“Most Gedenpa (Gelugpas) shun alcohol and the like,
making them excellent models of the teachings.
Yet, most Gedenpa see no faults in those who seek to kill and maim.
Such anger and hostility is a huge enemy, be careful!” –Mipham Rinpoche
དགེ་ལྡན་པ་ཕལ་ཆེར་ཆང་ནག་སོགས་འཛེམ་པས་བསྟན་པའི་མིག་ལྟོས་ལེགས་ཀྱང༌། ཕལ་ཆེར་གསོད་གཅོད་ལྷུར་ལེན་པ་ལ་སྐྱོན་དུ་མི་ལྟ་བས། ཞེ་སྡང་འདི་དགྲ་ཆེ་བས་གཟབ་
དགེ་ལྡན་པ་ཕལ་ཆེར་ཆང་ནག་སོགས་འཛེམ་པས་བསྟན་པའི་མིག་ལྟོས་ལེགས་ཀྱང༌། ཕལ་ཆེར་གསོད་གཅོད་ལྷུར་ལེན་པ་ལ་སྐྱོན་དུ་མི་ལྟ་བས། ཞེ་སྡང་འདི་དགྲ་ཆེ་བས་གཟབ་འཚལ།
“Leaving nothing behind but a name” མིང་གི་ལྷག་མ་ཙམ་དུ་གྱུར་ –Tibetan idiom used to describe a Tibetan Buddhist master’s success at destroying their “enemies”
Introduction/Summary
It is a commonly held idea that the 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617-1682) was a compassionate peaceful unifier of “war-torn” Tibet in the 17th Century and called the “Great Fifth”. However, the historical sources point to a very different narrative, person and reality. The Mongolian-Gelugpa violent invasion/takeover of total religious and political power in 17th Century Tibet, has not only been watered-down (or conveniently ignored) by most western scholars in academia (perhaps keen not to lose their funding and support from Tibetans who avidly follow the Gelugpa and the 14th Dalai Lama) but even within Tibetan exile politics and the Tibetan Buddhist tradition itself.
Yet, as any independent historian/researcher on Tibetan Buddhist history will know, all the autobiographical and historical Tibetan textual sources, confirm that the Mongolian invasion was not a great unifier of Tibet but was in fact, a violent act of aggression, mass murder, destruction and suppression of the Kagyu, Nyingma and Jonang lineages in particular, and that it was actively encouraged, supported and participated in by Tibetans who were Gelugpa followers. Moreover the intense cultural and religious propaganda that followed in the decades of the aftermath was so far-reaching it convinced thousands of Tibetans by force (or social pressure) that the Dalai Lama was the righteous leader of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism that bypassed the major issue of the Mongolian foreign takeover, as well as the Gelugpas then giving away the political power of Tibet to the Chinese Qing Dynasty.
This article aims to rewrite some of that one-sided/half-truth, Gelugpa sectarian narrative as it being a “Mongolian invasion”, by highlighting some of the important facts contained in a recent academic paper: Rituals as War Propaganda in the Establishment of the Tibetan Ganden Phodrang State in the Mid-17th Century by Solomon G. FitzHerbert (2018) [1] which reveals the interest and participation of not only Tibetans but the 5th Dalai Lama himself, in studying and misusing tantric violent rituals (Tibetan: thu མཐུ་ and ley-jor las sbyor) of other lineages to murder sentient beings who were “political opponents” wrongly labelled as “enemies of the Buddhist teachings”. Fitzherbert cites the 5th Dalai Lama’s autobiography and those of other Gelugpa senior figures. We can also look to translations of the 10th Karmapa and 8th Tai Situpa’s autobiographical writings, that confirm the high level of Gelugpa complicity and participation in the persecution and violence of the other main lineages in Tibet (see here). Yet one of the main Buddhist vows is not killing, see my short reel about that here.
As Fitzherbert reveals, the 5th Dalai Lama and Gelugpas not only used conventional violence and murder in alliance with the Mongolian military (such as cannons and bombs) but also the suppression, marginalisation or co-option of “violent ritual” lineage traditions which had justly resisted the sectarian rise of the Gelug school. Such as the persecution of Karma Kagyu, Drugpa Kagyu and Jonang; the marginalisation and polemical smear campaign by the 5th Dalai Lama against the “Nangtsé faction” of the Nyingma (Zhigpo Lingpa and Sodogpa); and theft/hijacking of the Northern Treasures (Jang Ter) violent rituals as well as some aspects of other traditions’ rituals, such as the Drigungpa.
