I read the text of Another View on Whether Tibetan Buddhism is Working in the West, by Tara Carreon and her husband, to Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen and requested their responses. I mentioned specific quotes on which I particularly wanted comment and clarification in terms of Vajrayana; however, Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen declined to address some of the quotes from the article since they considered them to be too pointless or trivial even to refute.
Ngakma Shardröl: Rinpoche, Khandro Déchen, I would like to ask you if you would comment on this article. I know you don't like to comment about specific people - but could you perhaps respond to some aspects of what's being presented here in order that I can get a better understanding of how people arrive at their own forms of confusion?
Khandro Déchen: Most of those who make pronouncements on this matter know who the representatives are on either side - but, if we may restrict ourselves to the concepts presented, we have no great objection to the sources of the comments being apparent.
Rinpoche: To a degree, it is no longer possible to speak without reference to individuals, especially when they themselves are commenting on other writers. We skimmed the interview with Alan Wallace in Tricycle, and... we can see why some people would take objection to it.
Firstly we would say that whilst there is certainly room to criticise Western people's approach to Dharma - there should also be room to look at the many fine practitioners of Vajrayana in the West. There are many, but they tend to be low key in terms of making public statements. We have a number of excellent students who have been with us for almost twenty years, and we have seen no signs of fickleness in them. From our association with various Tibetan Lamas in the West, we can say quite definitely that they have a high regard for their committed Western disciples. Dung-sé Thrin-lé Norbu Rinpoche in particular has been highly supportive of Western Lamas in connection with Tharchin Rinpoche and Chag'düd Tulku Rinpoche. As far as we are concerned, Vajrayana is working extremely well in certain places in the West. One only has to look to Tsogyelgar in Ann Arbor, Michigan to see the magnificent way in which Traktung Rinpoche and A'dzom Rinpoche are integrating Vajrayana into a Western setting. There are certainly problems - and some Western students are exactly as infantile and fickle as described in Alan Wallace's interview. People are people wherever they are, and it is not useful to make hard-line generalisations. But one of the major dangers with regard to Tibetan Buddhism in the West is the 'new age' appropriation of its teachings and the falsification of its functions by people such as the author under discussion.
Secondly we must say that we were concerned with regard to Allan Wallace's commentary on the way in which Vajrayana was introduced to the west by Tibetan Lamas. The picture he gives would appear to lean heavily in the direction of an institutionalised approach in which monastic training - or something approaching it - is deemed indispensable.
Q: From reading the interview I noticed that he was once a monk. It seems that people like Allan Wallace and Stephen Batchelor and some of the others who make crucial comment on Tibetan Lamas are ex-monks. At the Naropa Conference and in other places it seems to be some kind of qualification to have once been a monk of a nun. I don't really understand that as being a qualification.
R: Well, quite - but I would rather not comment on this. I am more concerned with the way in which Alan Wallace speaks as if he possessed the grand overview. It is not that I entirely disagree with what he describes as the desperate nature of the introduction of Vajrayana - it is simply that it is a partial account and makes no reference to the fact that many thoroughgoing programmes of study and practice were established alongside the fleeting visits of high Lamas. Many people who met these 'briefly visiting' Lamas went out to India and Nepal to study with them - and to a certain extent this replicates the situation as it was in Tibet. Personally - I see no great room for complaint in terms of the manner in which Vajrayana was introduced, nor do I think that anyone has sufficient historical perspective at this point in time to make any useful analysis. If I may make a final observation on the Alan Wallace interview, it would be a fundamental concern with the idea that the East and the West are so very different from each other that we all need to have ongoing conferences and discussions about it. I feel that this makes much too much of the issue - and plays into the hands of those who seem intent on leading Buddhist up a psychotherapeutic backwater.
KD: To speak of cultures as being so problematically different is to neglect the Buddhist view that we are all busy creating samara from the ground of being. There may be a Tibetan-style samsara, and an English-style samsara and an American-style samsara - but they have one thing in common which is addressed by Buddhist practice. I have the feeling that it is not useful to approach Buddhist practice by concentrating on our special status in being different.
