an end to suffering. It is strongly ethical and is devoted to nonviolence, and as such is a vehicle for social reform. Because it is “atheistic” in the sense that it denies the existence of a creator deity and because it places a strong emphasis on rational analysis, it is, more than any other religion, compatible with modern science. Elements of traditional cosmology that do not accord with science may be dismissed as cultural accretions incidental to the Buddha’s original teaching. Finally, the essential practice of Buddhism is meditation, with the rituals of consecration, purification, expiation, and exorcism so common throughout Asia largely dismissed as popular superstition.

  This version of Buddhism was unknown in Tibet. In 1906, a vibrant time for Buddhist modernism elsewhere in Asia, the Christian missionary Graham Sandberg observes as much:

  In Tibet the exorcism of devils and mystic rites involving the invocation of deities of many orders are believed in and form part of the daily religion in the case of the learned and the upper classes. In Burmah and Ceylon, on the other hand, such ideas and ceremonials are now mainly confined to the general public. The lettered and philosophic among the Burmese and Sinhalese Buddhists, having been re-instructed in their Faith as interpreted by European theorists, have eradicated from their Buddhism even the mythology which from the earliest promulgation belonged to that religion. But their religion is no longer Primitive Buddhism, but Christianized Buddhism.9

  However, since the diaspora of 1959, the leading proponent of Buddhist modernism has been a Tibetan, the Dalai Lama. A strong proponent of nonviolence, he invokes Gandhi and Martin Luther King as much as Buddhist figures, and explains that the essence of Buddhism is “Help others if you can; if not, at least refrain from harming others” (although under such a formulation any physician who has taken the Hippocratic Oath would be a Buddhist).10 The Dalai Lama has taken an active interest in modern physics and psychology, hosting a number of “Mind Science” conferences in Dharamsala in recent years. He has stated that when elements of Buddhist cosmology conflict with the findings of Western science, the Buddhist views can be dispensed with. Thus, for example, while other Tibetan scholar-monks still argue that the Buddhist universe with its central mountain rising from an ocean is visible to those with pure karma, the Dalai Lama has stated that such a cosmology is simply mistaken. He says in The Way to Freedom, “The purpose of the Buddha coming to this world was not to measure the circumference of the world and the distance between the earth and the moon, but rather to teach the Dharma, to liberate sentient beings, to relieve sentient beings of their sufferings.”11 He remains firmly committed to the doctrine of rebirth, however, drawing the distinction between those things that science has found to be false and those things that science simply has not yet found. The central practice of Buddhism, according to his view, is meditation, which is to be practiced by monks and laity alike, leading to salubrious psychological effects.

  The Dalai Lama has been an active participant in the Buddhist-Christian dialogue. During the summer of 1996, his comments on selected passages from the New Testament were published as The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus. In the introduction, he is described by Father Laurence Freeman, O.S.B., as “one of the most loved and accessible spiritual teachers in the world today. Tibet’s agony, which he carries constantly with him, has elevated him to a global spiritual role in which the universal religious values of peace, justice, tolerance, and nonviolence find a joyful yet serious embodiment.”12 Throughout the book, the Dalai Lama finds points of comparison and confluence between Buddhism and Christianity, both in the lives of their founders and in their scriptures. He stresses throughout the centrality of meditation to the religious life. He argues, however, against conversion and is clear that the two religions have major differences on issues such as the existence of God and the nature of reality. “If we try to unify the faiths of the world into one religion, we will also lose many of the qualities and richnesses of each particular tradition.”13

