His Holiness the XVIIth Gyalwa Karmapa, In India
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March 1-3

-Tricycle:The Buddhist Review/ Tricycle.com

Nalandabodhi has received a number of inquiries about an erroneous report dated February 2000 in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, available online at "the Tricycle Hub," about the anti-Karmapa faction's relationship to His Holiness Karmapa. To compound the error, a number of correspondents have noted that the mistaken report is incorrectly attributed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. A simple review of available public documents and statements demonstrate the report is contrary to the well-documented public record.

Tricycle: A Buddhist Review has a particular standing in some segments of the Buddhist community which assume the magazine is authoritative, and to that extent it has more responsibility in reporting on Buddhist topics. Given that the mistaken report relates to an extremely important and timely topic for Buddhists, the fact-checking error of this magnitude has  caused substantial confusion for Tricycle's readership. We have received an unusual volume of email expressing uncertainty about the accuracy of the article.  Accordingly we suggest the error in the online article should be expeditiously corrected, and the error reported in the print version corrected in the ordinary print cycle as soon as possible.

At the end of a short report on the escape of the Karmapa, the magazine volunteers the following additional information:

"The recognition of Ugyen Trinley Dorje as the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa had been disputed by Shamar Rinpoche, who--along with Tai Situ Rinpoche--was a close disciple of the 16th Karmapa. Shamar Rinpoche suggested that the 14-year-old's selection was influenced by Beijing authorities. Two years after this Karmapa's recognition, Shamar Rinpoche claimed to have discovered the Karmapa's authentic reincarnation, a 10-year-old Bhutanese boy named Trinlay Thaye Dorje. Recently, a middle position emerged, endorsed by the Dalai Lama: that there have been two reincarnations but that Ugyen Trinley Dorje is the primary one." (emphasis supplied)

Tricycle at a minimum could have checked with the Dalai Lama's office or any Kagyu representative in Woodstock, seat of the Karmapa in the United States, and close to Tricycle's headquarters in New York City. Or even more simply, Tricycle could simply have read the  publicly available letter  between the Dalai Lama's office and Shamar Rinpoche. In that letter dated 3 February, 1997, the Office of His Holiness The Dalai Lama rejected Shamar Rinpoche's requests:

"You also requested the Dalai Lama's permission that Ogyen Thinley be the Throne-Holder of the Karmapa's seat in Tibet Tsurphu Monastery and that the reincarnate that you have recognised be the Holder of the Karmapa's seat in India, Rumtek Monastery. Our response: . . . .

"There can be just one head of the Tsurphu and Rumtek Monasteries. There is no possibility of two heads. H. H. the Dalai Lama has clearly & comprehensively recognised the Karmapa-reincarnation residing in Tibet. Regarding this there is no room for change. Also you, at a previous meeting with our representative of the Department of Religious Affairs and representatives of the various Tibetan Religious Lineages, said that you have no intention of creating disturbance regarding the position associated with the traditional seat of the Karmapas."

[The letter goes on to state that His Holiness even went so far as to meet with senior Kagyu leaders as to whether there was any tradition in the Kagyu for recognizing multiple reincarnations of a Karmapa.] "The people meeting with H.H. the Dalai Lama told him that as to the history of the Karmapas and associated predictions there has, up till now, never been, at the same time, a number of reincarnations, such as reincarnations of body, speech and mind. Also, if His Holiness gives an audience and monastic vows to the young reincarnate, problems and arguments in the Kamtsang Kagyu Lineage will never come to an end. Therefore, the individuals present insisted, it isn't feasible to recognise the young reincarnate as a body, speech or mind incarnation of the Karmapa or to give an audience and monastic vows.

Therefore, for the sake of preventing further problems and for the sake of reconciliation, H. H. the Dalai Lama can not give an audience or monastic vows to the young reincarnate for the time being. Please keep this in mind." Full text of the letter and Shamar Rinpoche's response.

