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An Interview with Victor and Victoria Trimondi (Germany)
By James C. Stephens
September 11, 2003
Stephens: This September 11 on the second anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, the keynote speaker at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. was not the American evangelist Billy Graham, but Tenzin Gyatso, better known as the XIV Dalai Lama, the exiled God-King of Tibet. Accompanied by five Tibetan Lamas from his New York Monastery, he officially began with Buddhist ritual chanting followed by a talk to an audience of 7,000 on “Cultivating Peace as an Antidote to Violence.”

Our interview today from Germany is with Victor and Victoria Trimondi, who previously worked to promote the Dalai Lama’s message in Europe. They are co-authors of a critical European bestseller entitled The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism.

How did you first come to know the Dalai Lama?

Trimondi: We first met the XIV Dalai Lama in the eighties and became friends while publishing his writings in our publishing house, Trikont-Dianus-Verlag. While organizing international conferences with him and other famous speakers on interreligious and intercultural topics and specifically securing governmental level invitations to Germany and Austria for him, we began to seriously explore Tibetan Buddhism. However, after many years of extensive study and reflection, we seriously questioned some of the fundamental tenets of the Tantric Buddhism the Dalai Lama professed and eventually became one of his sharpest critics.

Stephens: Today, the Dalai Lama was warmly received by the Christian clergy of the National Cathedral who invited him as the keynote speaker and allowed him to perfom his religious rituals with several Tibetan Buddhist lamas on the second anniversary of September 11. How should we as Americans view his visit?

Trimondi: Frankly speaking, the Dalai Lama has two faces. He makes his official contact with the West under the maxim of Mahayana Buddhism and then deftly assimilates the highest values and ideals of western culture (Christian, Jewish and humanist). On his present trip to America he has met with Muslims like Mohammed Ali, Jesuits at the University of San Francisco, political leaders from Republican and Democratic persuasions, and then will comfortably meet with ethicists and scientists at MIT and Harvard.

Through diplomatic tolerance he wins Agnostics as well as the hearts of unsuspecting Jews and Christians, to whom he preaches in the tongue of “a man of peace” and as a human rights activist relates passages of “compassion, love, and non-violence” from the “Sermon on the Mount.” Nearly all of the speeches the Dalai Lama delivers in public are extremely tolerant, human and compassionate. You can only agree. And yet, there is another face that peeks out from behind the mask of goodness, charity and kindness, which gives one pause to think more deeply about the shadow of this “man of peace.”

Stephens: I understand what you mean. I recall attending his press conference at the 1993 Parliament of the World Religions in Chicago and being somewhat stunned by his response to a journalist’s question, “Have you studied the life and teachings of Jesus?” He commented about the Tibetan Bible translation in the 1930’s and then said, “I learned something reading these books, but I learned a more deeper way from my personal friend, the late Thomas Merton.” Although it revealed that he had a relationship with a Catholic, it also showed at that time another side to me that he didn’t have much feeling for Jesus or for the Bible. In light of your first book, The Shadow of the Dalai Lama, could you spell out your concerns about his “shadow side” and his forays into the West from your experiences in Germany?

Trimondi: The XIV Dalai Lama, the God-King of Tibet is the highest representative of Tantric Buddhism, established in Tibet in the 8th century, A.D. Tantrism, the last stage in the history of Buddhism (since the 5th century A.D. in India) is based on ritual and magic formulas. Not unlike other religions it also has “skeletons in its’ closet” which it carefully conceals as a guest in the Western world. Tibetan Tantrism is a belief in spirits and demons, secret sexual practices, occultism, mind control, and an obsession with power. In contrary to every democratic custom, the present Dalai Lama consults with the Nechung Oracle, a monk who is possessed by a Mongolian war God, on all important state decisions.

What primarily concerns us about the interreligious ceremony in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. is the level of naivety in the West. For the past 25 years, the Dalai Lama has quietly performed the Kalachakra Tantra (“The Wheel of Time”), the highest of all ancient Tantric initiations for tens of thousands of spiritual novices in the West; introducing Tantric ideology, secret sexual practices, and magic rituals integrated into the context of his religious-political worldview. Critical voices have been raised, while he continues to secretly transmit the Kalachakra’s prophetic vision of the establishment of a universal Buddhocracy (Shambhala) in which spiritual and worldly power are united in one person, the “world emperor”(Chakravartin), wherein other religions will no longer exist.

Stephens: Samuel Huntington, Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard warned in 1993 in his essay on The Clash of Civilizations that, “What ultimately counts for people is not political ideology or economic interest. Faith and family, blood and belief are what people identify with and what they will fight and die for.” In light of this what is your concern about the ideology that the Dalai Lama is promoting in the Kalachakra Tantra?

Trimondi: In the Kalachakra Tantra is prophesized the establishment of a Buddhocratic Empire, a clash of civilizations will arise as the military forces of Buddhism wage war against the armies of non-Buddhist religions. Murderous super-weapons possessed by the Buddhist Shambhala Army are described at length and in enthusiastic detail in the Kalachakra Tantra Text (Shri Kalachakra I. 128 – 142) and employed against “enemies of the Dharma (Buddha’s teachings).”

Over the last five years in the German speaking countries, these shadow-aspects of Lamaism have lead to a vast, steady and increasing stream of criticism in the media. During the Kalachakra-Initiation of the Dalai Lama last year in Austria there were very controversial debates on TV and Radio Stations and Press Media. The internationally well known newspaper “Der Standard” published an article entitled “A Warrior Ritual with the Dalai Lama: The Kalachakra”. The German Weekly of Christian intellectuals “Der Rheinische Merkur” entitled an article: “What is hidden behind the Kalachakra Tantra? Supremely ferocious warriors!”

Stephens: Who are these non-Buddhist enemies spoken of in the Kalachakra Teachings? I’ve seen articles in the Buddhist magazines the Shambhala Sun and Tricycle about Lamas dressing up in military uniforms. I thought Buddhism was a peaceful faith?

