Karmapa Residence Raided

H. H. 17th Karmapa in Bodhgaya

I had no plans to write another blog entry until I returned from Mexico in March from working on editing our film about the Karmapa and the Kargyu Monlam with my friend and co-director Fernanda Rivero.  In the early hours of the morning I came across this link to bad news that had been posted on my facebook page by my friend Ani Jimba. http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx? Here is another link written by a Tibetan, Lobsang Wangyal, on the same story sent to me by my Maia Christensen another filmmaker and  a member of our filmcrew. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ieiw094Xh9SXZ9Up97

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This is very sad news regarding the further infringement on the rights of H. H. The 17th Karmapa and his lack of freedom. It seems it was not enough to keep this “Buddha” locked away in his monastery in India but now the government has decided to confiscate funds that have been donated by his devotees. Funds that he was planning to use to build a monastery near Dharamsala. After posting a link on facebook to one of these articles David Stone, after reading some of the comments regarding taking this in as practice, making prayers, etc., commented “Yet, we also have a danger of separating the two truths by veering toward the absolute and ignoring the relative truth. We can’t ignore the practicalities” I agree with this and would like to share my own thoughts on the issues at hand.

I think it is important, as David mentions, not to separate the two truths. Last blog entry I quoted Tsokny Rinpoche saying during one of our interviews in Bodhgaya – “If you cannot bring the two truths together as a unification it is very difficult to understand Dharma, it becomes black and white – relative solid, ultimate nothing.” 

But this does not mean we can not take intelligent action or that we have to wait until we are enlightened to act in the world.

The Karmapa has been very patient with the Indian government and the “Tibetan government in exile”. He has basically remained silent on many issues for all these years. He does not see himself as a political figure although he finds himself in the midst of political intrigue on the stage of world politics. In Bodhgaya, when asked about all this talk of him taking over for the Dalai Lama if he retires or passes away he said point blank that he has no intention of taking over that role. That he is not a political leader and has too much else to do spreading the Dharma. I have just spent the last month and half filming His Holiness and the Kagyu Monlam along with several genuine people who are students of HHK who are taking action and doing things in this so called “real world”, this relative world. Some are working for the environment, so our working for school children and the sick, some our helping animals.

By nature I am not a political person and spend, at least according to my wife, too much time sitting on my ass on a zafu. This habit of mine goes all the way back to the days of the Vietnam war where I probably went to only one peace rally that I can remember – I was more content sitting on my hippy bliss while someone like Daniel Ellsberg, who had a conscience, may have single handedly stopped the Vietnam war by exposing the “Pentagon Papers.” 

The Karmapa himself said in Bodhgaya that “I like to take action and share my bodhicitta with others, not keep it inside” (this is a paraphrase).

This whole deal in India is a very murky situation and while we were filming in Bodhgaya I spoke to many people close to HHK and others much more deeply involved in Indian politics and the politics of the CTA (Tibetan Government in Exile) than I will ever be. I wonder how the Indian government could ever hear or find out that a monk was on the way to Gyuto with donation money for The Karmapa and his monastery plan.  Many rumors abound about who has what to gain within the Tibetan and Indian governments concerning keeping Karmapa’s freedom impaired. Who was behind the cancellation of His European tour? I don’t have the answers to these and so many other questions. 

This is a good subject for another documentary, not the one we are making at present.

I do feel from my personal experience that His Holiness The 17th Karmpa is very frustrated with his condition and his lack of ability to continue to spread the “activities of the Buddhas” as is his namesake. Why does any government have the right to keep a political exile hostage? And we are not talking about any refugee, for my money, we are talking about the Buddha of our time. We know from past examples that once the truth is spread to the public things can change. We saw this with the “Pentagon Papers”, with Watergate and the impeachment of Richard Nixon. If the truth had come out early enough about the lies of Iraq, 9/11 and the so called “weapons of mass destruction” President Bush would have been impeached. 

We have recently seen the freeing of Aung San Suu Ky. Once lies come to light and the truth is exposed many things can change. If you don’t believe in this there is no need for reportage or even reading the newspaper or watching the news on TV. You might as well go into life-long retreat. (I am not trying to say anything is wrong with that – its an option).

In this day and age of materialism almost every powerful nation is kissing the butts of China and India who are taking over the world with their cheap labor, their huge populations and in China’s case their ownership of the debt of reckless over-spedning, over-consuming nations like the U.S. The gulf between rich and poor is growing daily. Even considering the dismal reality of our current political world stage I believe if every one of us who is connected in some way to His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje spreads the word of this abuse of human rights and religious freedom and writes to the leaders of there respective governments something might change. Anyway as HHK himself has said, “its not good enough to sit in your shrine room thinking that is all there is to Buddhist practice. There is too much suffering in the world and you need to get out and do something.”

This is why the working title of our upcoming film is “Never Give Up”. In Bodhgaya the Karmapa said “Never give up on sentient beings.” Is this not the bodhisattva vow so many of us have taken?

Karmapa's Residence at Gyuto Monastery, India