R: There are cultural differences, but these differences seem to be more concerned with linguistics - and very few people seem interested in addressing that point. We try to write and teach in contemporary language - but we appreciate that we could be criticised for this in the same way in which we have criticised placing too much importance on cultural difference. However that may be, we took our lead from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's writings - and so we feel that this tangent has some basis in necessity beyond our own need to be different.
Before you begin to ask us about your particular chosen quotes from this article by Mrs. Carreon, I would like to comment on one statement which piqued my interest. The author says, 'Only people who don't have a reputation or position to protect can speak the truth. That precludes people with vested interests in the existing system from saying anything meaningful...' or words to that effect. Now this is an excellent point at which to begin because Ngakpa Chögyam does not have a good reputation or any position at all, as far as Tibetan Buddhism is concerned - especially not in the West. Ngakpa Chögyam is regarded with suspicion and resentment in many quarters, and so I have nothing at all to lose - whatever I say. Khandro Déchen and I are pariahs with little welcome in most places. There is one notable Buddhist publisher and distributor who will not even list our books - so no one can say we have any position to defend.
Khandro Déchen and I function as independent Lamas - that is to say, independent of any directly imposed hierarchic direction. This - although common in the Nyingma tradition - is maybe not a common situation for Western Lamas. Our own Lamas, Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche and Jomo Sam'phel, are not well-known in the West and have left us to evolve our own situation with students. As Western Lamas, we are aware of certain cultural issues which effect the integration of Vajrayana into the West - but it is perfectly clear to us that Dharma is independent of culture. Dharma may be presented through cultural forms to a certain degree - but these are only the container of Dharma. All the great Lamas we have known have stood outside culture as teachers of Dharma. Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche in particular, of all the Lamas I have known, stressed continually that I must understand the principle and function of practice, and this has helped me not only in understanding the nine yanas - but also in understanding the value of other religions and systems of human evolution. Whatever we have to say on this subject is said without fear of praise or blame. If we receive blame - we are well used to it, and if we receive praise - it will be something of a surprise. So - to your questions.
Q: This, as you know, was a website response to an interview which appeared in Tricycle. Tara Carreon - the author - is a disgruntled ex-student of a Tibetan Lama. She seems to want to justify her disgruntlement by discrediting Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan Lamas so that no blame can be attached to her, and she can view herself as a victim. She makes quite a few statements, some of which make unhelpful generalisations and others which seem to be the result of personal prejudice. For example, she begins by saying that 'American Tibetan Buddhists have made the understandable decision to adopt traditional Tibetan Buddhist beliefs because they seem authoritative and reliable. This decision has been a mistake.'
R: An understandable decision? That is strange... Why would this be expected? It could only be understood if the people of whom she is writing were alienated from their own culture. Maybe this is true of the hippie generation. Although I am of that generation, I was never exactly a card-carrying hippie, and so my own interest in Vajrayana never excluded the richness of my own culture. I never really related well to the 'born-again-Tibetans' who went to India and Nepal - and to be honest they didn't relate well to me either.
KD: I was too young to be a hippy and a little too conservative to have had any interest in the 'new age' - so rejection of Western culture passed me by. My interest in Vajrayana arose accidentally through meeting Rinpoche in social circumstances rather than through having an interest in Eastern religion. I was not a 'spiritual seeker' and had never considered the need to find the 'inner peace and self-understanding' for which Tara Carreon was searching. Why look to an Eastern religion for 'inner peace and self-understanding' when the religions of your own culture already contain teachings which address this? The Quakers and the Unitarians have the egalitarianism she wants, and the silent sitting can be found in the Julian Movement within Christianity.
R: Both Christianity and Judćism have esoteric teachings too - so why not look a little deeper into Western culture before approaching teachers of Buddhism with regard to needs that might not be met according to your preset notions of what you expect? I never wanted 'inner peace and self-understanding' either - so maybe that is why Khandro Déchen and I have not been disappointed.
Q: It sounds as though she took a kind of retail approach to her spiritual life - like she had this goal of inner peace and self-understanding, which is not actually even a Buddhist concept as I have ever heard it expressed, and then she felt cheated when the product she bought didn't deliver what she wanted.