Trimondi: The secret text of the Kalachakra explicitly names the “leaders” of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as the opponents of Buddhism: “Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mani, Muhammad and the Mahdi” describing them as “the family of the demonic snakes” (Shri Kalachakra I. 154). The final, Armageddon-like battle (Shambhala war) ends in the total victory of the Buddhists. The official Kalachakra-Interpreter Alexander Berzin openly compares the principles of the Islamic “Jihad” with that of the Shambhala war. As in the Islamic martyr-ideology Shambhala-Warriors, who will be killed in the last battle have earned passage into the [Buddhist] paradise.

The military scenarios in some Buddhist Centers such as the Shambhala training camps of the deceased Lama Chögyum Trungpa, have until now only a symbolic meaning, and yet they are interpreted as a spiritual preparation of the prophesized great Shambhala War. In the imagination of some Lamas all participants in a Kalachakra initiation have the questionable privilege of being reborn as “Shambhala Warriors” in order to be able to participate in the coming apocalyptic battle either as infantry or officers, dependant on rank. High lamas of particular lineages have already been assigned to commanding positions in the future.

Stephens: Of late, the scandal of sexual abuse among Catholics and other Christian clergy has hit the news. I recall that a number of years ago, we spoke to members of Dharmadhatu in West Hollywood who openly mentioned that their founder Osel Tenzin had knowingly infected many of their members with the aids virus and that nine lamas had died in Boulder, Colorado. We were humbled by their vulnerability on the subject. They obviously felt terribly violated. Another Christian woman we met in Seattle who was formerly a sexual consort to a local Tibetan lama was so severely wounded by her experience that she would not even speak of it in detail. On October 5 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art an exhibit entitled, “The Circle of Bliss-Buddhist Meditational Arts” opens the largest Tantric Art exhibit in the Western Hemisphere. What should the public be aware of about the dangers of sexual practices of Tantric Buddhism?

Trimondi: The sexual practices of Buddhist Tantrism are not to be confused with normal sexual abuse by some Lamas. The latter also has been a great problem in the Buddhist communities, which were rocked by scandals caused by such prominent leaders as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of Colorado’s Naropa University, who was accused of having sex with his women students. In 1993, 21 Western Buddhist teachers met the Dalai Lama in India and issued an open letter that lamented various teachers’ “sexual misconduct with their students, abuse of alcohol and drugs, misappropriation of funds and misuse of power.” The group urged believers to confront teachers and publicize their misconduct.

Here in Europe, one of the most well known and discussed cases involved the Scottish Buddhist June Campbell and the attempt of her teacher, the most honorable eighty year old Lama Kalu Rinpoche, to misuse her sexually. The 10. February 1999 headline of the British newspaper The Independent read: “I was a Tantric sex slave.”

But Campbell shows also in her confessional book Traveller in Space that the sexual misuse of women is not only a blameable attitude but that it is a central part of the Lamaist Tantric religion. The sexual magic practice exercised by a Lama with a woman has the specific goal to transmit the erotic and female energy into the spiritual and worldly power of the male partner. Such sexual rituals are the core of Tibetan Buddhism. Also in the secret higher initiations of the Kalachakra Tantra sexual magical rites take place. The ritual texts can be interpreted symbolically or real (!). Both are possible. The originals say that eleven-year-old girls may be used as sexual partners.

Stephens: Shocking! Especially in our society where so much sexual abuse of children is being exposed in religious circles. That public money is being appropriated to promote this in the name of culture is of great concern, especially as many children go on field trips to these exhibits. Another concern in America has been the rise of the Neo-Nazi movement. I understand that you have since co-authored another bestseller on the influence of Asian religion on the foundational ideology of Adolph Hitler. Evidently, this has unleashed quite a debate in Europe. What’s the cause of the controversy?

Trimondi: In our historical essay “Hitler – Buddha – Krishna – an Unholy Alliance from the Third Reich to Today” we show that the warlike and racist ideas of Heinrich Himmler of the SS and of other well known Neo-fascists have been fundamentally inspired by elements of different Asian religions, such as Vedism, Buddhism, Lamaism and that prominent German Zen Teachers-Dürckheim & Herrigel have been convinced Nazis.

It’s really shocking, in the “SS-Ahnenerbe” , which was the academic brain trust of the SS, that its’ Chief Heinrich Himmler, was openly engaged in ongoing discussions with the most distinguished German Orientalists of his time in the construction of a new Indo-Arian Nazi-Religion. After WW II this discussion was continued by prominent neo-fascist ideologues. Both of our books have stimulated a great discussion about the ideological sources of religious fundamentalism and about the clash of civilisations.

Stephens: I recall attending the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in 1996 when the Dalai Lama was awarded “The Simon Wiesenthal Peace Prize” and the director equated him with “Aaron, our man of peace.” What should the Jewish community be concerned about in light of your research on his connections with Nazism?

Trimondi: It is a fact that the Shambhala War Ideology of the Kalachakra-Tantra has led to aggressive behaviour, megalomaniacal visions and conspiracy theories both in the history of the Asia as well as in that of religious fascism and neo-fascism. Already in the SS-Ahnenerbe, where Heinrich Himmler’s Nazi-Religion was born, there was an interest in the contents of the Kalachakra-Tantra. The influential fascist and cultural philosopher Julius Evola saw in the mythic world of Shambhala an esoteric centre of a sacred warrior race. This vision is today still firmly anchored in the religious ideas of the international far-right movement. That alone makes it necessary for the Dalai Lama to distance himself clearly from the war-mongering Shambhala Myth.

Instead of this he has cultivated friendly contacts with people such as the ex-SS men Bruno Beger (convicted as helping to murder more than 86 Jews) and Heinrich Harrer, author of Seven Years in Tibet (a chronicle of his experience with the Dalai Lama over seven years prior to his exile to India). The Homepage of the Government of Tibet in Exile www.tibet.com/Status/statement.html shows the XIV Dalai Lama between Bruno Beger on his right and Heinrich Harrer on his left. Beger has been a member of the famous SS-Tibet Expedition organized by the SS in 1938/1939 whose primary goal was to find traces of an ancient, lost indo-Arian religion in the Himalayas. Some occult leaders in the SS were convinced that Tibetan Lamas are the key holders of these Indo-Arian Mysteries. Beger is highly respected by the Government of Tibet in Exile as a chief witness for the political independence of the country in the 30’s and 40’s of the last century.

