the shadow of the dalai lama

585 Pages·2008·3.78 MB·English

© Victor und Victoria Trimondi

© Victor und Victoria Trimondi

THE SHADOW OF THE DALAI LAMA

Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism

Translated by Mark Penny

CONTENTS

Critical Links to Buddhism and Lamaism

Contents | References | Buddhism Debate | Glossary | Home

© Copyright 2003 – Victor & Victoria Trimondi
The contents of this page are free for personal and non-commercial use,
provided this copyright notice is kept intact. All further rights, including
the rights of publication in any form, have to be obtained by written
permission from the authors.

http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/ [28.3.2008 18:32:10]
The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Contents

The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Contents
Victor & Victoria Trimondi

CONTENTS

Introduction: Light and Shadow
Plato’s Cave
Realpolitik and politics of symbols

Part I - Ritual as Politics

1 - Buddhism and Misogyny (historical overview)
The "sacrifice" of Maya: the Buddha legend
The meditative dismemberment of women: Hinayana Buddhism
The transformation of women into men: Mahayana Buddhism

2 - Tantric Buddhism
The explosion of sexus: Vairayana Buddhism
Mystic sexual love between the sexes and cosmogonical eros
The guru as manipulator of the divine
The appropriation of gynergy and androcentric power strategies
The absolute power of the "grand sorcerer" (Maha Siddha)

3 - The “Tantric Female Sacrifice"
The karma mudra: the real woman
The inana mudra: the woman of imagination
Karma mudra vs. inana mudra
The maha mudra: the inner woman
The "Tantric female sacrifice"

4 - The Law of Inversion
The twilight language
Sexual desire
The incest taboo
Eating and drinking impure substances
Necrophilia
Ritual murder
Symbol and reality
Concurrence with the demonic
The aggression of the divine couple
Western criticism

5 - Pure Shaktism and Tantric Feminism, and Alchemy
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The gynocentric male sacrifice
The vajra and the double-headed ax
The dakini
Kali as conquered time goddess
The "alchemic female sacrifice"

6 - Kalachakra: The Public and the Secret Initiations
The seven lower public initiations and their symbolic significance
The self-sacrifice of the pupil
The lineage tree
The divine time machine
The four higher "secret" initiations
Sperm and menstruation blood as magic substances
The “Ganachakra" and the four "highest" initiations

7 - Kalachakra: The Inner Processes
The candali: the fire woman
The “drop theory” as an expression of androgyny
Excursus: The mystic female body
The method or the manipulation of the divine

8 - The ADI Buddha: His Mystic Body and his Astral Aspects
The “Power of Ten”: The mystic body of the ADI BUDDHA
The astral-temporal aspects of the ADI BUDDHA
Rahu—the swallower of sun and moon
Kalagni and the doomsday mare
The myth of eternal recurrence

9 - The ADI Buddha: The Mandala Principle and the World Ruler
The Buddhist mandala cosmos
The mandala principle
The Kalachakra sand mandala
The world ruler: The sociopolitical exercise of power by the ADI Buddha
Profane and spiritual power

10 - The Aggressive Myth of Shambhala
Geography of the kingdom of Shambhala
The kings and administration of Shambhala
The “raging wheel turner”: The martial ideology of Shambhala
Lethal war machines
The "final battle"
Buddha versus Allah
The non-Buddhist origins of the Shambhala myth
Evaluation of the Shambhala myth
"Inner" and "outer" Shambhala

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11 - The Manipulator of Erotic Love

12 - Epilogue to Part I

Part II - Politics as Ritual

Introduction: Politics as Ritual
Myth and history
The battle of the sexes and history
The sacred kingdom
Eschatology and politics
History and mysticism

1 - The Dalai Lama: Incarnation of the Tibetan Gods
Buddha Amitabha: The sun and light deity
The various masks of Avalokiteshvara
The XIV Dalai Lama as the supreme Kalachakra master
Statements of the XIV Dalai Lama on sexuality and sexual magic