  Here and elsewhere he alludes to the importance of having different religions to suit the dispositions and needs of different people. This is a version of the famous Buddhist hermeneutical device of “skillful methods” (upāya), which Buddhist scholastics have traditionally used to account for apparent contradictions in the Buddha’s teachings. It is explained that the Buddha had, instead, taught different things to different people based on their capacities. The apparent inclusive nature of this device, however, is founded on the assumption of a knowledge of the Buddha’s true intention and ultimate position, such that the doctrine of upāya has been used historically to hierarchize the positions of competing Buddhist schools beneath one’s own. It can be put to similar use in the case of competing religions.14 The Dalai Lama writes, “I feel there is tremendous convergence and a potential for mutual enrichment through dialogue between the Buddhist and Christian traditions, especially in the areas of ethics and spiritual practice, such as the practices of compassion, love, meditation, and the enhancement of tolerance. And I feel that this dialogue could go very far and reach a deep level of understanding. But when it comes to a philosophical or metaphysical dialogue I feel that we must part company.”15 As a proponent of the Prāsaṅgika-Mādhyamika school of Buddhist philosophy, the Dalai Lama takes the position that it is impossible to be liberated from rebirth without understanding the doctrine of emptiness as it is presented by that school; even other Buddhist philosophical schools (and hence all non-Buddhist traditions) are incapable of providing the insight required for liberation.16 Thus, even in the context of dialogue, he, like other Buddhist modernists before him, maintains a certain Buddhist triumphalism.

  In addition to being the spokesman, indeed the chief spokesman for Buddhist modernism, there are other roles, none of which he held in Tibet, that the Dalai Lama must play, roles that at times seem to come into conflict. As seen above, he is a world spiritual leader whose presence is sought by religious and academic groups around the world. Yet he is also the leader of the Tibetan independence movement. As such, he must constantly speak out against Chinese policies in Tibet, a realpolitik that is often beyond the immediate concerns of those who are more interested in his teachings of love and compassion. The Good Heart, devoted entirely to these teachings, contains a single page inserted at the back of the book entitled “Tibet Since the Chinese Occupation in 1950,” which in addition to listing Chinese atrocities demonstrates how his political message is sometimes a mere appendage to the spiritual.

  The Dalai Lama is at the same time the leader of the Tibetan Buddhist community, that is, the community of Buddhists who are Tibetans. He must represent all sects of Tibetan Buddhism rather than simply the traditional sect of the Dalai Lama, the Geluk. This is a role that is rarely seen in the West, conducted, as it is, in the Tibetan language. But in the summer of 1996, as The Good Heart was being published, the West had a brief glimpse of this other side in what has been called the “Shugden affair.”

  Shugden (Rdo rje shugs ldan, “Powerful Thunderbolt”) is an important protective deity of the Gelu
k sect. He is a deity of relatively recent origin. According to his myth, he is the spirit of a learned and virtuous Geluk monk, Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen (Sprul sku Grags pa rgyal mtshan, 1619—1655). Born into an aristocratic family, he was one of the candidates to become the fifth Dalai Lama. Another child was chosen, however, and Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen was identified instead as the third incarnation of Panchen Sonam Drakpa (Pan chen Bsod nams grags pa, 1478–1554), an eminent scholar who had been the teacher of the third Dalai Lama. Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen became a distinguished scholar and debater, and a favorite of the respected teacher Losang Chögyi Gyaltsen (Blo bzang chos kyi rgyal mtshan, 1570–1662), the first Panchen Lama. In the early years of their education, both the Dalai Lama (who had not yet been installed as temporal ruler of Tibet by the Mongols) and Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen lived in Drepung monastery outside Lhasa. There seems to have been a rivalry between their followers.

  As the story goes, one day after defeating the Dalai Lama in debate, Tulku Drakpa Gyaltsen was murdered. Other accounts say that having grown weary of foiling attempts on his life by jealous followers of the fifth Dalai Lama, he committed suicide by the traditional method of stuffing a ceremonial scarf down his throat and suffocating, but only after teaching his disciple how to identify certain signs that would prove that the rumors against him were false. The signs duly appeared, and his disciple prayed to his departed master to take revenge on his enemies. Shortly thereafter, central Tibet and the new government of the Dalai Lama suffered famines and earthquakes. A mysterious force even overturned the dishes when the Dalai Lama was served his noon meal. The source of the difficulty was eventually identified, and a series of lamas and magicians were called in to exorcise the wrathful spirit. After they had all failed, the government of the Dalai Lama and the hierarchy of the Geluk sect propitiated the spirit and requested that it desist from its harm and become a protector of the Geluk. The spirit agreed, and since that time Shugden has become one of the chief protectors of the Geluk sect, its monks, and its monasteries.