Nearly unknown until now are the contacts of the Dalai Lama with the French SS-collaborator, convinced anti-Semite, recognised Orientalist and Kalachakra Tantra Expert Jean Marquès-Rivière (in his absence convicted and given the death sentence for turning Jews over to the Gestapo in France). The founder of an esoteric Hitler movement the ex-Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano (promoter of an extremely racist SS-mysticism, which is based on Tantric practices and on the idea of the Shambhala Warriors) met the Dalai Lama four times.

Well known became his relationship with the Japanese terrorist, Shoko Asahara, whom he described, even after the Tokyo sarin gas attacks, as his “friend, albeit an imperfect one”. Only later he did distance himself from the Guru. Asahara’s Doomsday Philosophy was mainly influenced by the Shambhala Ideology and by Tibetan Tantrism.

Stephens: It seems that this ideological discussion is being raised globally. For us in California, it is quite relevant in light of the California recall and recent political attack on “Terminator” candidate Schwarznegger’s Austrian Nazi connections with Waldheim. But after probing more deeply we understand that he’s actually one of the largest contributors to Holocaust Awareness education and the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance. I was concerned however, about the uncritical acceptance of the Dalai Lama at that ceremony, understanding some of the connections he has with prominent Neo-Nazis.

Trimondi: Yes, it is astonishing why the Jewish Community is so uncritical vis-à-vis the Dalai Lama. On 09.04.03 the Swiss Newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported, that the Tibetan religious leader said on a journey in Jerusalem,

Hitler would also have the potential of a good man in himself. Hitler was not born as a wicked man, his hatred of the Jewish people made him malicious and this hatred must be battled. But this doesn’t mean that there was not also lying dormant some Goodness in Hitler. A wicked man can be tomorrow a good man, said the Dalai Lama. For this we have to fight.

Also if such a statement can be interpreted as an expression of Buddhist compassion, it seems tasteless remembering the murdering of six million Jews by the Nazis and the death of millions and millions of war victims on the account of Hitler’s madness. There would be a worldwide protest, if for example the Pope or a Western statesman made such a sympathetic remark on the most prominent mass murderer in human history, especially if such a remark is done in Israel, where many survivors of the Holocaust and their children are living.

Stephens: And then there’s the Hollywood connection. Exactly, what is so attractive to the Dalai Lama about Hollywood?

Trimondi: Hollywood films are the most powerful vectors of fantasy ever known to humankind. So the extensive and well known connection of the Dalai Lama with the film world and with famous actors and actresses is certainly an effective propaganda instrument. Since the nineties, Tibet, the Tibetan God King and Tibetan Buddhism have been glorified by the most prominent film-directors, neglecting even a minimum of critique of Tibet’s feudalistic and bloody past controlled by a despotic monk aristocracy with absolute power.

Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Little Buddha” or Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun” are constructions of a virtual Tibet, which never did exist. Even the ancient anti-Nazi tradition of the American film-fabric was broken, when Jean Jacques Annaud brought out “Seven years in Tibet”. This film with Brad Pitt is a mystification and hero worship of the former SS-man Heinrich Harrer who in the forties became the teacher of the young Dalai Lama. In his book Virtual Tibet (2000) Orville Schell details the “incredible” story of one of the most effective delusions in the film world: The Tibet Fantasies of Hollywood.

Stephens: I remember running into Richard Gere at the Wiesenthal Museum Peace Prize presentation and discovered that his Foundation has financed the building of over 300 sand Mandalas throughout the continental US. What exactly is a sand Mandala? Do these Monk’s Mandala tours have some other purpose than an art display? Why should we be concerned?

Trimondi: A Mandala is a sacred pictogram; one also can call it a “magic circle”. It is an instrument to evoke the gods, goddesses and demons of the Tantric pantheon. For a modern Western approach, in which religion and arts are not yet unified, the Mandala is a work of art. However, in the Lamaist tradition where there is no difference between the aesthetic and the sacred and where art is always sacred art, the Mandala is a spiritual power vortex, an assembly point of gods and demons, a palace of the divine, a spiritual battery from where powerful energies are radiating. It is also connected with the Lamaist idea that the place, where the Mandala is erected, stands under the absolute control of its divine or, we would say, demonic “inhabitants”.

The intricate Mandala, constructed during the Kalachakra Ceremony, is made with coloured sand and symbolizes the whole universe. At the end of the ritualistic performance the sand construction will be destroyed by the Tibetan monks. The so called “dismantling” of the sand Mandala symbolizes the destruction of the world and of the universe. This is part of the apocalyptic Doomsday Scenarios in the Kalachakra prophecies which culminate in a final battle and the End of our planet. Nevertheless the construction and destruction of the Mandala is presented by the Dalai Lama as a contribution to world peace.

Although one would desire to believe in its peace producing energy, realistically one has to accept, that the construction of this magic circle after more than 25 years in the West has brought no more appeasement to the people than it did in Tibet which has suffered much. The aggressive and terrorist energies have become more and stronger in our world and the clash of religions has become an everyday-problem in politics. Is it not evident that the construction of 300 sand Mandalas throughout the U.S. you are speaking of has not contributed peace to this country? History on the contrary has proceeded in the opposite direction and is on the way of destruction and war.

In our studies it was alarming to find that following the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 a Wheel of Time (Kalachakra) Sand Mandala was built in the lobby of Tower One. For over thirty days, many of the World Trade Center workers and visitors were invited by the Tibetan Monks to participate in the construction of this Mandala. When the Dalai Lama visits New York in the next days, we would ask: Why the terrible event of 9/11 could happen at the World Trade Center that was consecrated by the so called “Circle of Peace,” the Kalachakra Sand Mandala, the same mandalas that were unable to prevent the destruction of 7500 monasteries of Tibet? In this context a sentence of the Tantra expert and Indian scholar Shashi Bhusan Dasgupta may be remarkable: “The word Kala means time, death and destruction. Kala-Chakra is the Wheel of Destruction.”