In sum, then, Shamar Rinpoche requested the Dalai Lama's endorsement of multiple incarnations, the placement of Shamar Rinpoche's candidate in Rumtek, and the ratification of Shamar Rinpoche's candidate through an ordination ceremony with the Dalai Lama. The Dali Lama rejected the request. These are the facts, but Tricycle reports the opposite: it describes what is in fact Shamar Rinpoche's request as if it is an accomplished fact, and reports that the Dalai Lama "endorsed" Shamar Rinpoche's position when he in fact rejected it.

This 1997 incident was recently explained in an interview by Professor Robert Thurman, the holder of a chair in Tibetan Studies at Columbia University. The article appeared January 13, long before the web edition of Tricycle was published. Thurman's statement is particularly important because he has for many years been a member of Tricycle's own Board of Advisors.

"[Thurman explained that] 'four regents had originally been appointed to find a successor to the 16th Karmapa, and one of them, the Shamar Lama, supported a different claimant from that of the other three regents and succeeded in convincing some people in Dharamsala that his claim was valid. [I]n 1997, the Dalai Lama asked the Shamar Lama to cut it out and to join in unity with the other three [regents].' The Shamarpa refused to accept that ruling and continues to pursue his attempt to have his candidate named as Karmapa, but because of the Dalai Lama's opposition, he has 'pretty much lost the support of the Tibetan community.' Such disputes are not uncommon in the history of finding reincarnate successors, according to Thurman, but they have always been resolved in favor of one or another contender, as is now the case with the 17th Karmapa." Full text of article from the Woodstock Times.

There is another, more unpalatable side to the manouvering by Shamar Rinpoche to have the Dalai Lama ordain his candidate. The talk of compromise appears in fact to have been a ruse. Since the Karmapa arrived in Dharamsala, Shamar Rinpoche and his associates have revealed that they do not regard His Holiness Karmapa as the throne-holder of Tsurphu. Shamar Rinpoche has personally described the Karmapa as a "Communist train[ee]", said he was being "stage-managed by the Chinese," an agent provocateur seeking to turn Sikkim into a new "Kashmir-like situation," and on and on.  Recently, Shamar Rinpoche's "personal assistant" arrived in India with the publicly stated intention of seeking to have the Karmapa deported back to China.

Hence, whatever motivated Shamar Rinpoche to approach the Dalai Lama in 1997, it was not a sincere belief that His Holiness Karmapa was an appropriate throne-holder for the seat of the Karmapa in Tibet, or elsewhere. Thus it seems obvious that there has never been any real belief in a schema of multiple incarnations, and the Dalai Lama accordingly never really had anything to "endorse."

We trust Tricycle will feel pressed to soon issue its own clarification. The erroneous Tricycle article is at Tricycle.com.

-UPDATED

Reuters/London Financial Times

San Jose Mercury News

AP/Washington Post

Washington Post

South China Morning Post

AP/New York Times

AP/CNN

ABC /AP

Guardian

Agence France Presse

Fox/Reuters

Boston Globe/AP

Los Angeles Times/"wires"

Seattle Times/AP

The Hindu

The Times of India/AP

The Hindu

Indian Express

Deccan Chronicle

The Statesman

Deccan Herald

The Tribune

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Reuters

Chicago Sun-Times

The Times, London

The Independent

The Australian

Independent- Bangladesh

Kyodo World Service (Japan wire)

Pioneer Planet (Twin Cities, US)

Media outlets throughout the world continue to report the detention the Karmapa's parents, but no new information has come to light since the original reports. A representative sample of the reports are included in the margin. The information available so far is summarized below.

His Holiness Karmapa in Tibet, with his mother and a younger brother (photo by Rudi Findheisen © 1998 Rudi Findheisen)

The initial report on the detention came from the Tibetan Information Network (TIN), in a news release sent to various media outlets. Reuters was the first to report confirmation of TIN's discovery that His Holiness Karmapa's elderly parents have been detained by Chinese authorities, and taken from Lhasa to Chengdu, under what sounds like house arrest, at best. The Reuters report, written without byline, stated:

"A Changdu government official told Reuters the Karmapa Lama's parents had been moved there for their own protection, but declined further comment."