R: That is certainly the impression she creates. I would also say that finding your home in any religion is the surest way of being at ease. Lack of 'inner peace' is caused by feeling driven and embattled. It ought to be possible simply to be happy to be 'a practitioner without ambition'. I have never judged Vajrayana because of my own lack of capacity. I am quite content to be a loser who has failed to understand himself. If I understood myself, there would then need to be a self to understand, and I think that I'm better off without that. I know that I'm greedy, irritable, obsessive, quirky, and occluded. These are the five obstacles we all have to one degree or another - so self-knowledge is not really the issue. As to the nature of Mind - that is empty, and so there is nothing to know or not know. There is only the immediate experience. There is only the transmission I have received, and continually returning to that.
Q: It seems as though she thinks that being a Buddhist means accepting a belief system, on someone else's authority, when I thought the whole point was to practise in order to experience things for yourself.
R: Yes. One is given the structure and the means of verifying that structure. One has to take the structure on faith - through inspiration - in order to gain personal realisation of the structure - and, discover that it is not a structure. I suppose in some sense what she says is true - many people do seem to have accepted Buddhism as if it were a belief system - but that is reflective more of those persons themselves than of Buddhism. Buddhism is not a belief system. Buddhism does advocate faith, but not blind faith. Buddhism advocates reasonable faith - that is to say, faith based on experience. Faith must be based on study and practice, so that reasonable faith gradually becomes direct knowledge. That must be clearly understood. It should also be understood that faith is required in every aspect of life - you even need faith to bite into a pastrami baguette. How do you know it's not poisonous? How do you know you'll like it? Someone you like and respect says: "This is a good place to buy a pastrami baguette." And so you proceed on faith to buy one and take the first bite out of it.
There is never any certainty about any act or a course of action until we enter into it. It is only the foolhardy who plunge into projects without intelligent research. It is also dubious to accept information because it seems authoritative and reliable. Door-to-door sales representatives turn up every day seeming authoritative and reliable. I have had such people tell me that their plastic window frames are superior to my old wooden sash windows - but I don't believe a word of it. We need more than something 'seeming' to be 'authoritative and reliable' before we buy it. I have actually never met a Lama who has not continually underlined the need for study and practice - and if one studies and practises then one develops intelligent faith in the lineage one follows.
KD: We say this to students all the time - that they should continually compare their study and practice in order to make sure that they are confident in how they proceed. So to proceed without experience born out of study and practice is a mistake.
Q: So basically she's making a tautological statement - she's saying that people made a mistake in making a mistake.
KD: That's a good way to put it - but more that that, you have to ask why people made that mistake in the first place and why they persevered in their mistake. There must have been some kind of reward for persevering with mistaken beliefs.
Q: Well, the writer says that she 'received the entire transmission of Nyingma teachings from beginning to end, including Trekchod and Togal teachings.'
R: Then that is likely to be the answer. Her perseverance would appear to have lasted until the final Dharma commodity had been acquired.
Q: The retail approach again.
R: Quite. Does she say that she did more than receive these transmissions? Does she make any comment on what she gained from practice?
Q: Quite the reverse - she says that she was unable 'to see any "truly" enlightened developments in [her] psyche' after 22 years of effort.
R: That seems an extremely long time to persevere without reward... It strikes me that there must have been other rewards which she does not discuss - because no one proceeds with anything for which there is no reward. That is not psychologically feasible. Does she mention anything at all?
Q: Well, she says that she was 'extremely devout' and 'did her practice compulsively'. She seems to have been involved in fund-raising and building gompas and transcribing teachings. She says she edited a book of teachings and held practices at her house to which other people came, so I guess she must have had some kind of status in the group.
R: This 'extremely devout'... now, there's a phrase... I wonder what that means, and on what her devoutness was based? Then the 'compulsive' nature of her practice - that is also strange. It seems like a rationalisation in retrospect. If one was genuinely devout, then compulsivity would not come into it. One is either devout or compulsive - the two terms are mutually contradictory. One can only say that one was compulsive in hindsight - and then at the same time one would have to say that one's devoutness was equally pathological. One cannot make the two statements at once. I am sure that to some degree the writer has looked at herself and that she has come to what she feels are honest conclusions about her experience - but remodelling one's history to suit one's present mindset is a common self-protective phenomenon and often carried out almost unconsciously. It is not possible for me to say how honest or dishonest the writer may be - all I can say is that there are some serious experiential and logical discrepancies in her account.