We just did find in the Internet a statement of a participant of the WTC Kalachakra Ceremony, which seems really revealing especially because it is made by an initiand of the Tantra: “The topic shifted to the Kalachakra Mandala that was made at One World Trade Center. I was at the dissolution ceremony there, may be around ‘96. The monks gathered up all the sand from the Mandala at 1WTC, put it in a vase, then carried it across the bridge into World Financial Center through the Winter Garden, then dumped the sand ceremoniously into the Hudson River for the sake of World Peace. The surface of the river glittered with the afternoon sun, and I cried. 5 years later, the whole building is gone, just like the sand Mandala.”

In contrary to this, Robert Thurman, the “academic godfather of the Tibetan cause” (Time Magazine) saw a dream (September 1979) the Dalai Lama as an absolute King and Kalachakra God reigning New York City. “The night before he [the Dalai Lama] landed in New York, I dreamed he was manifesting the pure land mandala palace of the Kalachakra Buddha right on top of the Waldorf Astoria building. The entire collection of dignitaries of the city, mayors and senators, corporate presidents and kings, sheikhs and sultans ,celebrities and stars—all of them were swept up into the dance of 722 deities of the three buildings of the diamond palace like pinstriped bees swarming on a giant honeycomb. The amazing thing about the Dalai Lama’s flood of power and beauty was that it appeared totally effortless. I could feel the space of His Holiness’s heart, whence all this arose. It was relaxed, cool, an amazing well of infinity” Thurman did interpret this dream as a prophecy.

Stephens: From your experience in the Kalachakra Debate in Europe and your observation of mass media’s romantic portrayal of Tibet, what are the potential dangers to other faiths, including Buddhism and democracy of this growing Shambhala myth?

Trimondi: Tibetan Buddhism, like the New Age of the eighties appears to be the “trendy religion” of the new millennium. But it is much more than the charismatic appearance of the Dalai Lama and his speeches about compassion, peace and happiness. The danger lies in that the Kalachakra Tantra ritual subtlety builds an ideological foundation for a future “war of religions.” If the problematic contents of this archaic belief are not openly discussed, they may present a dangerous ideological challenge to the positive legacy of Western Civilization and Democratic institutions. There is also no doubt that the Kalachakra ideology proposing the establishment of Buddhocratic rule, a universal Emperor (Chakravartin) , violence, the licence to kill and the waging of a Buddhist holy war are in direct opposition to the original peaceful teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha. Concerning this discrepancy between the aggressive contents of the Kalachakra Tantra and the original peaceful Dharma, taught by the historic Buddha, we have formulated Eight Questions to the Dalai Lama.

Stephens: Serious talks of the Dalai Lama’s return to China before the Olympics are beginning to leak into the media. How will this impact the future of the West?

Trimondi: We are really uneasy, if you ask us, as to what may potentially happen if this “Buddhist-Jihad-Ideology” of the Kalachakra Tantra will become a new vision of the Chinese political self-understanding. Will the much more peaceful and softer philosophy of Daoism and Confucianism be replaced by the “Shambhala Warrior Doctrine”, which was once propagated in thirties by the Japanese Shinto-Fascists to mobilize the Mongolian minorities of Manchuria and West China? If the present situation in Europe is any indicator, we must say that we are alarmed as we witness the rising interest in Germany of Fascist, Neo-fascist and Nazi-intellectuals and in Asia of a terrorist like the Japanese Doomsday Guru Shoko Asahara in the ideological concepts of the Shambhala War of the Kalachakra Tantra. This should be a Menetekel, that the “writing is on the wall” as a major wake-up call for the West.

Friday, May 27, 2011

New Study Suggests “Born Again Christians” Have Smaller Brains?

Thank you to Brannon Howse for his show today which discusses a newly released study that makes the startling claim that born again Christians have “smaller brains” than their Protestant counterparts who do not claim to have had this spiritual experience. The study, which was conducted by Duke University Medical Center, ruled out depression as a contributing factor and assessed 268 adults over an 11-year period. According to the USA Today article which ran this story on 5/27/11, the study:

“found an association between participants’ professed religious affiliation and the physical structure of their brain. Specifically, those identified as Protestant who did not have a religious conversion or born-again experience — more common among their evangelical brethren — had a bigger hippocampus.”

Christians today seem to be the last group that it is acceptable to demonize, but articles such as the one cited above are not new strategies. Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood, widely known for championing women’s rights, was also a racist who advocated that blacks ought to be sterilized for the “purity” of the Caucasion race.  Hitler despised the Jewish race to the extent that he came up with the “Final Solution” which he implemented in his attempt to exterminate them from the earth.”

MY REPLY: So, let’s say my brain’s smaller than my Protestant counterparts. Does it just make Him more precious as He uses the humble to confound the wise? I love the quote by Jim Eliot, “He is no fool who gives what he can not keep, to gain what he …can not lose.” Or the aft quoted statement “If I’m God’s fool, who’s fool are you?” When I think of all this brain measurement stuff, I often think of how the Dalai Lama and his group are specifically becoming increasingly engaged in mind sciences. Mind control. I think of secular teachers who were attempting to discourage little Johnny in his class who believed in the Bible. The teacher said, “Johnny, it wasn’t the Red Sea, it was the Reed Sea they walked across and it was only two feet deep.” “Wow!” Little Johnny replied. “God destroyed Pharoah’s Army in just two feet of water!” Yes! Unless you have the faith of a child, you can not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. What is my MA and all my honors and a big/small brain if I choose to go my own way and not the way of our Master Yeshua? When I was at USC and prayerwalking the campus, I was struck by the verse of Scripture carved on the philosophy building, “He that loseth his life, shall keep it unto life eternal.” Basically, what does it profiteth a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Universities like USC have forgotten their founding principals. What drives us? What is our core motivation? Should it not be “To serve the LORD YHWH with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourself?” To give God the Glory?

