Letters and Statements

Public statement by the monks community of H.H. Gyalwa Karmapa at the International KARMA KAGYU Conference.

Venerable Rimpoches, Respected Khenpos, Dear members of the Karma Kagyu Sangha, Very distinguished guests.

We, the monk-community of Rumtek Dharma Chakra Centre extend our sincere welcome to all of you and thank you for attending this conference.

We have decided to hold this conference mainly because of specific extraordinary recent developments which have to be urgently discussed, considered and resolved by the entire Karma Kagyu Organization. Thank you for your presence, which we highly appreciate.

During the last centuries there always existed 4 main separate and independent schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Even after 1959 they succeeded to exercise and to maintain their spiritual and also legal independence in exile. Recently however H.H. the Dalai Lama has seriously endangered this long established good tradition to protect and preserve the rich diversity of the Tibetan Buddhist Faith.

The late 16th Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the undisputed spiritual leader of the Karma Kagyu School, repeatedly had to defend the special qualities of the teachings of his school against frequent interference's of H.H. the Dalai Lama. At the end of the day these attacks were in vain and unsuccessful. But as a direct consequence H.H. probably began to develop an unsurpressable animosity against both, the independently minded 16th Karmapa and the Karma Kagyu School. Regrettably the Dalai Lama continued and even increased his subversive activities against the Karma Kagyu School after Karmapa had passed away in 1981.

At first we only experienced very harmful activities of a certain high Kagyu Rimpoche, who obviously had totally discarded his loyalty and respect for his own School. This Situ Rimpoche misguided many honest people, bribed numerous officials and closely associated himself with thieves and gangsters who committed serious crimes including murder. We, therefore, never had a choice but had to defend our school against these malicious attacks. We did so by rejecting all political and non-religious influences and strictly confined ourselves to the pure practice of our religion. We actively avoided all potentially harmful confrontations and always worked hard to further improve the good image of Tibetan Buddhism in our world. This compassionate and peaceful reaction to the sometimes rather vicious attacks of Situ Rimpoche and his associates served us very well until now. Therefore it is not surprising at all that the international community, political leaders, human rights groups and the international media, did not even know about our very existence in the past. We considered the stated problem to be an extremely unfortunate and highly regrettable but internal issue of our Karma Kagyu School into which outsiders should not get involved. Recently we discovered however that H.H. the Dalai Lama, who is not a member of our school, had actively directed the said activities of Situ Rimpoche from the very beginning. This shocking discovery is the reason for this public statement.

In close cooperation with Situ Rimpoche H.H. the Dalai Lama secretly directed the false recognition and enthronement of a Karmapa in China, thus successfully creating a split in the Karma Kagyu School. Since ancient times shrewed politicians always tried to divide and rule their opponents and potential competitors. In this respect H. H. is no exception.

Until recently we always wondered why H.H. the Dalai Lama never publicly condemned the violent and hostile take-over of Rumtek monastery in Sikkim in August 1993. At that time Situ Rimpoche had successfully bribed some powerful officials of the Sikkimese administration, who in return gratefully organized the violent take-over of the monastery and expelled all Karmapa’s loyal monks by force. Immediately afterwards they handed the control of the monastery over to Situ Rimpoche.

Meanwhile we analysed H.H’s activities towards our school and resolved that he is motivated by his deep disappointment and dislike of the late Karmapa, who always strongly resisted H.H's numerous attempts to bring the Karma Kagyu School under his control. He had this basic disagreement with the Karmapa, who strongly upheld the spiritual freedom and independence of his school.

We are now making this public statement, although we are aware of the Dalai Lama’s excellent reputation in the western world.Many honest private persons, great teachers, politicians and eminent statesmen have been genuinely impressed by the unusual strong personality of this "simple monk". Also due to the Dalai Lama’s religious activities the pure buddhist teachings of nonviolence, compassion and love are becoming more and more popular in our today’s world. In this respect we sincerely acknowledge the most outstanding contributions of H.H. the Dalai Lama. At the same time we realize however, that many admirers of H.H. the Dalai Lama either do not or do not wish to distinguish between his pure religious teachings and his political activities. Many supporters of H.H. have not noticed the subtle influence of Hollywood’s frequent presentations of Tibet as a spiritual paradise and of the Dalai Lama as an absolutely faultless, holy man. On this background his long, political fight against the legal communist government of China even enhanced his carefully crafted image as a gallant defender of democracy, freedom and human rights. In particular the media in many western countries such as the USA, Germany, France and others often just follow the popular, well established trends and opinions without making their own proper investigations and judgements of the complicated underlying realities of Tibetan affairs.

Due to his deep-rooted opposition to the late 16th Karmapa H.H. the Dalai Lama searched and found a small number of unhappy Rimpoches within the Karma Kagyu School who were willing to secretly support his ambitions. Thus the traitorous Situ Rimpoche and his men became willing participants of H.H.’s scheme to divide and conquer the Karma Kagyu School. H.H. took a great risk by openly disclosing his previously secret leadership of Situ Rinpoche's group now. But obviously he had to make that disclosure now because he finally noticed that Situ Rimpoche alone had no realistic chance of success with his destructive schemes against us.

We wish to emphasize that we never had and do not have any intention whatsoever to tarnish the reputation of H.H. the Dalai Lama as a religious leader. In that capacity we do respect him very, very much. But after H.H. openly disclosed his leading role in Situ Rimpoche’ s group we are forced to take a firm stand. His close association with the highly questionable Situ Rimpoche, who had happily enjoyed a very special relationship with China and who was banned to enter India for good reasons in the past, is most deplorable indeed. As we sincerely respect our own spiritual leader, the Karmapa, our first duty is to protect and preserve the authentic, special teachings of our Karma Kagyu School. Therefore we cannot agree at all to H.H.’s preposterous claim to be the authorized person to enthrone the Karmapa.

The conference is scheduled to debate this issue and to resolve this delicate problem in the most effective way, if possible.

At the same time the conference will also serve all interested parties as a valuable source of information regarding Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhism in general.

-----------------------------------------------
Khenpo Choedrak Tenphel, Ngendo Rimpoche Kathmandu,
15th March 2001.