Another clear example of this can be seen in the Mongolian-Gelug adoption/hijacking of the Dharma protector of Begtse Chen, originally spread into Tibet from Marpa Lotsawa, Kagyu and Sakya lineages (see more below) [2].
This Gelugpa/Dalai Lama alliance with a powerful foreign invader to attack and takeover Tibet is in stark contrast to the 2nd Karmapa, Karma Pakshi (ཀརྨ་པཀྴི་, 1204/06–1283) who displayed various miraculous escapes from Mongolian murder attempts [3]. In 2024, the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, bravely spoke about the level of mass destruction of Karma Kagyu, Drugpa Kagyu, Jonang and Nyingma property and shedras (although not so much about the mass theft and conversion, censorship of texts that went along with that destruction). However, surprisingly, the 17th Karmapa referred to it as the “Mongolian invasion”. [4] This half-truth makes invisible or irrelevant the sustained support and participation in that invasion by the Gelugpa Tibetans.
This labelling of Gelugpa sectarian crimes as being the “Mongolians” was also repeated by Jeff Watts (founder and author of Himalayan Art Resources) recently in person at a conference in Chengdu last month, when I asked him about that violence and the Dalai Lama institution, and why the origin of so many Gelugpa artworks and statues are wrongly labelled Gelugpa when they were stolen from Kagyu. The question that needs answering here is why are such people omitting to speak about the Gelugpa/Tibetan role in that invasion?
The fact that Tibetan Buddhist masters (and scholars) themselves, are minimising or ignoring the active and crucial role of Tibetans and the Gelugpas in the violent Mongolian takeover of Tibet, suggests either an unwillingness to look at the history objectively, or an intense pressure by the Gelugpa/Dharamsala politicians for them not to do so. All in the name of a false idea of unity and peace, which is in reality is about continuing to protect the Dalai Lama name and institution, more than benefiting Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet long-term.
Keeping the peace does not mean maintaining lies, Gelugpa dominance, and ignoring historical facts. In fact, not speaking clearly about the history and involvement of those involved does not keep the peace, it just keeps an unjust status quo that has not served Tibetans or Tibetan Buddhism well in the bigger geo-political and spiritual picture for the last three hundred years or more. For example, brave Tibetans like Gedun Chophel, Tashi Tsering were persecuted and abused, and the 19th Century non-sectarian founders, Jamgon Kongrul, Lingpa and Khyentse Wangpo, also faced their movement being hijacked and used to maintain Gelugpa sectarianism.
After all, the protector of Bhutan (a country founded on the back of Gelug violence and persecution against Drugpa Kagyu) is a form of Guru Padmasambhava called “Protector from Mongolian Armies”, when in actual fact, he is the protector against Mongolian-Gelug armies. Guru Padmasambhava predicted in many termas himself (as alluded to in the 14th Zhamarpa’s translation of the 10th Karmapa’s autobiographical texts) that the “yellow-head Gelugpas” would practically destroy the teachings and traditions in Tibet. And he was not wrong about that. The Gelugpa monk-tantric practitioners who falsely labelled and maimed and killed “ordinary beings” (even to this day, as I have personally discovered) as “enemies of the teachings” in the name of political power, are in actuality the very demonic forces they claim to be “killing”. The 19th Century Nyingma master, Mipham Rinpoche’s satirical advice on the four main lineages, mocking this hostile “killing” habit of the Gelugpas [4], seems to have “hit the nail on the head”.
As today is Dakini Day, and Tilopa famously declared that “Dakini is truth!’ I dedicate this article to promoting truth about the horrific violence and destruction in Tibet, in particular against the Tibetan Buddhist lineages, committed by the Dalai Lamas and Gelugpa sectarians who teamed up with the invading Mongolian military, and to the power of the dakinis and Dharma Protectors in ensuring the genuine Dharma of love, compassion, wisdom and bliss for all beings is protected.
Music? Killing in the Name Of and Know Your Enemy by Rage Against the Machine, and Undisclosed Desires by Muse. Also see my reels on the First main Buddhist vow of not killing, and Why the Dakini is associated with Truth.
Written and edited by Adele Tomlin, 16th October 2025.
The contemporary “Gelug-washing” narrative of sectarian violence and persecution in 17th Century Tibet as the “Mongolian invasion”
In his 2018 paper, Fitzherbert points out that it was mainly the conventional force of arms—in the form of the military campaigns of the Gushri Khan (1582–1655)which brought the Fifth Dalai Lama and his Ganden Phodrang establishment to power in Tibet in 1642 [5].
The Mongolian-Gelugpa military alliance cold-bloodedly executed the Tibetan King of Tsang while he was imprisoned. Gushri Khan of the Mongolian Koshot trive declared himself King of Tibet and recognized the Dalai Lama (a Mongolian title) as both the secular and the spiritual leader of Tibet. The 5th Dalai Lama, Lobzang Gyatso declared the city of Lhasa, founded by King Srongsten Gampo, to be the political capital of Tibet. He based the new Tibetan government on the concept of Chhosi Shungdel, the integration of religion and politics, with clergy and laymen sharing power over the country, for which he established two training schools, the Tsedung and Shodung. This was the first time in Tibetan history a foreign non-Tibetan power had decided the political leadership of Tibet in one person, and with monks actively taking in role in political governance and decisions.
The tenacity of that political establishment, which was to become the longest-surviving government on the Tibetan plateau in Tibet’s history (1642–1959), outlasting even the Tibetan Empire (seventh to ninth centuries), owed as much if not more to its propaganda, censorship, suppression and intimidation in cultural and religious spheres as it did to the military and bureaucratic structures it put in place.
This cultural and religious theft and propaganda led to a situation where every Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Tibet (especially those forcibly converted) felt pressure/intimidated to have photo of the current Dalai Lama on their shrine, show devotion to it and pray for his long-life. To the extent that even in exile, this is still the norm, and such cultural conditioning continues to this day. If you ask Tibetans in Dharamsala if they are taught about how the Dalai Lama institution came to power in Tibet, many will not know, or have a one-sided view of it, favourable to the Gelugpa victors.
Perhaps it is this cultural and social conditioning and the now unswerving devotion to Dalai Lama as Avalokiteshvara and Tibet, that has led to a situation where the violent suppression of the other lineages is now being glibly (and falsely) labelled as the Mongolian invasion.
Milarepa’s “black magic” killings, the difference between defensive/repelling (dog-pa) and suppressing/killing (se-pa) rites, and conditions required to justify killing tantric rituals
Research on the use and practice of such tantric violence to kill others in Tibet is minimal in relation to its use by the Gelugpas, Dalai Lama and other lineages in Tibet. However, the famous story of Milarepa, the yogi and his use of tantric “black magic” to kill many ordinary beings as revenge for their maltreatment of him and his mother is well-known in Tibetan Buddhist circles.
However, Milarepa had committed a grave negative action, that could only be purified by being put through intense suffering by his qualified and accepted guru, Marpa the Translator. So we can already see in this life-story that such practices are considered unethical and negative.
As Fitzherbert points out although”violent rituals” have been used by other main Tibetan Buddhist lineages there is a difference between defensive, repelling attacks rites and rites used to actively supress and kill beings.
“It is worth distinguishing between defensive violent rites such as those for “repelling” (zlog pa) harmful forces, and offensive violent rites such as “pressing down” (mnan pa) or even “killing” (bsad pa). Sihlé, in his treatment of ritual violence in a Tibetan Buddhist context, also rightly makes the distinction between the principle of “repulsion” (zlog pa) on the one hand, and the exorcistic purgative principle at work in rites of “ransom” (glud) on the other.” (2018: 57: fn 16).
There is a clear prescribed use of such violent tantric killing rituals in that they are never supposed to be used against ordinary beings, that ten conditions must be fulfilled to use them, one of them being they are a “demonic force” and enemy of the teachings.
In addition, the Gelugpas and 5th Dalai Lama apply the faulty logic that because the person inciting the”killing” does not carry out the killing themselves that somehow completely removes any negative karma from their side. This shifting of blame, accountability by Gelugpas, can also be seen in their writings about eating animals. As I wrote here before, according to a contemporary Chinese scholar-researcher, the Gelugpas are the only Tibetan Buddhist lineage who have trired to justify the killing and eating of animals for health reasons by stating that the negative karma only applies to the person actually killing the animals.