2 - The Dalai Lama (Avalokitshvara) and the Demoness (Srinmo)
The bondage of the earth goddess Srinmo and the history of the origin of Tibet
Why women can’t climb pure crystal mountain
Matriarchy in the Land of Snows?
The western imagination
Women in former Tibetan society
The alchemic division of the feminine: The Tibetan goddesses Palden Lhamo and Tara
Tara—Tibet’s Madonna
The lament of Yeshe Tshogyal
The mythological background to the Tibetan-Chinese conflict: Avalokiteshvara and Guanyin
Wu Zetian (Guanyin) and Songtsen Gampo (Avalokiteshvara)
Ci Xi (Guanyin) and the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (Avalokiteshvara)
Jiang Qing (Guanyin) and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Avalokiteshvara)
Feminism and Tantric Buddhism
The XIV Dalai Lama and the question of women's rights

3 - The Foundations of Tibetan Buddhocracy
The history of Buddhist state thought
The Dalai Lama and the Buddhist state are one
The feigned belief of the XVI Dalai Lama in Western democracy
The "Great Fifth" - Absolute Sun Ruler over Tibet
Magic as politics - the magic world of the V Dalai Lama
The predecessors of the V Dalai Lama
The successors of the “Great Fifth”: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dalai Lamas
Incarnation and power
The "Great Fifth" and the system of incarnation
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The sacred power of the Tibetan kings and it’s conferral upon the Dalai Lamas
The XIV Dalai Lama and the question of incarnation
The introduction of the doctrine of incarnation in the West
The various orders of Tibetan Buddhism (Gelugpa, Kagyüpa, Nyingmapa, Sakyapa, Bön)
Unification of the Tibetan Buddhist Order under the Absolute Reign of the XIV Dalai Lama
The "Karmapa affair"

4 - Social Reality in Ancient Tibet
The Western image of Tibet
The social structure of former Tibet
Tibetan criminal law
Clerical commerce
Political intrigue
More recent developments in the historical image

5 - Buddhocracy and Anarchy - Contradictory or Complementary?
The grand sorcerers (Maha Siddhas)
The anarchistic founding father of Tibetan Buddhism: Padmasambhava,
From anarchy to discipline of the order: the Tilopa lineage
The pre-ordained counter world to the clerical bureaucracy: holy fools
An anarchistic erotic: the VI Dalai Lama
A tantric history of Tibet
Crazy wisdom and the West

6 - Regicide as Lamaism’s Myth of Origin and the Ritual Sacrifice of Tibet
Ritual regicide in the history of Tibet
The Tibetan "scapegoat"
Ritual murder as a current issue among exile Tibetans
The ritual sacrifice of Tibet
Real violence and one’s own imaginings

7 - The War of the Oracle Gods and the Shugden Affair
The Tibetan state oracle
Dorje Shugden—a threat to the XIV Dalai Lama’s life?

8 - Magic as a Political Instrument
Invocation of demons
"Voodoo magic"
Magic wonder weapons
The “Great Fifth” as magician and the XIV Dalai Lama
Mandala politics

9 - The War Gods behind the Mask of Peace
The aggressiveness of the Tibetan tutelary gods (Dharmapalas)
Gesar of Ling - the Tibetan "Siegfried"
The Tibetan warrior kings and the clerical successors
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The Dalai Lamas as the supreme war lords
The historical distortion of the "peaceful" Tibetans
Is the XIV Dalai Lama the "greatest living prince of peace"
Tibetan guerrillas and the CIA
Marching music and terror
Political calculation and the Buddhist message of peace
“Buddha has smiled”: The Dalai Lama and the Indian atomic tests

10 - The Spearhead of the Shambhala War: The Mongols
Genghis Khan as a Bodhisattva
The Buddhization of Mongolia
The Mongolian Shambhala myth
Dambijantsan, the bloodthirsty avenging lama
Von Ungern Sternberg: The “Order of Buddhist Warriors”
The XIV Dalai Lama and Mongolia

11 - The Shambhala Myth and the West
The Shambhala missionary Agvan Dorjiev
Bolshevik Buddhism
The Kalachakra temple in St. Petersburg
Madame Blavatsky and the Shambhala myth
Nicholas Roerich and the Kalachakra Tantra
The “Shambhala Warrior” Chögyam Trungpa
Other Western Shambhala visions
The XIV Dalai Lama and the Shambhala myth

