The Shadow of The Dalai Lama PDF
Victor Trimondi
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The Shadow of the Dalai Lama. Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism. Hardback—February 1, 1999
German Edition by Victor Trimondi (Author) Victoria Trimondi (Author)
http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Index.htm
© Victor und Victoria Trimondi
THE SHADOW OF THE DALAI LAMA
Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism
Translated by Mark Penny
Since „The Shadow of the Dalai Lama“ has been put into the internet (2003) many other websites have begun to publish copies of the book or of parts from it. We declare that every reproduction of the text which is not allowed by us in a written form is illegal. We reserve our right to legal measures and indemnity claims. We disclaim any responsibility for the illegally published copies. © Victor und Victoria Trimondi |
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Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Der Schatten des Dalai Lama. Sexualität, Magie und Politik im tibetischen Buddhismus.
From the United States
William Bagley
5.0 out of 5 stars An In Depth Critical Analysis of Tibetan Spiritual Culture
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2006
The authors have gone through several phases mentioned in their online autobiographies. This book is a product of the "Culture Critical" phase where the different spiritual, political, and social (as an interrelated set) cultures are critically evaluated. One aspect of their analysis is to see how the social institutions apply the philosophical or theological ideas which form the culture and to see if those ideas and they are applied honor woman, promote egalitarean and democratic ways of interacting, and offer perspectives that help humans grow further through the challenges of our time period.
The book looks at Tibetan Buddhism and the spiritual views that deify the Dalai Lama. They provide in depth view of the Kalachakra teachings and quote a vast array of writings about Buddhism from many sources. The number of references at the basis of their research and analysis is very impressive and large. They point out some themes that have been overlooked in the mystique built up around Tibetan Buddhism in the west. They show the apocalyptic side of the Kalachakra teachings and how it is filled with violence images and has final clash between believers and nonbelievers, how females are symbolically sacrificed in Tantric rituals, and how certain visualizations seem to hypnotically make the Lama into an authoritative diety in the mind of the students.
While perhaps many of these teachings and images can be interpreted in different ways, I feel the authors raise important questions and require us to take a critical look at what we might be buying into when we accept the Tibetan Buddhist worldview. It may be at the expense of certain hard won values that were gained in western civilization through a long historical road, many revolutions, and a lot of philosophical questioning. The authors give enough information and quotes for us to make up our own minds about some of these issues. Whether or not we agree with the authors, I feel the issues that they raise are important for us to consider.
As a practicing Buddhist, I do not feel that the authors represent an antibuddhist propaganda but a serious questioning into what Tibetan Buddhism may be offering to us. The Buddha himself in his final words admonished people to question everything and to not believe something merely because of authority, heresay, and tradition but to thoroughly question everything and only hold on to what makes sense in your own reason and experience. I feel a healthy Buddhism invites this kind of critical questioning and such questioning is therefore honoring of the kind of philosophical, ethical, and psychological integrity that keeps any religion healthy and growing. Such inquiry, to me, is therefore highly respectful. It shows in the enormous research that the authors did in order to create this book. I found a lot in the book that helped clarify things that helped my meditation go deeper and become truer to my actual experience.
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Review Guy
5.0 out of 5 stars A Firecracker
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2006
I was raised, and to some extent remain, a Buddhist. I admire both Tibetan Buddhism, generally, and the Dalai Lama specifically. Nevertheless, I found this book fascinating and absolutely essential reading.
On one level, this is just a jaw-dropping, sensational page-turner. I read the whole book in one sitting, and repeatedly had to call my wife into the room to tell her about one aspect of the book or another.
On another level it is a deeply important text. Too often, in approaching Eastern wisdom traditions, Westerners "check" their individuality "at the door," in pathological submission to the guru or lama. Too often, this leads to an abusive/exploitative spiritual relationship (e.g Osel Tenzin, Adi Da). This potential has been noted by many commentators, but the extent to which it is a tendency latent in Tibetan Buddhism has never been explored in the West. The authors of this book make the case that it is a danger inherant in Vajrayana properly understood - it is not a misinterpretation. I am tempted to compare this book to "Darkness at Noon," Arthur Koestler's classic re-appraisal of Communism, from the perspective of a former devotee. But, rather than heralding the end of an ideology, this book represents the beginning of a cultural watershed: the critical appropriation of Buddhism in a uniquely Western incarnation. If dharma is the East's cultural gift to the West, the sort of skepticism that infuses this book is the West's gift to the East. As Einstein said: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Most importantly, reading this book was, for me, a spiritual experience. The one thing I had never questioned in my life was the essential goodness and correctness of Buddhist dharma. It was the last fixed point of belief in my world. This book cast even that in doubt, leaving me in a wonderful state of spiritual detachment. This was itself enlightening. As the Zen proverb says: "If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him." This book does just that. And I think Gautama Buddha would have approved.