  From this point on, rites invoking the aid of Shugden began to be composed, many of which contained detailed descriptions of his abode and his person:

  Inside the palace, corpses of men and carcasses of horses are spread out, and the blood of the men and horses stream together forming a lake. Human skins and hides of tigers are stretched into curtains. The smoke of the “great burnt offering” (i.e. human flesh) spreads into the ten quarters of the world. Outside, on top of the platform, revived corpses and rākṣasas [a class of demon] are jumping around, and the four classes of skeletons perform there a dance. On all sides are hung up as tapestries fresh skins of elephants and skins drawn from corpses. There are “banners of victory” and circular banners made from bodies of lions, tassels made from wet bowels, wreathes consisting of various kinds of heads, and ornaments made from the organs of the five senses, whisks of human hair, and other fearful things. . . .

  In the interior . . . [is] the frightful rDo rje shugs Idan, whose body is a dark-red colour, who becomes fierce like a savage rākṣasa, and whose mouth is bottomless like the sky. He bares his four teeth, sharp like the ice of a glacier, and between them he rolls his tongue with the speed of chain-lightning, causing the three worlds to quake. . . . His forehead is contorted in terrible anger. His three bloodshot eyes stare full of hatred at the inimical vighnas [obstructers]. The yellow-red flames, issuing from his eyebrows and from the hair of his face, burn completely the four kinds of bdud [demons]. The yellow-brown hair of his hand stands on end and in the centre above it, with a sun-maṇḍala, resides the lord-protector and king of religion, the great Tsong kha pa bearing a placid expression.

  By moving his two ears vehemently, rDo rje shugs ldan produces a fierce, devil-destroying wind, with which he sweeps away completely all the dwellings of the evil-doers, oath-breakers, and inimical obstacle-creating demons. From his two nostrils come forth rain-clouds, and from these again issue raging thunder and lightning, striking with yellow flashes the land of the vighnas.17

  Like certain other protective deities, Shugden will upon request take possession of a medium, through whom he can be asked questions about the future.18 Although many of the oracular deities of Tibetan Buddhism—including the most famous, the Nechung oracle consulted by the Dalai Lamas—are worldly deities subject to rebirth, Shugden’s devotees believe that Shugden himself has already advanced to the supramundane rank, that he is, in other words, a buddha, unbound by samsara.

  One of Shugden’s particular functions has been to protect the Geluk sect from the influence of the Nyingma, cautioning Geluks even against touching a Nyingma text; he is said to punish those who attempt to practice a mixture of the two. Such eclecticism (often associated with the fifth Dalai Lama, whose dishes Shugden overturned) enjoyed a revival during the “unbounded” (ris med) movement that began in eastern Tibet during the late eighteenth century among Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and some Bön scholars.19 In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Dalai Lama made preliminary attempts at modernization (often without the support of the powerful Geluk monasteries) by improving the size, organization, and weaponry of the army, setting up a police force in Lhasa, sending a group of boys to England for education, and so on. Perhaps in response to these modernizing trends, in the early decades of the twentieth century the worship of Shugden enjoyed a “revival” led by the powerful Geluk monk Pha bong kha pa (1878–1943). Under his influence something of a charismatic movement occurred among Lhasa aristocrats and in the three major Geluk monasteries in the vicinity of Lhasa (just at the time when representatives of Buddhist modernism were active in Southeast Asia and Japan), with Vajrayoginī as the tutelary deity (yi dam), Shugden as the protector, and Pha bong kha pa as the lama. This practice, which appealed to monk and laity alike, seemed to instill a strong sense of communal identity at a time when that identity appeared under threat, both by a modernizing government and by external forces. Devotion to Shugden would revive again some fifty years later when similar threats were perceived.