Fitzherbert [2018:75]himself notes that such rituals are different from “ordinary killings’ because they are only successful if the so called “enemy”s negative karma is sufficient because the ritual bounces that negativity back to the person :
“But since refraining from killing is considered to be one of the five basic precepts to be followed by any Buddhist practitioner, how were such rituals for harming or killing enemies squared with Buddhist ethics? This is another complex subject on which Buddhist masters have come to diff erent conclusions. In the context of the present discussion, it may be briefly answered in two basic ways. One is that the performance of rituals orientated towards violence (even killing) does not have the same ethical status as actual physical violence or actual physical killing. This is because, in Buddhist terms, such rituals are only efficacious when they dovetail with the operations of the law of karma—they are not in and of themselves sufficient to bring about the destruction of an enemy, but can only serve to bring to fruition the enemy’s own sinful karma as an enemy of the teachings, and bounce that powerful negativity back upon themselves (the meaning of bzlog pa is “bouncing back”).
The 5th Dalai Lama’s obsessive study and interest in violent rituals and their use for political power in Tibet
In his autobiography, the 5th Dalai himself writes like a youth obsessed with power and violence, who even though his aides never liked him performing violent rituals and cautioned him that such “black magic” should only be directed against demonic spirits (ie. non-humans) or for repelling the attacks of others, rejects their advice and that such killing was nothing to be ashamed of. He even mocks the then Panchen Lama for not studying such rituals and for composing songs instead:
Fitzherbert points out to whom killing by violent tantric rituals may be done [76: fn. 89]:
There are “ten fields of liberation” (bsgral ba’i zhing bcu), the fulfilment of which can justify killing by means of violent tantric ritual, are: those who cause harm to Buddhist religion; those who bring dishonour to the Three Jewels; those who embezzle the property of the Sangha; those who slander the Mahāyāna; those who endanger the life of the guru; those who sow discord among the vajra community; those who prevent others from attaining siddhi; those who are without love and compassion; those who abandon the sacred vows; those who have perverted views concerning karma and its retribution; see Rig ’dz in rdo rje, Gathering the Elements, 281 n. 692. The ten fields are also listed (according to an eighteenth-century source) in Gentry, “Representations,” 186 n. 37. The original scriptural source of the “ten fields” doctrine remains unclear to me.”
Fitzherbert goes on to describe how the Gelugpas and the 5th Dalai Lama then used such violent rituals many times to ensure the Mongolian invasion and destruction of the other main lineages (including Bon) in Tibet succeeded.
And that even now such “exorcistic” and hurling rituals of Yamantaka are being used in Dharamsala on an annual basis to “protect” the Dalai Lama/Gelugpa power”:
In particular, Fitzherbert also highlights the 5th Dalai Lama’s interest in acquiring the repelling and attacking rituals of the great 16th Century treasure-revealer, Zhigpo Lingpa (རིག་ཛིན་ཞིག་པོ་གླིང་པ་གར་གྱི་དབང་ཕྱུག་རྩལ །།1524-1583), which includes various ways to repel and suppress so-called enemies, including making effigies of the enemy on a torma of dog excrement! Truth is stranger than fiction, as we say.
Fitzherbert’s paper is worth reading in full, not only for an insight into the thoughts and actions of the 5th Dalai Lama in his own words about the use of these rituals, but also of their misuse of tantric rituals to kill ordinary beings.
Guru Padmasambhava’s predictions that Tibetan Buddhism would be destroyed by yellow head invaders
Guru Padmasambhva warned Tibetans about the yellow hat foreign invaders who would destroy Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. In fact, the protector of Bhutan (a country founded on the back of Gelugpa violence and persecution against Drugpa Kagyu) is a form of Guru Padmasambhava called “Protector from Mongolian Armies”, when in actual fact, he is the protector against Mongolian-Gelug armies.
Guru Padmasambhava predicted in many termas himself (as alluded to in the 14th Zhamarpa’s translation of the 10th Karmapa’s autobiographical texts) that the “yellow-head Gelugpas” would practically destroy the teachings and traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and Vajrayana.
5th Dalai Lama/Gelugpas giving away all political and administrative power of Tibet to Chinese Qing Dynasty for protection
The 5th Dalai Lama visited Beijing in 1653, meeting with the Qing Emperor Shunzhi, a diplomatic exchange that solidified a long-term relationship between the two powers. This meeting was highly symbolic, as the Dalai Lama was traveling as an independent head of state to the Chinese capital for the first time, an event depicted in Qing and Tibetan art. The Gelugpas/Dalai Lama effectively gave away all political power to the Qing Dynasty during that time and for the next two centuries, which led to the current claim of Chinese “ownership” of Tibet in the 20th Century.