(An English translation of this book is -as far as I can tell- not yet available in print, but several Internet sites have the full text. Google and enjoy.)
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Sile Shigley
1.0 out of 5 stars Blatant propaganda
Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2012
This book is little short of blatant propaganda--beyond that, it is simply full of untruths. For example, the authors allege that Gendun Chopel, a Tibetan author, says in his book Tibetan Arts of Love, that "12 year old girls are to be offered sweets to entice them into ritual sex."
Okay, that got my attention (also because I've seen that claim foisted all around the web, often on--you guessed it--mainland Chinese sites). So, I finally got a copy of Tibetan Arts of Love a few days ago; it says NOTHING about offering 12 year old girls sweets to entice them into ritual sex. In fact, the author makes it clear 12 year olds should NOT have sex.
The Trimondis (real names Herbert and Mariana Röttgen, staunch Maoists) are consistent about one thing: their habit of extracting half-phrases from different parts of a text--and often from different authors altogether--and Frankensteining them into a "shocking" paragraph which they then attribute to an author of their choice.
To be very honest, the Röttgens should be sued, over and over, by multiple authors and estates whose works are blatantly misquoted in this atrocious mess of a book. I will be shocked if the Röttgens are not on the Chinese government payroll--and in making that allegation, I have been easily ten times more careful than the Röttgens themselves, in their wild claims.
So, as you may have guessed, I don't recommend it--unless, like me, you are going through it page by page to document all it's fallacies.
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Chris
5.0 out of 5 stars This is the best research and material ever written on Tibetan , THIS is the "enlightened view" of Tibetan Buddhism
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2016
This is the best research and the best material ever written on Tibetan Buddhism.
The Trimondis are those rare people that studied with a lama, in this case the Dalai Lama, and woke up to who and what these lamas are really about and left. After leaving they were determined to help other people not be fooled by Tibetan Buddhism, by informing them, with their vast research and documentation into the Kalachakra Tantra and the real history, sociology-political and religious history of Tibetan Buddhism and the lamas..They realized that the Tibetan Tantrism of the lamas is a sexually abusive and misogynistic, exploitative occult "religion" that, for the Dalai Lama, it is about power and massively expanding his religio-political power, just as Lamaism did in Tibet eventually creating the tyranny of a lama theocracy. Tibetan Buddhism is about creating an Adi-Buddha world view. My husband and I did the same thing, left as a couple. I believe only couples usually leave this cult of Hindu tantra together, with few exceptions, because they can support each other in the process. We know of hundreds of people , some of them friends, that will never come out, they have been so brain-washed by the lamas. After thirty years as a practicing Tibetan Buddhist with many lamas, I can confirm that what the Trimondis have written is accurate and that what Tibetan Buddhists are really practicing is a form of Hindu tantric guru-worship, not Buddhism, to allow a level of exploitation and power in their sanghas, by the lamas, in order to recreate what they lost in Tibet. The Trimondi's book is the scholarly documentation and research that provides a "preponderance of evidence." of the Dalai Lama's ambitions to create his Buddhocracy all over the world and that he has had a very good start.
The Trimondi's have exhaustively documented their thesis that Tibetan Buddhism is dangerous to western civilization, through their deconstruction of the Kalachakra Wheel of Time tantra and by exposing the Tibetan lamas' deep misogyny towards women, which I can affirm is 100% accurate. This is a world of androgynous priests who share their power with no one except as they can use them to promote their Adi Buddha world while keeping their secrets of keeping harems of women inside their sanghas for their tantric sexual practices, the essence of their "religion." .
It took me over three years, once out, to get my critical reasoning and executive functions of planning and intelligent inquiry again, after being with the lamas for so long. Very few people do come out. They are in a subtle trance that the lamas have created through various teachings: too much meditation, chanting , visualizations, etc. They don't leave because soon their whole reference points are the lamas and their group, just as in all cults. There are also the "fringe admirers," The Hollywood celebrities etc. and western politicians and other Buddhists who, not really knowing what goes on in these sanghas, think that Tibetan Buddhism is really Buddhism. It is not. It is Hindu Tantric vajryana that after years of mantra chanting meditation, then purification practices, then vows of obedience to the lamas and then scaring us with terrible hell realms and consequences if one so much as criticized their lamas have created a group of Western enablers believing they will go to Rudra Hell if they criticize the lamas or reveal their secrets. In Tibet, the lamas would have just cut out your tongue or thrown you in a tied up gunny sack, in the river and said "We didn't kill him, the river did!"