12 - Fascist Occultism and it’s Close Relationship to Buddhist Tantrism
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s national socialist friends
The Nazi–Tibet connection
Julius Evola: A fascist Tantric
Miguel Serrano: The Dalai Lama’s “friend” and chief ideologist of “esoteric Hitlerism”
The former SS-man Heinrich Harrer: teacher of the XIV Dalai Lama
Julius Evola: the "Tantric" advisor of Benito Mussolini
Miguel Serrano: "friend" of the Dalai Lama and chief ideologist of "esoteric Hitlerism"

13 - The Japanese Doomsday Guru Shoko Asahara and XIV Dalai Lama
Shoko Asahara’s relationship to the XIV Dalai Lama
The staged Shambhala war
The sect’s system of rituals is Tantric Buddhist
Asahra’s Gods
The Japanese Chakravartin
Murder, violence and religion
The Japanese Armageddon
Religion and chemical laboratories
The song of Sarin
The international contacts
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The two different brothers

14 - China’s Metaphysical Rivalry with Tibet
Mao Zedong: the red sun
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
The “deification” of Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong's "Tantric practices"
A spiritual rivalry between the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and Mao Zedong?
The post-Mao era in Tibet
A pan-Asian vision of the Kalachakra Tantra
Taiwan: a springboard for Tibetan Buddhism and the XIV Dalai Lama?
Are the Chinese interested in the Shambhala myth?

15 - The Buddhocratic Conquest of the West
Robert A. Thurman: “The academic godfather of the Tibetan cause”
The stolen revolution
Thurman’s forged history
A worldwide Buddhocracy
Tibet a land of enlightenment?
Thurman as “high priest” of the Kalachakra Tantra

16 - Tactics, Strategies, Forgeries, Illusions
The "Tibet lobby"
The manipulation of the "Greens"
The illusory world of interreligious dialog and the ecumenical movement
Modern science and Tantric Buddhism
Buddhist cosmogony and the postmodern world view
The yogi as computer
Hollywood and Tantric Buddhism

17 - Conclusion
The atavistic pattern of Tibetan Buddhism
Clash of Religions: the fundamentalistic contribution of Lamaism
Return to rationalism?

Postscript: Creative Polarity beyond Tantrism

References

Annex: Critical Forum Kalachakra Tantra

Glossary

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The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Contents
Index | Contents | References | Buddhism Debate | Glossary | Home

© Copyright 2003 – Victor & Victoria Trimondi
The contents of this page are free for personal and non-commercial use,
provided this copyright notice is kept intact. All further rights, including
the rights of publication in any form, have to be obtained by written
permission from the authors.

http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Contents.htm (7 of 7) [28.3.2008 18:32:32]
The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Introduction

The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Introduction
© Victor & Victoria Trimondi

INTRODUCTION

Light and Shadow

For centuries after Buddha had died,
his shadow was still visible in a cave
a dreadful, spine-chilling shadow.
God is dead: but man being the way
he is for centuries to come there
will be caves in which his shadow is shown
and we, we must also triumph over his shadow.
Friedrich Nietzsche

The practice and philosophy of Buddhism has spread so rapidly throughout the Western world in the
past 30 years and has so often been a topic in the media that by now anybody who is interested in
cultural affairs has formed some sort of concept of Buddhism. In the conventional “Western” notion
of Buddhism, the teachings of Buddha Gautama are regarded as a positive Eastern countermodel to
the decadent civilization and culture of the West: where the Western world has introduced war and
exploitation into world history, Buddhism stands for peace and freedom; whilst Western rationalism is
destructive of life and the environment, the Eastern teachings of wisdom preserve and safeguard them.
The meditation, compassion, composure, understanding, nonviolence, modesty, and spirituality of
Asia stand in contrast to the actionism, egomania, unrest, indoctrination, violence, arrogance, and
materialism of Europe and North America. Ex oriente lux—“light comes from the East”; in occidente
nox—“darkness prevails in the West”.

We regard this juxtaposition of the Eastern and Western hemispheres as not just the “business” of
naive believers and zealous Tibetan lamas. On the contrary, this comparison of values has become
distributed among Western intelligentsia as a popular philosophical speculation in which they flirt
with their own demise.