  Pha bong kha pa was the guru of many of the most important Geluk monks of this century (both in terms of their scholastic influence and political power), including Lama Govinda’s teacher Tomo Geshe Rinpoche,20 Song Rinpoche, and, most prominently, Trijang Rinpoche (Khri byang rin po che, 1901–1981) of Ganden monastery, the junior tutor of the current Dalai Lama and thus one (along with the senior tutor, Ling Rinpoche) of the two most important Geluk monks in the refugee community, especially influential among refugees from eastern Tibet (Khams).21 He was a strong proponent of Shugden. The Dalai Lama himself for many years included prayers to Shugden in his nightly worship.

  In 1976, the Dalai Lama, on the advice of the Nechung oracle, discouraged the propitiation of Shugden, saying that he personally disapproved of the practice and would prefer that those who were associated with him, either as his disciples or as members of his government, not publicly worship Shugden. Contrary to the view of many Geluk monks, the Dalai Lama saw Shugden not as a buddha and not as the incarnation of Drakpa Gyaltsen, but as a worldly god, even an evil spirit, whose worship was fomenting sectarianism in the refugee community and thus impeding the cause of Tibetan independence. It was not because the deity was especially grotesque (a wide variety of wrathful buddhas are described in similar terms);22 the Dalai Lama regularly offers initiations into the worship of wrathful deities and does not make a major decision without consulting the ferocious warrior-deity who speaks through the Nechung oracle. It was, instead, that the situation of exile made the Dalai Lama less a Geluk hierarch and more the ecumenical head of Tibetan Buddhism. He told a gathering in Dharamsala in 1986:

  As the Dalai Lama, although I am not qualified, I am the only person to uphold the common cause of Tibet. Because this relates to our common cause I have no choice but to talk, even though it may seem like a slap in the face for some. Anyway, there have lately been some problems concerning the protector Gyalchen Shugden, those of you who live in India know well about this an
d I don’t have to repeat it to you. But, if those of you from Tibet accept him merely on the basis of his reputation as a great protector of the Gelugpas, it will not do any good for Tibet, either religiously or politically.23

  The Dalai Lama’s renunciation of Shugden in 1976 caused great discord within the Geluk community, where devotion to the deity remained strong among the Geluk hierarchy and among large factions of the refugee lay community; spirited defenses of his worship were written and published. Some went so far as to claim that the Dalai Lama was not the true Dalai Lama, that the search party had selected the wrong child forty years before. This controversy, however, remained largely unknown outside the Tibetan refugee community. The Tibetan Buddhism practiced by Western adherents was generally of the Buddhist modernist variety, with an emphasis on meditation on emptiness and on compassion, and did not include ritual offerings of fire from a lamp made of human fat with a wick made of human hair. It was not that their Tibetan teachers did not worship Shugden; it was simply that they generally did not teach their students to do so.

  The Dalai Lama’s opposition to the worship of Shugden became more pronounced in 1996. He made strong public statements against the practice during teachings at the celebration of the Tibetan New Year. At a tantric initiation in a Tibetan refugee settlement in south India, he requested that those who did not disavow the deity leave the ceremony. Because of the powerful link that is established in such an initiation between the initiating lama and the initiate, he refused to give tantric empowerments to devotees of Shugden; to do so, he stated, would endanger his health and shorten his life. He said on March 4, “It is good that paying attention to my health you have passed a resolution regarding this matter. Danger to health does not exclusively mean an armed attack. This type is extremely rare in Tibetan society. If there is continued indifference to my injunctions, then there would not be any point in my continuing to live silently as a disappointed man. This would be a more apt interpretation.”24 That is, because the Dalai Lama is said to be able to decide when he shall die, he suggested that if his people do not heed his warnings, he might die soon. On July 15, 1996, the Tibetan government-in-exile issued a statement that read in part: