Protests: Dalai Lama in Boston, NYC (audio)

Amber Larson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Matthew Bell (PRI); Dalai Lama

Live Webcasts from Boston and New York City of the 14th Dalai Lama's teachings and dialogues, where he is appearing Oct. 31st to Nov. 5th, 2014 VIEW (dalailama.com). 

Tibetans turned out to welcome the Dalai Lama to Boston (Matthew Bell/pri.org).

Wisdom of Compassion

Supporters of the Dorje Shugden tradition in Tibetan Buddhism are behind a concerted protest campaign against the Dalai Lama, who spoke in downtown Boston on Thursday.

 

The Dalai Lama paid a visit this week to Boston, where thousands of his adoring faithful and fans bought tickets to hear him speak about topics including “educating the heart and mind.”

But the 79-year-old spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism has his haters too. And some of them, it turns out, are practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism.

 

Supporters of Dorje Shugden in Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) are behind an ongoing protest campaign against the Dalai Lama, who spoke in Boston on Oct. 30 (Matthew Bell/pri.org).

 
Many of those [protesters] took position on Thursday morning outside the Wang Theater in downtown Boston, where the Dalai Lama spoke. They were joined by the lama's supporters, and the two sides held dueling protests. 

“Long live Dalai Lama!” one group shouted, waving Tibetan flags and holding up portraits of the monk they refer to as His Holiness. A few meters away, another group banged drums and chanted, “False Dalai Lama! Stop lying!” 

The Dalai Lama's visits Princeton University and mingles with nation's privileged students on the first day of his two-day visit to Princeton, New Jersey, USA on October 28, 2014. VIEW

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“He’s running a theocracy," says Rebecca Gauthier, a spokeswoman with a group called the International Shugden Community. They're stepping up a protest campaign against the Dalai Lama, saying he's intent on stamping out Shugden, a tradition in Tibetan Buddhism. "He’s saying there can be no opposing voice, and that’s not okay,” she says.

 

Gauthier contrasts that to the loud scene outside the theater. “I think it’s great that we’re here demonstrating against the Dalai Lama and then right next to us are people who are for the Dalai Lama," she says. "That’s what democracy is."

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva [probably not the Buddha's 37 Factors of Enlightenment]: Video of  the current Dalai Lama's three-day teaching given in New Delhi, India from March 21-23, 2014, culminating in the bestowing of the Trisamayavyuharaja Empowerment. VIEW

 

This fight is partly about a theological and political debate that goes back centuries, to a time when Tibetan Buddhism was a sectarian mishmash of different lamas, monasteries, and practices. One of them centered on the Tibetan deity of Dorje Shugden and the rituals done in his name, the same rituals Gauthier's group adhere to. More