 Dearest Friends @ CAS,
 Selected portrait for
"Desecrating the Dharma"
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We will like to deal with a touchy but necessary matter in this Special Issue, namely that of an exhibition of alleged relics of Lord Buddha, the Enlightened Lord for Buddhists world-wide: the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Blessed One.
We felt obliged to clarify the matter, regardless of how awful things have already turned out to be, and how potentially nasty things could become for us, the society at large and definitely for the Dharma.
Questionable Advertising
A self-proclaimed incarnation of the great Bodhisattva - Guan Yin or Chenrezig - bombarded Singapore with thick, colourful booklets ( snail mail ) and big posters slapped into anywhere that fits ( bus-stops / MRTs / malls ). They blared of ( Again !! After an absence of about 1 to 2 years !! ) tempting coloured pills, they boldly pressed us to believe, were relics of the Buddha's saliva / blood / brain / bones and what not !!
The obvious hard-sell begs the question of why it is characteristically so UN-Buddhist but instead so reminiscient of strands of certain fundamentalistic Abrahamic tribal codes !!
Questionable "Relics"
No Buddhists could recall any exhortation by the Buddha to fully equate happiness with worshipping Him .... much less, relics claimed to descend from Him and of truly unclear origins: historically / scripturally or otherwise !!
The big problem here is that there is not one single Buddhist scripture which has mentioned about the Buddha having left relics of saliva / blood or brains. There has never been any historical references, however weak, hinting about the existence of such relics. The blatant claims have confused and shocked indeed many Buddhists world-wide and has prompted not a few Buddhist umbrella organisations in many countries to distance themselves completely from the party hosting this event.
The so-claimed hair of the Buddha has also been twitched between human fingers in front of TV cameras to show how divine it is because it could quiver by itself ( gasp !! ) and also because it could swim like a cute tadpole in mug of water ( gasp again !! )
Questionable Funding & Backers
Dark rumours of links with shady figures in communist China are not completely dismissed to account for the massive funding for their ambitious campaign. For decades, fundings from political quarters have indeed been pouring into Chinese occupied Tibet to re-build either Bon ( the shamanistic, pre-Buddhist religion ) or the shugden-tainted temples in wicked bid to split the Tibetans ( the old war strategem of "divde and conquer" lives on !! ) and to water down the influence of the Dalai Lama as He is THE Tibetan Buddhist Leader and not "Bon" and definitely not with shugden. So constructing shugden temples and Bon temples will gradually side-step the Dalai Lama's traditional leadership .... nice plan !!
Oops .... lets not forget another nice idea of funding Tibetan Buddhist centres all over the world .... but to support the shugden related ones. They will come in useful as another weapon against the Dalai Lama !! You see, the name has only very recently been switched from "Chinese Gelugpa XXX" ( they have used this name in their centres all the world over ) to "Kadhampa.com"
To be fair, we acknowledge - unreservedly - that there has never been published proofs of the identity of their sheathed bed fellow, but, again, the rumours and suggestions are strongly compelling. Some more, neither sides have never openly denied their "patron-priest" relationship and some of the shugden "lamas" have received more than their lion's share of photo-ops with Chinese leaders ( eg: Gangchen and gang with Jiang Zemin & other post-communists ).
In this grand charade, one is tempted to question who is the puppet and who gains more from the show !!
PROVEN Dishonesty
Most Venerable Denma Locho Rinpoche, one of Tibet's most respected hierarchs, received an apparently innocent request for a short audience. Having received easily a few thousand requests for audiences a year, Locho Rinpoche's secretary acceded to what appears to be yet another devoted audience for blessings, naming of new-borns or scriptural clarifications.
What ensued spurned completely out of imagined sacrileged. The self-proclaimed incarnation of Guan Yin or Chenrezig ( the main organiser of this brazen circus with his oh-so recognizable little stub of goattee ) popped deftly into Locho Rinpoche's room, flashed one sample of his claimed "relics" across Rinpoche's eyes, lashed out his limb to grab Rinpoche's blessed palms and gruffly commanded his attendants to snap pictures upon pictures from every angle !! The subsequent nightmare was flooded into the literally millions of booklets and posters: Denma Locho Rinpoche recognized these thousands of coloured balls as Lord Buddha's saliva, blood and brain relics; applauded his relic world-tour and in short, approved and loved him as the recognized incarnation of holy Chenrezig !!
When the matter bombed-shelled, Locho Rinpoche's office issued an open clarification to His literally hundreds of thousands of disciples, both lay and monastic, and also to His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Private Office, that He has NOT endorsed anyone as Chenrezig incarnate nor affirmed any archaelogically unproven pellets as the venerated relics of Lord Buddha, the Enlightened One.
Despite every attempt to get this party to stop making misleading claims in relation to Locho Rinpoche ( they have been duly informed !! ), this time round, they continued with their dirty deception by re-publishing pictures of Rinpoche and the goattee man, lying about how Locho was head over heels with their enlightened activities and how lovely Locho Rinpoche considered his absurd pellets to be !!
Traditionally, acts and depths of such scale are attributed very long rebirth in the most terrible of hells and this time, we are truly concerned for their well-being !!
The deceptions are not just to this purest of masters ( ie: THE Most Venerable Denma Locho Rinpoche ), the lies they spinned are bringing them the crowds of innocent, undiscerning public, full of faith in Lord Buddha and His teachings. Very unholy for them, too, these innocent souls will be offering their hard-earned cash where they shall pour into yet soon another campaign of flashy posters and screaming booklets and of how "Happiness" shall come to those who worshipped their small, funny balls.
Unfortunate After-taste
1) ALL Buddhists will be further, eagerly by some, blackened as strange ball-worshippers: superstitious / shamanistic / mediocre / medieval / pitiful ( !! ). This will effectively embolden assaults on the pure Dharma and help convince hordes of innocent youngsters that rock-bands in other houses of worships are definitely more cool than kow-towing to strange balls, a practice they saw with their own eyes, advertised as "Buddhists" and the "Buddha's" !!
2) The Buddha's teachings could be re-oriented ( if these guys are successful enough !! ) into worshipping of "relics", whether true ones or suspicious ones, instead of purposeful and doctrinally sound emphasis upon the Three Higher Trainings of Ethics / Meditation and Wisdom. In short, it could detract Buddhists from REAL Dharma work and practices and genuine relics ( say from archaeologically verified sources in ancient Taxila / Bodhigaya ) of the Buddha could be snubbed and dismissed ....
"Amituofo !!"
bb & all friends in CAS, forever dedicating for good to triumph
p/s:
See their event: http://www.kadhampa
See their roots befoe they re-invented themselves:
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