KD: I am simply amazed that anyone would put so much effort into something which then seemed hollow. Surely there must have been some more gradual process involved unless she was in severe denial - and then, I would tend to feel that the process of denial is now merely operating in reverse: she is unable to see any of the benefits she received. So what went wrong?
Q: She doesn't really say. She doesn't actually give any kind of adequate explanation of what it was that caused her to change her mind so radically about something that had been so important to her for 22 years. It's the same in the autobiographical material she and her husband present on their website. They give a history of the typical 1960s seeking in which they meet there Lama - and then they skip 22 years to the point when they leave for no accountable reason apart from the accusations she makes against Tibetans. She says that 'Tibetans suffer from ethnocentricity and cultural arrogance that blinds them to the virtues of Western culture and predisposes them to favour all things Tibetan.'
KD: This of course could be said of any nationality. I am sure that some Tibetans suffer from this as well as Americans or the British. There are French people who would like to see all English words expunged from their language.
R: This is nothing unique to Tibetans - but more to the point, we are not really discussing culture when we discuss Vajrayana. Vajrayana is not Tibetan. Vajrayana is not English or American either. I am not really concerned with cultural differences or whether one culture is better than another. But actually I've heard many Tibetan Lamas be highly appreciative of Western culture - Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in particular loved Handel's Messiah and was notably keen on Pavarotti. I wouldn't say that there are no Tibetan cultural supremacists - but I can say that I have never met such a person. On the other hand, I have met plenty of Western people who disparage Western culture - in fact it was a highly popular position to adopt in the 1960's and early 1970's. I once had a sitar myself. [pause] You know . . . It's often Western people who gives their Tibetan teachers a picture of the West. Many Western people speak of their own culture in a disparaging way and so it is not entirely surprising if some Lamas come to accept their students' descriptions.
Q: Yes - at the conference of Western Buddhist teachers in McLeod Ganj Yvonne Rand told the Dala'i Lama quite a story about the horrors of rock music, how it was terribly loud and disturbing and that people became mindlessly devoted slaves to the musicians. There were other comments like that too - all negative about the West.
R: Yes [laughs] I remembered a certain degree of derision when I responded that I liked cowboy movies, in answer to a 'round-the-table' question on favourite films.
Q: It's almost as if a lot of Western Buddhists are embarrassed about being Westerners. They long to leave their rapacious materialistic culture behind and find something simple and pure and foreign. Maybe the author of the article was one of these people and she's now swinging back all the way in the other direction, rejecting everything foreign and going back to her American roots. That leads on to the next quote: she finds 'American students far too willing to abandon the advantages of our intellectual training and democratic culture in favour of medieval concepts...'
R: I would tend to agree with that in part. Among some Westerner people there would seem to be a romantic intrigue with the 'ancient world' which was born out of the idea that the 'modern world' was corrupt and that science had in some way 'gone too far'. I think that Western people often do abandon their intelligence in favour of a wide variety of 'new age' and or anachronistic pastimes. But this is not actually possible with Buddhism. Buddhism demands the most rigorous employment of intelligence that I could imagine. I find rather that most people with a grudge against Vajrayana are actually severely lacking in intellectual discipline. The arguments they put forward have been - as far as Khandro Déchen and I have seen - logically deficient to a surprising degree. So - how does she suggest we proceed?
Q: She says that we should 'abandon Tibetan cultural belief systems, stripping Buddhism to its core values...' [interrupted]
R: So she is still interested in Buddhism then? That is singular... I wonder what basis she has for continuing with Buddhism after 22 years of admittedly fruitless practice? Sorry to interrupt - pray continue.
Q: '... stripping Buddhism to its core values of straightforward inquiry and insight into emptiness, supplementing these values with Western virtues of optimism, creativity, and scientific method. Such a change in spiritual approach can lead to real cause for optimism and freedom from outmoded notions that merely lead to psychological subjugation.' It's interesting that she sees the scientific method as antithetical to Buddhism. It seems to me that in practice Buddhism is actually quite scientific - in terms of each practitioner verifying what they have been taught by practising it themselves and achieving or not achieving results.
