Dalai lama letters
Letters: WHY WE WERE PROTESTING THE DALAI LAMA
Philadelphia Daily News, 29 Jul
THE DALAI Lama visited Philadelphia the other day to talk on religious freedom and human rights. How ironic it was that outside the Kimmel Center, where he spoke, hundreds of Buddhists protested against him for restricting religious freedom.
In relation to a particular Buddhist prayer banned by the Dalai Lama, John Ackerly, president of the International Campaign for Tibet, states that the Dalai Lama simply believes it “inadvisable and that people can worship it or not.”
This is not the case. The Dalai Lama has condemned this 400-year-old Buddhist prayer which he himself used until he was 50.
The Dalai Lama’s actions of discrimination accelerated earlier this year, when he initiated and endorsed an aggressive campaign against the practice. This resulted in the immediate expulsion of 900 monks and nuns from their monasteries.
I am a Buddhist nun and a member of the Western Shugden Society (westernshugdensociety.org), an organization of Buddhists from various traditions throughout the world who are deeply concerned by this problem.
The purpose of the Western Shugden Society is to bring the Dalai Lama’s hypocrisy to the attention of the public in the hope that millions of Buddhists will be able to live in peace and harmony again. For this reason we protested in Philadelphia this week and will continue to protest around the world, wherever the Dalai Lama is scheduled to perform.
Kelsang Pema
Buddhist Nun
Western Shugden Society does not necessarily endorse views expressed in this article.