Reuters may have moved so quickly that the authorities in Changdu were not prepared. The Associated Press however, in an article by Renee Schoof, reported that a Lhasa official "named Zhangxi," denied the TIN claims regarding His Holiness' parents, dismissing them as "rumours." The Guardian's John Gittings from Hong Kong was unable to verify the report either since "foreign journalists are not able to visit Tibet independently to verify stories," although his editors supplied the oddest title for the story: "Buddha's Parents 'arrested.'" The New York Times, based on the AP report, flatly states in a headline that "Beijing Denies Report."

Reuters described the detention based on TIN's description: "The London-based group [TIN] said in a statement late on Tuesday China also detained a Tibetan security officer and a monk involved in security at Tsurphu monastery following the escape of the 14-year-old 17th Karmapa Lama to India last month. TIN said Chinese authorities had taken the Karmapa Lama's elderly parents from their home in Lhasa and moved them to Changdu prefecture in eastern Tibet, where they were being held under close surveillance. The whereabouts of the two detained security workers from the monastery was unknown, TIN said."

The AP elaborated on Reuter's report, using additional information also originating from the TIN release: "Authorities took the Karmapa's parents, Dhondup and Loga, from their home in Lhasa and put them under close surveillance in Chamdo, a region in eastern Tibet where they previously lived as nomadic yak herders, the group said."

The AP reported that TIN viewed the actions as part of "a widening investigation into the Karmapa's January escape from Chinese-ruled Tibet to India . . . In recent weeks authorities have closed the Karmapa's monastery to visitors, detained two security workers, replaced monks who managed the Tsurphu monastery and questioned others, warning them to improve their 'political attitudes,' the London-based Tibet Information Network said, citing sources it did not identify."

Meanwhile, AP reported another story in which the detention of the Karmapa's parents became a theme in the visit to Beijing by United Nations Humans Right Chief Mary Robinson. According to the AP's Charles Hutzler, picked up as an unattributed wire by CNN, the press sees the detentions of the Karmapa's parents as part of a pattern of silencing dissent prior to human rights conventions held in Beijing.

Robinson was in Beijing in hopes of having China become a signatory to international covenants on human rights that have been adopted by most other countries. After the series of meetings concluded, Robinson had strong words to say about China's cooperation, and criticized Beijing for its "notable clampdown on religious expression." Initial wire reports from Reuters indicate the mission ended without agreement:

"I am concerned about three areas that I have expressed my worries about -- the areas of freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and freedom of association," [Robinson] said. "My major concern is that there does seem to have been a deterioration," she told a news conference.

But Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Robinson, a former president of Ireland, had no right to comment. "Only Chinese people have the right to judge whether human rights conditions in China have turned better or worse," Zhu told a regular news briefing.

                                       * * * *

Rights groups reported this week that Chinese authorities had  . . . . detained the parents of the Tibetan Karmapa Lama who fled to India. China has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees basic freedoms of religion, speech and assembly, as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. But it has yet to ratify either pact and must harmonize its legislation to meet their requirements.

The UPI noted that rights groups had timed their calls to highlight issues with Beijing. Regarding the TIN report, "China's strict controls were highlighted by a report said that the parents of a Tibetan lama who fled to India to escape Chinese repression have disappeared. . . .. Tibetan Buddhist are just one of several large religious groups that are tightly controlled by Beijing".

The stories were also widely reported by media outlets in India. (Citations in the margin.) The Indian press outlets tended to repeat information included in the three articles noted above, and also cited to TIN's report. However, the Indian Express, citing United News of India, was one of the first to break a report on Dharamsala's reaction to news of the detention:

"Speaking over the telephone from Dharamshala on Wednesday Tibetan government-in-exile's Minister of Culture and Religion Kelong Tashi Wangdi said: 'We have received reports from various sources that the Chinese authorities in Tibet have allegedly forced the elderly parents of the Karmapa to leave their home in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and move to Changdu prefecture in eastern Tibet, the parental home of Tibet's third highest spiritual leader, the Karmapa. There they were kept under close 'surveillance'".