R: Yes. She is evidently unhappy - and I am sorry for that, it is sad to see anyone in such obvious pain, but if she has not seen that Dzogchen Trek gÇod can already be said to strip Buddhism to the core - then she never understood the teachings she received. I find it improbable that anyone who ever studied Dzogchen - let alone practised it - could write in such a way. It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
Q: It seems that Surya Das agrees with her, and he advertises himself as a teacher of Dzogchen. Part of the same internet material contains a letter from Surya Das in which he says: 'Thank you for speaking out clearly, honestly and well. You should publish this somewhere.'
KD: That does not surprise us so much anymore.
R: I don't like to be censorious with regard to individuals . . . but it would seem that Surya Das could not be said to be lacking in having something of a vested interest in the publication of such critical material . . .
Q: Yes - Surya Das has positioned himself at the forefront of a movement which seems to be out to corner the market on Buddhism in the West. It looks like some sort of takeover bid by those who failed to get what they wanted to get from Buddhism and who are now attempting to become the new gurus of dissatisfaction.
R: This material so far, has all the trappings of victim-as-hero or victim-as-heroine. All you need in certain circles is to cry pain in a passably articulate manner - and you have an immediate audience. I am not saying that no one was ever abused - I have emphasised this before - but we do live in a society where you can sue McDonald's because you gripped a Styrofoam cup of coffee between your thighs and scalded yourself. That is not exactly the most brilliant and worthwhile aspect of Western culture. If she's so keen on Western culture - let her emulate the real heroes and heroines of our culture. Let her emulate Florence Nightingale, Mother Theresa, Joan of Arc, Boadicea, or Annie Oakley. Why give credence and respect to someone who allowed herself to be psychologically subjugated for 22 years? If she had 'shed the trappings of orthodoxy', gained liberation and come back with her story - I might buy it as an intriguing read. But what is being offered here is merely a thesis based on failure and subsequent psychological processing.
It is not that I have no sympathy for suffering - Khandro Déchen and I have often given time to people who have been badly treated in the spiritual context - but on all but a few occasions our time was not particularly well spent. Our experience has mainly been that those who like to complain are merely seeking a new audience from whom they can squeeze personal value as a result of their suffering.
Q: It seems like her main point is that she feels she wasted 22 years of her life on something she got nothing out of and now, rather than look at herself and why she did that, and what were the hidden benefits that kept her there, she's decided that there can be nothing of value in Tibetan Buddhism for anybody. Somehow she's not content just to say it wasn't right for her, she wants to discredit the whole thing in order to avoid having to look at herself... [interrupted]
KD: Before we go on, I would like to say something about her idea of optimism being a Western virtue. I think it's actually rare to find any work of modern Western literature that has a happy ending. Jane Austen wrote happy endings but that no longer seems to be the trend. A great deal of Western art seems to revel in suffering - so I find her statement quite disconnected from Western culture. Tibetans, on the other hand, have always seemed to me to be surprisingly happy and positive in spite of their condition as refugees.
R: Yes. When I was first in India in 1970 I was inordinately impressed with the Tibetan temperament in general - and I lived amongst them for almost seven years. To me, the Bodhisattva vow is amongst the most optimistic, positive, and creative drives that could be imagined - and that seemed to be the vector of sheer chutzpah that I found so often amongst the yogis and yoginis I have known. It also exists amongst the ordinary Tibetan people - whereas in the West it's often the so-called intelligentsia who make a virtue of depression. Take Woody Allen for example - some people find him funny...
KD: I'm afraid I don't find depression and despair funny. And I'm not saying this because I don't appreciate Western humour which looks at the negative aspects of being human - I find John Cleese hysterically funny in 'Fawlty Towers'.
R: I appreciate the tragic both in opera and blues. I value a great deal in terms of Western creativity, so I simply find her statements unacceptable as a reflection of the reality of Tibetan culture. It seems to me that many of the statements I remember from your reading of the article are as naively positive about Western culture as she must have been originally about Tibetan culture. Neither culture, however, can be regarded as innately superior, and Dharma can flourish in both. Of that I am completely certain.
Q: The next line that stood out for me was her suggestion that 'sincere spiritual seekers return to themselves and appreciate the good aspects of our own culture in order to achieve spiritual satisfaction'.
R: It's hard to know where to start with a comment such as this. What, for example, does it mean to return to yourself? That is what we do continually in order to justify ourselves.