Welcome to Los Angeles.  You’ve seen his smile on Apple Billboards along the Santa Monica Freeway. Think Different! He wears Gucci Shoes, sports a Visor like the USC Trojan Football Coach, talks like Yoda and has a bad case of the giggles. So, for question number one. It’s getting around dinner time here in LA and that means only one thing, It’s time for Jeopardy!We’re the trivia capital of the world here. So for $500 let me ask you,  “What seven year old king did FDR give a Rolex to in 1952?”  If I haven’t already given the answer away in all those clues, you should go back to start. Or is that Monopoly? Yes, the one and the only lovable CIA agent from Tibet,  on his annual Spring tour of the United States, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso.

I personally had no clue he was coming, until a notification popped up on my LinkedIn account about a BIOLA University Professor I know whose profile mentioned that he had been the Co-Director of the MIT Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values! I was shocked. Wait a minute! Then I discovered that the same Center was a co-sponsor of the upcoming talks of the Dalai Lama at the University of Southern California which was originally founded by the Methodists.  I emailed the Biola Professor in the School of Intercultural Studies, who I was relieved to find was never a member or associated with the organization. It was mysteriously posted to his profile.

The Dalai Lama will be conducting the Highest Yoga Tantra in Long Beach on May 1, two talks at UCLA on May 2, two more talks at University of Southern California on May 3, followed by talks at UC Irvine on Wednesday, May 4.

They’ve been busy building sand mandalas in preparation for his arrival. They built one in the Memorial Chapel early in April at the University of Redlands which was originally founded by Baptists and also home to the CS Lewis Institute, and another mandala on the 33 degree parallel in Encinitas at the Seaside Center for Spiritual Living. After its dissolution on Easter Sunday, they distributed a portion of the dissolved sand mandala’s “ritual sand” to paying patrons and dispersed the rest into the Pacific Ocean to “bless the ocean and its creatures. The sand mandala in Long Beach will be begun on Thursday, April 28 at the Terrace Theater and will be dedicated to Chenrizig, a manifestation of Avalokitsevara, the Patron Deity of Tibet, believed to indwell the XIV Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.  On Tuesday, May 3, Tibetan Lamas will begin their ritual to build another sand mandala at UC Irvine dedicated to Chenrizig’s consort, White Tara, a Tibetan Buddhist goddess,who is said to have emanated from the reified compassionate tears of Avalokitsevara. She is also known as the Mother of all Buddhas being built just in time for Mother’s day! Does anyone else see the operational paradigm of the Tibetan Buddhists? I recall hearing Tibetans at the Seventh International Buddhist Christian Dialogue talk about the mandalization of politics.  Albeit at Hsi Lai Temple, the same temple where former Vice President Al Gore, a crypto Buddhist, received illegal campaign contributions from Taiwanese Buddhist nuns.  Since, I’m on the subject.  I’m not quite sure I read the LA Times Correspondent Morris correctly, but she seemed to say that Robert Thurman, the Dalai Lama, and Al Gore were going to make a film on the Quest for World Peace along the lines of Inconvenient Truth.  Some speculate that the Free Tibet Movement has almost run its course and that they want to redirect that energy that focused on Saving Tibet to Saving Planet Earth. Slick. I’ve wondered if the Dalai Lama was going to visit his home in Santa Barbara and talk with Al Gore at his new home about the new documentary before he flies off to the University of Minnesota, SMU in Dallas, and to receive a doctorate at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville, founded by Fulbright, mentor of Bill and Hillary Clinton.  Btw, last time the lamas built a sand mandala there they mentored two Fulbright scholars teaching them how to make a sand mandala as well. “Do not imitate the detestable practices of the nations.”

He’s done Larry King Live, probably will do the Brit soon, maybe he’ll ask him what he thinks about the royal wedding, how to treat your bride. Wait, he’s not married.  Oh, that never stopped him from giving advice to 20,000 women at the California Woman’s Conference hosted a few years back by Maria Schwarzenegger where he received thunderous applause when he suggested that we need to introduce values and ethics to our youth, without of course religion! And then he taught the women how to meditate, which of course is secular.”  You’re getting sleepy…, sleepy.  Drink the kool-aid.

Sarcastic? A bit. Why? Tired of pop culture and everyone putting their brain on hold.   The Tibet wave has crested and the Dalai Lama is doing his victory lap. What do you mean? Well, since you probably won’t take my twelve session on Worldviews101.com course, I’ll give it to you in a nutshell.   The other day, a leading Free Tibet spokesman, who needs to study his own brand of Buddhism,  said it has been in Tibet 2600 years.  Not really. Tibetan Buddhism is a migrant strain of Tantric Buddhism which  arrived in Tibet in the 7th Century AD. That’s, let’s see, about, ah, give or take,  1300 years ago? The iconoclastic Muslims who believed in ONE GOD, basically obliterated their idols in India, defaced the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, because they really believed in the commands not to have any other gods before Allah, the Name for the Muslim God.  Interestingly, the Tantric Buddhist adept, “shaman”  Padmasambhava, flies into Tibet, a Chinese territory.  The Indian Tantric systems were a sophisticated system utilized by kings to institutionalize pluralism by assimilating indigenous cultures over a period of eighty or more years  conquering them philosophically and physically through ritual. You may recall that the original Buddha was from the “warrior caste.”  It was said, he was skilled in war.  Tibetan Buddhists say that the Kalachakra initiation which is the ritual initiating devotees into a literal Tibetan Buddhist Shambhala Kingdom, originated with the Buddha himself.