They have created thousands of Western Tibetan Buddhists, who are actually in their thrall but who appear normal and articulate and well educated. In the Lamas' tantric cult, Westerners lose the ability to know right from wrong, and no longer know how to discriminate what is healthy or good for them or in groups. Yet these Western Lamaists present themselves as the cutting edge of "consciousness" promoting a "new merging of science and religion" that they say hold the "key to world happiness." They will hear no criticism of Tibetan Buddhism or the Dalai Lama and will attack any one who says anything negative about the lamas. Just as they have vowed themselves to the Lamas to never have bad thoughts about their lama or see any "imperfections" in their gurus. They are taught any one critical of Tibetan Buddhism or the Dalai lama is a heretic or a Maoist, ( as one negative reviewer suggested here about the Trimondis) or mentally ill and a danger to their spiritual path. They are taught to shun people who are critical, thus closing off any debate. Anyone critical of the lamas ,their students are taught, are a "danger to their own spiritual path and the harmony of the group." This is a totalitarian religious view that is pretending to the world that it is about freedom, openness and compassion.
The Trimondi's have documented the troubling connections of the Dalai Lama with not just the Nazis, but also other elements in society and persons, such as Asahara who was a Japanese cult leader and tried to accelerate the Kalachakra prophecy, his inspiration for his sarin gas attack on a subway in Tokyo in 1995. Dictators have always seen the uses of the Tibetan Lamas since days of the Khans. The connections the Trimondis have made and the documentation they provide, will leave no one in any doubt that, by admiring the Dalai Lamas, one is in pretty scary company.
The Trimondi's exposed the occult of nature of the vajrayana that the Dalai lama is really teachings and promoting as "Buddhism" They also spend considerable time deconstructing the myth that Tibetan Buddhism is "gender friendly" by exposing the true history of these Lamas and their views on women which are so deeply misogynistic that any belief that the Dalai Lama is telling truth that he is a "feminist" will be dispelled. Tibetan Buddhism is not promoting equality and more sexual freedom for women but is a highly sexually exploitative organization, whose religious teachings reflect and justify the lamas misogyny and promiscuous behaviors posing as "compassion" and "blessings" for their students. This is nothing the historical Buddha taught as the Trimondi's make clear to any traditional Buddhist if they read this book. .
Instead, Buddhists of other traditions are now being massively fooled by the Dalai Lama and some have joined up with his Mind and Life Institute and have become guru-worshipers themselves, like Sharon Salzberg, Dan Goleman and Joseph Goldstein who are students now of , not only the Dalai Lama but the sexually abusive Sogyal Rinpoche, when before they were strong activists , calling out sexual abuse of the lamas. That is why they were targeted to be flattered and inflated by the Dalai Lama , and brought on board the Mother Ship. Now Goldstein, who is a Tibetan Tantrist recommends, that the Three Streams, Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajryana join as One Stream of Buddhism. They don't know that the lamas see everyone as heretics who don't believe in their "diamond vehicle" and their plan is to absorb all these other Buddhisms into their grand Adi-Buddha scheme. They have already started to do so.
The Trimondi's also go into the "Law of Inversion" of the tantric vajryana of Tibetan Buddhism, that gives permission and actually encourages the breaking of social taboos which they use in their groups to justify all kinds of egregious behavior by the lamas.
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Greco-Korean
5.0 out of 5 stars Pathological submission does lead to spiritual abuse!
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2007
So well put by the fellow reviewer! My father, a Korean Buddhist, was a Professor of Eastern Philosophy up until the mid 1970's when he quit to direct the college library instead. His frustration stemmed from what he saw as a terminal lack of criticality in his Western students, a stubborn romantic need to whole-heartedly buy into the charms of Eastern mysticism. He was raised in a Japanese Zen military school system, and he wanted to write and to explore the exploitation of Buddhism for political gain --alas, Ram Das and Ginsberg and Chogyam Trungpa were the "cool" brands that the scholarly market bought-up. No one wanted to have his or her fantasy of eden/heaven/nirvana/shambhala/(_____) questioned. I'm so happy for this book, which I am sending to my father, who now, at 80 years old, might be relieved to find Western critical thought being applied where Western counter-culture's pathological submission to "cool" was worked before.
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AeroEngineer
5.0 out of 5 stars Free in English online per the Trimondi's website.
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2016
This book, in English, is available per the Trimondi's website to read for free online.
[...]
Essential to understanding the deception and true goals of His Smelliness and his deluded followers.
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George Caneda
5.0 out of 5 stars Book Review?
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2005
I haven't finished reading the book yet, but it seems very well documented and written. The authors were publishers of Dalai Lama books in the 80 and even had a personal relationship with him. They decided to do a more complete research on Tibetan Buddhism and were totaly surprised by what they found. Labeling the authors as communits is not a valid book review. Please try a bit harder.
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