KD: Perhaps it would be better if she really returned to her own culture and took up the Christianity or Judćism of her parents or grandparents. But maybe that would be too demanding in terms of 'spiritual satisfaction'...
R: That is quite likely. Christianity and Judaism are also not as accommodating in terms of allowing people to be special and unusual - so interest in these religions would require more humility than is perhaps available.
Q: I can't help thinking that her phrase 'spiritual satisfaction' once again sounds as if she's talking about some sort of business transaction: 'I failed to experience spiritual satisfaction; I want my money back'. The next comment really surprised me - she describes His Holiness the Dala'i Lama as 'the most progressive of all Tibetans.' What do you think that means?
R: It's hard to say. I do not know how the word 'progressive' is being used. When I was young 'progressive blues' meant that it had gone electric. I think that progress - in Western terms - relates to things like scientific and sociological advances. It is not fitting that I comment on His Holiness the Dala'i Lama in this or any other respect - what is more to the point is how this idea reflects upon the author of the article in question. As I recall from your reading, she quotes His Holiness the Dala'i Lama in the context of world-wide social concerns, rather than spiritual issues. In this context the question of democracy is highly pertinent - especially with regard to the Tibetan people and the Chinese occupation of Tibet. It is obviously important for people to discuss such issues. There is not much more I can say on that subject as my knowledge of politics is severely limited.
Q: The next quote I have for you is '... lamas are sure they know best, and will likely not be impressed with your own speculations or reflections about spirituality.' It sounds as if she wants Lamas and their students to be in some sort of chummy discussion group 'sharing' their ideas and insights with each other as if they were all equally interesting and valuable.
R: Our five year old son Robert often likes to tell us his ideas about reality - and it's really quite charming and delightful to hear.
KD: Why would a brain surgeon be interested in unqualified untrained speculations and reflections on the best way to remove a tumour? I'm sure brain surgeons are also sure that they know best - and I'm sure that we also know that they know best, otherwise we would not have sought their help in the first place.
R: Yes... If you go to a Lama for instruction - particularly in the context of Vajrayana - you are obviously in a position in which you know precious little about the subject and are assuming that the Lama is someone who knows more. Also - if a Lama does not know fundamentally that he or she 'knows best', then he or she should not be accepting students. I think that the author is attempting to inculcate some kind of 'we're all in it together' ethos - as if democracy had any application to spirituality. Democracy has its place in the ordering of mundane human arrangements such as governments and food co-ops - but it has as little place in spirituality as it does in science. You can't vote about the nature of scientific discovery, as if the majority were right. "OK folks which is it to be? Flat earth or round earth - cast your ballots." This whole issue of democracy - I believe - is a means of creating a knee-jerk response in people. Accuse Vajrayana of being against democracy and it will upset people. Let me make this very clear: Vajrayana has no issue against democracy in terms of the way in which it is employed to order human affairs. But it has no place in the relationship between a Lama and his or her disciples.
Q: She seems to feel that there is some problem at the level of human freedom, though. She says: 'Buddha, presumably, was an individual, who through the exercise of his own mind, found freedom. Yet Thinley Norbu criticizes Americans for having "freedom habit". Must we choose between Buddhism or freedom? Perhaps in some brand of Buddhism appropriate to a feudal system, peasants do not ask these questions. Americans, however, would probably choose freedom, and thereby, I believe, true dharma as well.'
R: Not quite The Gettysburg Address - but a rousing speech nonetheless. There are several points here. Firstly, when Dung-sé Thrin-lé Norbu Rinpoche commented on 'freedom habit', I understood him to mean just that: the habit of having to be free. The habit of having to be free is not freedom. I can choose the freedom to have my entire body tattooed. I am free to blow my brains out with an eight-gauge shotgun. I am free to damage myself in countless ways and to engage in any manner of idiocy I choose. I am also free to accept discipline in order to change. If I want to lose weight, I am no longer free to eat whatever I want and as much as I want. So as to 'Must we choose between Buddhism or freedom?' - this is a manipulative construction - an artificial choice. The answer, if we have to answer it, is that those who take Refuge choose both. Discipline of any kind requires the temporary relinquishment of freedom. Even to engage in silent sitting requires that we temporarily relinquish the freedom to engage in some other use of our time. To get married is to relinquish the freedom to have other relationships - yet no one who is happily married would say that was an imposition on their freedom. I could go on. This whole idea of freedom is another red herring to decoy the unwary. My Lamas never trapped me in any way. All the vows I took, I asked to take - and my Lamas asked me to think seriously before taking them.