So what? Well, those rituals happen to be tied to a colorful seemingly harmless art object called a sand mandala.  It so happens that those mandalas are not so innocent after all.  In fact, the Tibetan lamas do many rituals prior to their construction in order that they do not themselves get possessed by malevolent demons, or so I was told by lamas at the Pacific Asia Museum many years ago.  One look at a mandala map of the United States, including all the buried tantric “peace vases” gives you a cozy little feeling like our country should be doing very well since they’ve all been buried in our lakes, mountains, state parks, state capitols, sacred sites, etc.  We should be the magical world of Shambhala where mystical flower blossoms drift down on the earth and rain falls so lightly, not even a clod of earth is broken. No fires, no tornados, no floods, no droughts, no economic distress.  Everyone is happy in the new Shambhala Empire. We all now believe in World Peace, there is no such thing as jihad.  Don’t listen to those weird researchers who say that Tibetan lamas would sacrifice their enemies and mix their blood with those beautiful butter sculptures as part of a sympathetic magic ritual to gain power over them.  Those type of things just don’t happen anymore. Right? Mmm.  Do I know something you don’t about their plan? Do they have a plan for conquering the West? One that is done under the banner of peace?  On July 6, 2011 the Kalachakra Ceremony will be conducted in Washington, DC by the Dalai Lama. The same Kalachakra sand mandala, a magic circle that was built in Tower One of the Trade Center in New York City, will be the same one built in Washington, DC.

So,  beginning on April 28, 2011 in Long Beach, a sand mandala dedicated to the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet, their god-King, will be built at the Terrace Theater in preparation for a special high level ceremony called the Highest Tantra Ritual for Tibetan Tantrik’s to be conducted by the XIV Dalai Lama.  The vortex gate is being opened on the West Coast. Maybe I’m kidding.  Mmm.  I earlier read that the sand mandala being built in Long Beach was dedicated to Yamantaka, the god who destroys death, the fierce defender of Buddhism.  Btw, Yamataka is the guardian of the West Gate of the Kalachakra Mandala, a blueprint of the Shambhala Empire being constructed in July in WDC.

How quaint. I can see a “Far Side” cartoon caption now. “Being a lover of fine machinery, the Dala Lama naturally fell in love with his Rolex watch.”  Any student of “Harry Potter” must know that machinery is but another name for witchcraft. A simple Tibetan Lama, also known as the Time God, wearing his Rolex and sporting a visor visits Tommy Trojan at USC. A University whose new President Max Nikias in his inagural speech believes is “the epicenter of global influence belonging in the pantheon of world class universities.” A University leading the way in the global pacific age “engaging in the pressing debates of the day” leading the “ongoing rebellion against the conventional order of things as we help individuals create limitless possibilities for themselves.”  A University that will fulfill the “Destined Reign of Troy.”  Strangely, while proudly pointing to their diversity and entrepeneurial roots, their is no sign of even a nod to their founding fathers, the Methodist Conference of Southern California.

“President C.L. Max Nikias established the U.S.-China Institute in 2006 to focus on the multifaceted and evolving U.S.-China relationship. The Institute reflects the university’s commitment to fostering path-breaking research in the broadly defined field of U.S.-China relations and aims to be among the world’s most influential voices on the many issues involving U.S.-China relations.”

“The USC Student Interfaith Council is deeply honored to host His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, who embodies the religious pluralism and interfaith cooperation which we stand for,” said Interfaith Council President Sarrah Shahawy. “We anticipate that his visit will greatly enrich our USC community and enliven our discussions on interfaith dialogue, social responsibility, and spirituality and science.”

Well, here, the diplomatic rubber meets the road. Three things can happen. (1) “The Dalai Lama comes and goes like he did in 1989 when he spoke at the Shrine Auditorium across the street from USC. Everyone,  politely looks the other way, saving face[By the way, his English has improved quite a bit when I heard him speak there with no security stations. I gave him a copy of the Gospel of Matthew in Tibetan. He rolled down his limo window and took the copy I offered him. I used to attend Buddhist general meetings at the Shrine when I was a Buddhist for fourteen years); OR (2) OR the Dalai Lama-Student Interfaith Council,-US-China Institute discusses the transition privately; OR (3) The “proverbial yak dung may hit the fan.”  It’s hard to say.  There are always wildcards. The only one missing is Hu Jintao.

This trip of the Dalai Lama to the United States represents one big difference. On Wednesday, April 27, the new elected leader of Tibet is supposed to be announced.  This trip, he can honestly say, well, sort of,  “I’m just a simple Buddhist monk.”  Oh, I didn’t mention earlier that President Obama recently gave the Dalai Lama a copy of the original Letter that FDR sent to Tibet along with a letter introducing him to two American spies, I mean representatives,  addressed to his “pontificate”.  I guess that my statement then is not too far off when I call him the “pluralist pope.”

Prior to the Dalai Lama’s arrival on Sunday, May 1, the Dalai Lama’s frontman, Columbia Professor Robert Thurman, actress Uma Thurman’s father, and called the Billy Graham of Buddhism in America,   will be speaking in Santa Monica at Eli Broad Stage on Saturday, April 30.  It’s a small world. I remember as a Buddhist, filling in one day as his chaffeur for Paul Diamond, one of my members who was Broad’s chaffeur. Little did I know that he was to become the wealthiest philanthropist in Los Angeles as a result of his development business Kaufman and Broad.  “Pick up three newspapers on your way to his house. You’ll drive his Jaguar to the UC Regents meeting in Long Beach.  Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.”  At least that’s what I remember.  Now, who’s opened the doors to the Dalai Lama in the United States? Senator Diane Feinstein, then Mayor of San Francisco. I recall the political ad which featured her standing with  a statue of Avalokitsevara, the patron Deity of Tibet, aka the Dalai Lama in the background, pictured over her right shoulder. She married Richard Blum, the Director of the Himalayan Arts Foundation. Their marriage was blessed by the Dalai Lama god-king in Dharamsala, India. Blum  is now the President of the UC Board of Regents and introduced the Dalai Lama last year when he spoke at the University of California at Santa Barbara at the invitation of Professor Jose Ignatio Cabezon, the Department Chair of the XIV Dalai Lama Chair of Tibetan Buddhist Studies.  Hmm. Maybe Universities are the Left’s Seminary.