Since when did Shakyamuni Buddha or Avalokiteshvara murder ordinary sentient beings for political power and social influence?
The Mongolian-Gelugpa re-labelling of the politically appointed tulku, 5th Dalai Lama as the embodiment of Avalokiteshvara is thus also questionable. After all, Avalokiteshvara is the embodiment of infinite, all-seeing love and compassion for all beings. Not a being who is killing ordinary beings via violent spirits whom they see as a political threat to their power, and then saying it is the karmic activity of those spirits. People say past is past, but these “exorcist” wrathful rituals continue to this day in Tibetan exile Dharamsala too, with annual rituals of Dorje Drag and Yamantaka being performed to protect the political power of the Dalai Lama/Gelugpas in exile.
In any case, the human embodiment of Avalokiteshvara title, was originally given to the Karmapas by the Chinese Emperors ever since the 2nd Karmapa, who first received the six syllable Mani mantra from the dakinis, and spread it pervasively throughout Tibet, long before the Dalai Lama. The 5th Karmapa, Dezhin Shegpa in particular was regarded as the embodiment of Avalokiteshvara by the Chinese Emperor who gifted him the sixteen Arhat statues stolen by the Gelugpas during the Mongolian invasion and stored in Drepung Monastery (as I wrote about here).
Personal experience of Gelugpa sectarian inspired smear campaigns and bullying
As one of the few researcher-scholars within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition who has written about Gelugpa sectarianism in Tibet and exile, I have also faced a rather obsessive (AI generated) smear campaign (privately and publicly) by an “unknown” person/people online claiming and encouraging others to see me as “an enemy of the teachings”, trying to destroy the teachings and so on.
In addition, recently in Prague for the Discovering Buddhism Within II course, at Tibet Open House (a Gelugpa centre) I was told by one of the administrators that a special rule had been formulated only for that course, which I was going to attend, and that one of the reasons was to screen out someone like myself, as the centre was Gelugpa one, and the people who manage the centre might not like my being there.
One American woman, a Gelugpa follower, Amalia Rubin (whom I have never met or spoken to) even decided to anonymously and obsessively spread hostile and false gossip about me online in relation to my speech about a talk I gave at the Bhutan 2022 Vajrayana conference on the female roots of Vajrayana. One of her false claims was that it was anti-Gelug and anti-sangha, apparently it seems because I cited Atisha’s advice that monastics should not take the second and third empowerments of Highest Yoga Tantra empowerments. Strange days indeed.
Anyone with any intelligence (emotional and intellectual) can quickly discern these are comical and tragic accusations against a mere lone woman who is a translator-scholar-writer on Tibetan Buddhism and Vajrayana. However, these people are very “serious” about it. I have even been subjected to various tantric rituals by anonymous people intent on covering up abuse, lies and maintaining power and reputation of teachers accused of sexual misconduct towards women whom they want as consorts. I wonder if their intent is the same. If they can get others to think I am an “enemy of the teachings”, then they can justify to themselves and others their use of such “hateful” rituals against a lone woman too? It has been a real “eye-opener” to the levels of violence and harassment such “Buddhists” are willing to go to in order to silence and damage my name, reputation, support, friendships, funding, physical well-being and so on.
In any case, people unaware of the historical facts, complain about “bad China” and “good Tibet” and blame it completely on China as to why the Gelugpas lost all political and religious control of Tibet. Yet, as the 14th Dalai Lama once responded when asked to say who were the three people he admired the most, one was Mao Zedong, whom he cited as one of his greatest teachers. However, unlike Marpa and his student Milarepa (whom he made do penance for his “crimes”) , the incarnations of the Dalai Lamas and Gelugpa lineage show no signs of expressing any real regret for their unethical and criminal actions against Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhism. Worse, they continue to prolong that suffering and agony for Tibetans in Tibet and exile by refusing to do so and seeking to maintain their dominance and power in exile. For more on that see: The Mongolian-Gelug shadow over Tibet: Six decades of failed US-Gelug policy.