The second point is that it is not so simple to describe the cultures of those countries which followed Vajrayana Buddhism as feudal and their inhabitants as peasants. Take this quote from an inhabitant of Golok:
To advice of strangers we will not hearken. Nor will we obey ought but the heart with which each Golokpa enters the world. This is why we have remained as free in the past as we are now. We are slaves of none - neither Khan nor Dala'i Lama. Our tribe is the mightiest in the land of snows, and it is our birth-right to disdain Chinese and Tibetans. We regard them both with contempt.
This hardly sounds like a downtrodden peasant - yet this man was also devoted to his Lama.
Q: Is there a reference for that Rinpoche - that I can quote?
R: Yes... it comes form a book called 'Civilised Shamans' although I cannot give you the chapter or page. I have seen it quoted elsewhere too. Traktung Rinpoche once quoted it as well when he was talking about Golok and the family history of DoKhyentsé Yeshé Dorje - so what I have quoted here is probably a hybrid version from various sources.
KD: I imagine this may be a surprising quote for many Western people - in terms of common ideas about Tibet - but it illustrates the fact that it is not feasible to describe Vajrayana as suitable only for 'feudal peasants'.
R: The final point is that Dharma is true freedom and that to artificially separate them is merely another of the author's ploys to disparage Vajrayana.
Q: She talks at one point about lack of inspiration and says that 'We should be careful about adopting a world view that equates the outer world with ugliness and evil (samsara) and which urges "retreat" into "meditation" as the only refuge from a doomed existence.' It sounds as though she has about as much understanding of Buddhism as the Pope, when he wrote that book about how Buddhism was negative and anti-life.
R: Yes - and Dung-sé Thrin-lé Norbu Rinpoche addressed that issue extremely precisely - in his book 'Welcoming Flowers', so there is no reason why anyone should be unaware this life-negative view is utterly inaccurate - especially someone who studied with Gyaltrül Rinpoche, and would therefore have read this book.
KD: It was published in 1997 - and written in highly accessible English - so we can really say that this life and world negative issue has been concluded.
R: Yes - and into the bargain, this is a person who has received transmission of Dzogchen Trek gCod? I find that implausible. The equal purity of samsara and nirvana is fundamental to Dzogchen teaching. Also fundamental to Dzogchen teaching is Lhundrüp - the meditation in which everything is integrated into the non-dual state. If it is true that the author has received teachings on Dzogchen, then all I can assume is that she is deliberately ignoring every aspect of the teachings which do not suit her argument. This is a typical manœuvre in political polemic - but not one which gives rise to sympathy or respect in terms of spiritual integrity.
Q: And I suppose Surya Das must have been aware of this when he praised this piece of writing. There is another point I forgot to mention. When I compared Mrs. Carreon's article with the interview with Alan Wallace, I found that she had not quoted him accurately in various places - and that her misquotes always seemed to serve the purpose of furthering her argument.
KD: Can you give us an example?
Q: Yes - it's when she quotes Alan Wallace as saying that 'The finest lamas are now refusing even to come to the west..." Alan Wallace does not say that - what he says is: 'So a few of the finest Lamas are now refusing even to come to the West.'
KD: I think at this point we have probably addressed all we need to address.
R: I think you are absolutely right. There is little more that can be achieved by giving this material any further time. It is said that if one argues with a fool one becomes a fool oneself - so maybe if one argues with a political manipulator one has to enter too far into their world. I am sorry for whatever pain this lady has experienced - but I do not believe that she will help herself by taking the course she has adopted. I believe that if she were actually through with Vajrayana, that she would be getting on with her life. If she has now discovered happiness - why is she wasting her time writing about her pain? She may feel it benefits others, and if that is her intention then that at least is good in some way - but I find it slightly hard to believe that she does not realise that what she has written will be disturbing and hurtful to the many good people who have no problems with their Lamas or their spiritual home in Vajrayana Buddhism.