And practically every member of the US Congress and President G.W. Bush when they awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal.  The Nechung Oracle, the “demon-possessed” Tibetan shaman who the Dalai Lama consults on all important state decisions was hosted and introduced by the chaplain of the US House of Representatives to one the Christian leaders in Capitol Hill.  Are the Gatekeepers of our nation asleep?

This Passover I read with concern the passage in the Second Book of Kings where Elijah says to the King via his messengers, “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? (2Kings 1:6-8).”  Isaiah the prophet, proclaimed the Word of YHWH, “O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray, and confuse the direction of your paths” (Isaiah 3:12b).   Remembering the Commands of the LORD, “Do not turn to idols, and do not make for yourselves moulded mighty ones. I am YHWH your Elohim” (Psalm 19:4).  Remember, the blesses and curses in Deuteronomy chapter 28 that are appointed to those who chose to either obey YHWH or to fall under the curses written in His Torah if they walk in paths they call their own.

And on May 9th, the Dalai Lama will be a speaker at Southern Methodist University, home of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, where he’ll receive the Hart Foundation’s Global Leadership Award.  I sadly remember that First Lady Laura Bush after 9-11,  desired to see the Bamiyan Buddhas restored that were defaced by the Taliban.

According to LA Times correspondent Nomi Morris, ” Thurman is optimistic that autonomy will come to Tibet, under Chinese President Hu Jintao or his successor. The Dalai Lama “does not expect to die in exile,” Thurman said.”

Morris continued, “Thurman has written 20 books related to Tibetan Buddhism and in 2008, the year China hosted the Olympics, published “Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet and the World,” which outlined a 10-point plan for China to make Tibet an autonomous region under a “one country, two systems” model.”  It may be an interesting turning point in the history of Tibet or China or the United States. I guess that some perceive that the Dalai Lama is the lynchpin of US-China Human Rights Relations.

The Words  of Prophets of old still hold true, “New gods were chosen, and then the enemy was in the gates.”

DATE: March 08, 2011

FROM: James C. Stephens

RE: Proposed Disney’s New Series Title~Good Christian Bitches

TO: DAVID

I’m a bit perplexed about the title of your series. Is it a PR scheme? Are we as Christians really that predictable? So predictable that you’d play off our boycott tendency to market your product? I sometimes wonder what goes on in production and marketing meetings at Disney.

I’m sorry that you’ve found so little material to work with. Is creativity that limited a commodity?

I’m not really that angry. I’m more saddened. Seriously.  I wonder what Walt would think? WWWD?

In reality, the book sounds like an interesting and convicting documentary, remedial indictment and corrective of cultural Christianity in the South. It is sad that women would use prayer as a social means to dig up more gossip. It’s a scenario that plays itself out on many religious, atheistic, agnostic, and secular playing fields across America.  I remember as a Christian openly sitting in on a Buddhist meeting in West Hollywood and hearing them self criticize their system and  teacher Osel Tendzin who had given AIDS to a number of women followers before his death and the tragedies that befell their community. It’s a problem for all of humanity regardless of one’s religious or secular background. The awful decisions we humans make that inevitably affect entire communities.

I don’t envy your position as an entertainment executive as you make decisions as to which program to launch hoping as a business to make a profit. As a teacher we do carry a moral responsibility on our shoulders as we influence those who are in our class, or in your case with those who will watch your program. I loved the fact that Johnny Depp made Pirates because he wanted to make a film that his kids could watch. Novel idea that family entertainment.

So what to do with this hot potato? Does it have a redemptive purpose? I recall talking with a professor at USC sometime ago about a personal trial that my family had faced and the Christian stance we’d taken not to sue the other party who had wrongfully taken advantage of us. Her response was, “That’s why some people sue Christians because they know they’ve been taught to love their enemies, turn the other cheek, and rarely ( at least in the past) do they sue. So, how would a Muslim react to your series? A Buddhist? A Jewish neighborhood? I guess that’s why I don’t understand the title of your series. I suppose if it addressed them all in a kind of equal opportunity fashion that would be more like the Simpsons. But from the lead PR for your show it seems that the knee jerk reaction coming from  the Christian community might be “Why is everybody always picking on me?”  Easy target?

It just makes it harder and harder for me to talk to my conservative Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian, Hispanic Christian friends who dismiss the media as immoral. It’s difficult to defend Hollywood as an industry which has seemingly become more like the self indulgent French Court of old. The people don’t have bread? Let them eat cake!’ type attitude.  For my family who are and have been engaged in media, it hurts. For a fan whose grandfather James Montrose worked on Warner Brother’s Sound Team for the first talkie the Jazz Singer, or as Tony’s cousin, Wally on Leave it to Beaver, I feel  the remaining balance of human decency in Hollywood is running low. In times like these, we need not kick one another, but to remember we are all part of the same race. The human race.

I thought the lesson our nation learned from the recent events in Arizona to be quite clear. Tone down our rhetoric. Think about how our words and actions affect others that are not so inclined to be civil.  What is the lesson for Hollywood? Even wise men make mistakes. After John MacArthur, Jr., the Executive Pastor of Grace Community Church spoke out frankly and sincerely about Islam on Larry King live, his life and his family’s lives were threatened and he had to hire special security to protect his family. I’m not saying that we should not be able to engage in free speech or to seriously discuss religious differences. That is the beauty of a free society. It also carries with it a great deal of responsibiility.

Sincerely,

James Stephens

Looking for credible investigative insight on the Dalai Lama, my eye caught sight of a line in a book summary of award winning journalist Tim Johnson’s Tragedy in Crimson-How China is using its economic power around the globe to assail the Free Tibet Movement which read, “He also takes a sympathetic but unsentimental look at the Dalai Llama (spinc), a trendy figure in the West who is regarded as a failure to his own people.”  Unfortunately, the talk was pretty much in sinque with the XIV Dalai Lama’s seemingly impervious and teflon reputation.