Endnotes
[1] FitzHerbert Solomon G., Rituals as War Propaganda in the Establishment of the Tibetan Ganden Phodrang State in the Mid-17th Century. In: Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie, vol. 27, 2018. Le bouddhisme et l’armée au Tibet pendant la période du Ganden Phodrang (1642-1959) / Buddhism and the Millitary in Tibet during the Ganden Phodrang Period (1642-1959) pp. 49-119.
[2] As Jeff Watts (HAR) points out on his website which lists various 18th century artworks as Gelugpa (which may have been stolen from other lineages) that for over one hundred years Western scholars have published the history of Begtse erroneously as beginning with the 3rd Dalai Lama and the subjugation of a Mongolian war god – referring to the protector deity Begtse. A common source given for the Western account of the story, based on Mongolian oral history, is Albert Grunwedel (1856-1935). However the lineage came into India via Indian siddhas via the lineage of great translators such as the Kagyu Marpa Lotsawa and Sakya, Nyen Lotsawa.
[3] The miraculous “superpowers” by the 2nd Karmapa, Karma Pakshi at not only resisting Mongolian attempts to co-opt him into their political domination, but also attempted murders of him on several occasions, are now well-documented. Having spent most of the first half of his life in meditation retreat:
“At the age of forty-seven he set out on a three-year journey to China, in response to an invitation from Kublai, grandson of Genghis Khan. While there, he is said to have performed many spectacular miracles and played an important role as a peacemaker. Although requested to reside there permanently, he declined, not wishing to be the cause of sectarian conflicts with the Sakyapas, whose influence was strong in China at that time. (There is an independent western reference to his presence in the court of Kublai Khan in The Travels of Marco Polo). Over the next ten years the Karmapa travelled widely in China, Mongolia, and Tibet and became famous as a teacher. He was particularly honoured by Möngke Khan, Kublai’s brother, who ruled at that time and whom the 2nd Karmapa recognised as a former disciple. After Mönke’s death, Kublai became the Khan. He established the city of Cambalu, the site of present-day Beijing, from which he ruled a vast empire stretching as far as Burma, Korea, and Tibet. However, he bore a grudge against the Karmapa, who had refused his invitation to remain in the Khan’s empire several years before and he had been close to the Khan’s brother. Kublai Khan ordered the Karmapa’s arrest.
The sources state that each attempt to capture, or even kill, the Karmapa was thwarted by the latter’s miracles. At one point the 2nd Karmapa ‘froze’ a battalion of 37,000 soldiers on the spot, by using the power of mudra, yet all the time showing compassion. He eventually let himself be captured and put in exile, knowing that his miracles and compassion would eventually lead to the Kublai Khan having a change of heart, which did in fact happen.
Returning to Tibet towards the end of his life, the 2nd Karmapa had an enormous sixteen-meter statue of the Gautama Buddha built at Tsurphu Monastery, to fulfill a dream he had had long before. The finished work was slightly tilted; it is said that Karma Pakshi straightened it by sitting first in the same tilted posture as the statue and then righting himself. The statue moved as he moved. Before dying, he told his main disciple, Urgyenpa, details concerning the next Karmapa’s birth.”
See Ken Holmes’ book Karmapa (1995) as well as Tibetan Mahasiddha: Karma Pakshi (Charles Ramble, 2024).
[4] HH 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje repeated this phrase the “Mongolian invasion” again in his speech this week, on the praises of the non-sectarian 8th Karmapa, and how the 2nd Dalai Lama, Gedun Gyatso has praised him. Yet, the 2nd Dalai Lama was a backdated tulku only called that after the 5th Dalai Lama institution had been established. In terms of timing, the 5th Dalai Lama was officially speaking the 1st one, thus making the current Dalai Lama as the 11th Dalai Lama
In fact, the 17th Karmapa seems to have been brought fully on board to the Gelugpa sectarian agenda in exile India. Much as I remain devoted to and admire his profound and original teachings and power, his recent Praises to the 14th Dalai Lama were beyond belief, comparing the 14th Dalai Lama’s deeds as greater than “all the Buddhas and his students” combined into one. Something which is clearly not the case, and not even close.