But the cream of Hollywood also gladly and openly confess their allegiance to the teachings of
Buddhism (or what they understand these to be), especially when these come from the mouths of
Tibetan lamas. “Tibet is looming larger than ever on the show business map,” the Herald Tribune
wrote in 1997. “Tibet is going to enter the Western popular culture as something can only when
Hollywood does the entertainment injection into the world system. Let’s remember that Hollywood is
the most powerful force in the world, besides the US military” (Herald Tribune, March 20, 1997, pp.
1, 6). Orville Schell, who is working on a book on Tibet and the West, sees the Dalai Lama’s
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The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Introduction
“Hollywood connection” as a substitute for the non-existent diplomatic corps that could represent the
interests of the exiled Tibetan hierarch: “Since he [the Dalai Lama] doesn’t have embassies, and he
has no political power, he has to seek other kinds. Hollywood is a kind of country in his own, and he’s
established a kind of embassy there.” (Newsweek, May 19, 1997, p. 24).

In Buddhism more and more show-business celebrities believe they have discovered a message of
salvation that can at last bring the world peace and tranquility. In connection with his most recent film
about the young Dalai Lama (Kundun), the director Martin Scorsese, more known for the violence of
his films, emotionally declared: “Violence is not the answer, it doesn’t work any more. We are at the
end of the worst century in which the greatest atrocities in the history of the world have occurred ...
The nature of human beings must change. We must cultivate love and compassion” (Focus 46/1997,
p. 168; retranslation). The karate hero Steven Segal, who believes himself to be the reincarnation of a
Tibetan lama, tells us, “I have been a Buddhist for twenty years and since then have lived in harmony
with myself and the world” (Bunte, November 6, 1997, p. 24; retranslation). For actor Richard Gere,
one of the closest Western confidants of the Dalai Lama, the “fine irony of Buddhism, which signifies
the only way to true happiness, is our own pleasure to offer to each and all” (Bunte, November 6,
1997, p. 25; retranslation). Helmut Thoma, former head of the private German television company
RTL, is no less positive about this Eastern religion: “Buddhists treat each other in a friendly, well-
meaning and compassionate way. They see no difference between their own suffering and that of
others. I admire that” (Bunte, November 6, 1997, p. 24). Actress Christine Kaufmann has also
enthused, “In Buddhism the maxim is: enjoy the phases of happiness for these are transitory” (Bunte,
November 6, 1997, p. 21). Sharon Stone, Uma Thurman, Tina Turner, Patty Smith, Meg Ryan, Doris
Dörrie, and Shirley MacLaine are just some of the film stars and singers who follow the teachings of
Buddha Gautama.

The press is no less euphoric. The German magazine Bunte has praised the teachings from the East as
the “ideal religion of our day”: Buddhism has no moral teachings, enjoins us to happiness, supports
winners, has in contrast to other religions an unblemished past ("no skeletons in the closet”),worships
nature as a cathedral, makes women beautiful, promotes sensuousness, promises eternal youth, creates
paradise on earth, reduces stress and body weight (Bunte, November 6, 1997, pp. 20ff.).

What has already become the myth of the “Buddhization of the West” is the work of many. Monks,
scholars, enthusiastic followers, generous sponsors, occultists, hippies, and all sorts of “Eastern
trippers” have worked on it. But towering above them all, just as the Himalayas surpass all other
peaks on the planet, is His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Timeless, gigantic,
respectful, tolerant, patient, modest, simple, full of humor, warm, gentle, lithe, earthy, harmonious,
transparent, pure, and always smiling and laughing — this is how the Kundun (the Tibetan word
means “presence” or “living Buddha”) is now known to all. There is no positive human characteristic
which has not at one time or another been applied to the Dalai Lama. For many of the planet’s
inhabitants, even if they are non-Buddhists, he represents the most respectable living individual of our
epoch.

Many believe they have discovered in the straightforward personality of this Buddhist monk all the
rare qualities of a gracious and trustworthy character that we seek in vain among our Western
politicians and church leaders. In a world full of evil, materialism, and corruption he represents
goodwill, the realm of the spirit, and the lotus blossom of purity; amidst the maelstrom of trivialities
and confusion he stands for meaning, calm, and stability; in the competitive struggle of modern
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