Upon my arrival at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute talk, I spent a few minutes ransacking his book. To be fair,  I wasn’t able to give it a thorough read.  I did however want to get an idea of where he was coming from prior to his talk.    For the last twenty-two years I’ve read more than my fair share of articles on the XIV Dalai Lama and have seen that far too many “journalists”  simply rely on standardized boilerplate to meet their deadlines, with notable exceptions like  Pico Iyer http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/the-doctor-is-within/ and Orville Schell http://asiasociety.org/policy-politics/center-us-china-relations/china-planning-necessary’.

When I read that Tim Johnson had trekked to nomadic settlements seeking their perspective on a changing Tibet and that he’d accompanied the XIV Dalai Lama on his tour of the United States, I expected less travelogue and a bit more exotic dish.

He started with the simple rendition of pop cultural mentions of the Dalai Lama in the Sunday LA Times crossword puzzle, or on the new film “Social Network” recently nominated for an Academy Award, or when his face appeared on the larger than life Apple billboards alongside LA Freeways, or in the classic comedy  “Caddyshack.”  Johnson mentioned in his credentials that he was not a Buddhist, nor was he a follower of the Dalai Lama. I gleaned from Tragedy in Crimson that he served as McClutchy’s Beijing Bureau Chief and that his grandfather had been a missionary in China.

One of the things that struck him during his sit down interview with the Dalai Lama was the Dalai Lama’s statement, “I sort of assume that as the XIV Dalai Lama that I’m going to live longer than the Totalitarian system maybe by 5-10 years. The one party totalitarian system has an expiration date.”

Johnson believes that “the Dalai Lama’s opinion matters. He is a universal moral figure like Martin Luther King or Gandhi in India.”

“Why is he important to us,” he mused.  “The way Tibet as an issue is addressed by China is very telling. China’s “give no inch style” with the Tibetans today, maybe Vietnam or Japan tommorrow.  In twenty years it could even be you or I in the US.”

He sketched out Tibet’s importance to China in terms of its size, including areas influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, such as Inner Mongolia to encompass upwards of 42 per cent of China’s landmass and valuable repository of copper, zinc and iron ore, not to speak of the fact that as the world’s “third pole” her glaciers and peaks serve  as the headwaters of seven great rivers.

He mentioned that in China’s hot-cold relationship with India, Tibet serves as a buffer zone between the two nations. In many ways, Tibet as manifest in the Dalai Lama, finds itself in a sense in the position of a historical linchpin between the two great emerging nation’s.  But, Tibet has adeptly played this role for hundreds of years.

Tim Johnson momentarily lapsed into a travelogue mode with one major distinction, rarely seen footage of the three hundred fires in the Lhasa riots.  Obviously, he’s seen much in his time in China. He seemed awestruck by the pace of change he witnessed in China from the window of his office in Beijing where he said, within three blocks of his office, thirteen hi-rises were constructed nonstop, by three shifts of workers numbering over 50,000 working around the clock, displacing more than nine villages and 9,000 residents in less than two years.

One of the audience asked about the destruction in Tibet resulting from the Cultural Revolution. His take on it was that it was no worse than in any other part of China.  Others asked about the contemporary situation based upon his field observations. He said that as Tibetan nomads have been forced to resettle in small villages, they are obviously no longer are able to function as their economy has historically been based upon their utilization of yak’s for everything from fuel,  milk, meat to their valuable hides for yurts,  their ancient mobile home. (to be continued)…

Q: What makes the Dalai Lama so popular with the America public?

A: Good natured Americans have been raised on “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” always fighting for the underdog, the oppressed.

I recall talking with a Tibetan Buddhist initiate we’ll call Robert from Arkansas who was attending an event led by the Dalai Lama in California.

He said, “I believe in the goodness of man and trust everybody implicitly. I find peace in Tibetan Buddhism that I didn’t find in the Assemblies of God.”

When asked, “Do you believe in God?”

He said, “Yes. I pray to God everyday.”

When asked if he believed in what Jesus taught he said, “I believe He was the Son of God and also everything he taught. Except I don’t believe a good God would send people to hell.”

When asked, “Don’t you as a Buddhist believe in hell?”

“No.”

“Then aren’t you practicing your own private brand of Buddhism?” we asked.

“Maybe I am.”

Was Robert a bad guy? No. He has been looking for peace in his heart, a practice to get there. He hadn’t rejected Christ totally, just Christianity.

He didn’t run away from us, he wanted to talk. He confessed he wasn’t a good debater. My heart broke. He has embraced what I call an “illusionary projection” of what he thinks Tibetan Buddhism is.

However, as in the justice system, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” When we stand before the judgment seat of God, we are tried alone, unless we have embraced Jesus Christ as our redemption, our sure defense.

We told Robert as a spiritual pilgrim, there is just too much at stake not to seriously probe what he professes to put his hope in.

Paul, a Jewish brother who professes belief in Jesus Christ asked Robert,  “Can I pray and ask God if He has a word for you?”

Robert consented.

Paul gently and compassionately relayed the message,

“God is saying, ‘Robert, come home. Robert, come home.’”

It becomes more apparent that the Western embrace of Buddhism is postmodern in essence. One of the most famous lines of cinema hero Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones” was delivered when he was facing a crisis and was asked what he proposed the best course of action would be. He said, “I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.”

It’s obvious Robert is a nice trusting American guy. Like so many, he has followed the path of the crowd of pop-religious seekers who have made willful, but ill informed choices.

This New Year’s Shabbat, I picked up John Bunyan’s Prayer. As you may know, he was the author of Pilgrim’s Progress which he wrote in prison.   I think the 12 point list on prayer is worth sharing.

“1. Believe that as sure as you are in the way of God, you must meet with temptations.

2. The first day therefore that you enter into Christ’s congregation, look for them.

3. When they do come, beg of God to carry you through them.

4. Be jealous of your own heart, that it deceive you not in your evidences for heaven, nor in your walking with God in this world.

5. Take heed of the flatteries of false brethren.

6. Keep in the life and power of truth.

7. Look most at the things which are not seen.

8. Take heed of little sins.

9. Keep the promise warm upon your heart.

10.Renew your acts of faith in the blood of Christ.

11. Consider the work of your generation.

12. Count to run with the foremost therein.

Grace be with thee.”