Let us not forget that the supreme Nirmanakaya, Shakyamuni Buddha, the source and origin of all the teachings on this planet and realm displayed various amazing supramundane powers and miracles, gave 84000 teachings of the three vehicles of Sutra/Vinaya, Mahayana and Vajrayana, and deliberately passed away around the age of 80 years old, displaying the miracle of a body that levitated into the air and became both fire and water. In contrast, the 14th Dalai Lama and his followers are now giving monthly long-life ceremonies to him to ensure he stays alive for an unnaturally long time. The only Buddhist teacher to have required or been given that amount or level of long-life ceremonies.
In addition, if the 14th Dalai Lama is so powerful and the embodiment, why do the Chinese communists still refuse to speak or engage in discussions with him six decades after he and his Gelugpa politicians fled Tibet? Yet photos of all the other lineage heads, such as the 17th Karmapa, are displayed freely in Tibet and recognised by the Chinese government? That is a karmic reality, that many Tibetans, and their western Buddhist allies and friends seem unwilling to really look at in their simplistic, “China bad, Tibet good” debates.
[4] Sadly this Tibetan tradition of satire also seems to have stopped rightfully poking fun and speaking truth to power within Tibetan society itself, other than with the 20th Century musings of Jamyang Norbu on Shadow Tibet. Is this also because of the Gelugpa “serious” political domination, that sees all attacks or critiques of their dominance as a direct critique of the 14th Dalai Lama and Tibet itself?
[5] Fitzherbert (2018: 58:fn 19) explains that: “Firearms, such as cannons (me skyogs) and somewhat later muskets (bog/ me mda’), appear to have made their first appearance in the Tibetan cultural world during the early-seventeenth century. Their impact on warfare by the mid-seventeenth century was marginal but not insignificant (the Fifth Dalai Lama in his autobiography mentions cannons being used during Gushri
Khan’s siege of Samdruptsé).
[6] Thankfully, the teacher, 9th Gyalton Rinpoche, who was leading the course was consulted about this new rule (at my insistence) as I had already booked travel and accommodation there. And I was informed that as the rule was recent and they didn’t want to have to kick off others from the course, who may not have seen it, they would allow me to attend. However, it was already clear that people at the centre and administrating in it did not want me to attend and were looking for reasons to “screen me out”.
Om Ah Hung! May all the fierce and wrathful Dakinis and Dharmapalas protect Tibetan Buddhism from the inner, outer, and secret harm doers! Yes, I have seen this scuzzy, slanderous seemingly AI generated BS you speak of. It’s sad (and I must admit I get angry) that there’s so much corruption and seemingly very few safe havens these days. All I know is what I can do and that’s my practice. I will keep you in my prayers. I must admit these are hard truths. This horrible knowledge has almost killed my faith in this tradition, even though I have a strong connection to it. Some days are difficult, but I also realize that these harm doers are just people, like me, in samsara. No one said it was going to be a rose garden!
I personally had a very negative interaction with a Gelug monk who treated me like miss money bags, and not a human being. A friend was introducing me to him. He said no one thing to me the entire time I was there. I thanked him for welcoming me into his home and his response was ” Thank me with money.” I do tend to bring out the ugly “truth” in folks, but this had me gob smacked! It left a bad taste in my mouth. I spoke with a Nyingma Khenpo about it and he jokingly told me that Gelugs don’t like women. I thought WTF!? Where’s the compassion they preach? BS. Anyhoo…I haven’t read your posts for a while, but I’m back. You have medicine and I’m here for it! Love to you, sister! Happy Dakini Day! 🕉🕉🕉❤️❤️❤️🙏🙏🙏
Thank you, and welcome back! Whoever that obsessive anonymous person/persons are spreading many false accusations and hateful bullying slander online with AI nonsense, that even used my name in their url/domain names, anyone with any intelligence, love, compassion and discernment will see such “insane” cowardice for what it is. If what they are saying is true, why the anonmymity? They should clearly identify themselves. In any case, such things are counter-productive and actually help me because people can see the depraved, dishonest and “insane” low levels people are willing to go to slander and smear my name and work. A mere lone woman!
I tend to avoid the Gelugpas because having spent many years in that community in Dharamsala, and several attempts to co-opt me into their hegemony and dominance there in one way or another, and then the attacks on my mental and physical health and safety when I did not, followed by the hysterical and angry reaction to anyone who dared to speak out about the Indian boy incident with the 14th Dalai Lama as highly inappropriate and not respecting his boundaries and right to say “no”, led me to realise (as many others have) that it is not a safe place for women or anyone who does not follow the Gelugpas/Dalai Lama.