"The Tibetan minister said: 'We are greatly concerned about the well-being ofHis Holiness's parents. We strongly protest this act of the Chinese government and request them not to take such reprisals against the family members and close associates of the Karmapa staying back in Tibet."

Agence France Presse, the third major worldwide newswire service (with AP and Reuters), also picked up the Dharamsala government statement (and may have originated this story). The AFP report summarized current thinking on the Karmapa's relationship to Dharamsala by stating that "the Karmapa's escape has severely embarrassed Beijing . . . . The Karmapa is recognised by both China and the Dalai Lama, and many Tibetan exiles feel he could succeed the Dalai Lama as head of the Tibetan freedom movement." While we tend to believe the sentiment seeing such unified political action between the Dalai Lama and Karmapa to be a gross oversimplification. These two leaders of Tibetan Buddhism have different spiritual and political duties, and historically the institutions they had have staked out complex positions. However, we acknowledge we may be underestimating Beijing's capacities to create such an alliance by gross overreaction. 

One curious point which provides an insight into editorial policy: The Hindustan Times reported on the TIN release, but omitted mention of the detention of Karmapa's parents, instead seeking to focus on the fact that TIN had reported that the Karmapa had used a commercial helicopter flight for one part of his Mustang crossing while escaping Tibet. Similarly, The Tribune focuses on TIN's report of details of the Karmapa's motivation for escaping, but it does at least give some attention to the arrest/deportation/surveillance of His Holiness parents later in the piece.

The TIN release also contains new details on the Karmapa's escape, which will be commented on separately.

We will continue to keep you informed of reports on this disturbing incident. The Reuters report can be accessed from the London Financial Times and San Jose Mercury News websites. The main AP report is at the Washington Post site and the South China Morning Post site. The UN report can be accessed directly from the AP wire, where pictures of Robinson and the vice premier of Beijing are available. In addition, various outlets in the margin have picked up the wires and reported on their online sites.

February 28-29

- Newsweek

Newsweek interview with the Dalai Lama

Newsweek streaming QuickTime audio interview with Liu and Mazumdar

Newsweek this issue features a Newsweek Investigation of the Karmapa's "dramatic escape," in an article not-so-charmingly entitled  "A Buddha Busts Out." The main authors of the piece are Melinda Liu, Beijing Bureau Chief, and Sudip Mazumdar, a New Delhi reporter. Newsweek, notably quiet, if not silent, on the Karmapa's arrival in India for almost two months, is apparently governed by an editorial staff not enamored of purported 14-year old "boy deities," and it is clear from the tone of parts of the article that the magazine's scrutiny of the Karmapa was hard-edged. Still, the "NEWSWEEK investigation, including an audience with the Karmapa and an hourlong interview with the Dalai Lama, has revealed new details of the Karmapa's dramatic eight-day flight to freedom and the factors that prompted him to run" and offers a grudging acceptance of the heroic nature by the young "boy deity's" flight from Tibet: "Already, some Tibetan exiles regard the epic journey as a kind of Second Coming, because it mirrors the Dalai Lama's own harrowing escape 41 years ago." (We note that the widespread reference to the Dalai Lama and Karmapa as "deities" is a drastic misunderstanding of Tibetan Buddhist cosmology, as well as a politically incorrect application of religious terminology.)

The report at the website is in three pieces: 1) the article linked above; 2) an interview with the Dalai Lama, and 3) a streaming QuickTime audio interview with Liu and Mazumdar. The streaming audio does not reveal anything dramatic, but fills in details which are incorporated into this summary.

The journalists report that the Karmapa's escape was prompted by worsening conditions in Tibet regarding the free practice of religion. Liu reports that the Karmapa had received many enticements as a young child, even though he was said to have asked, when he first met Jiang Zhi-Men, "who is this man?" However, China's policy towards real religious expression has generally become more restrictive over time, and despite the perks, the Chinese prohibitions on religious practice effectively precluded the Karmapa from obtaining the basic religious education he sought. Also, an assassination attempt in 1998 by "two Chinese intruders [armed] with knives and explosives" undoubtedly moved his followers in Tsurphu to sacrifice their own desires that the Karmapa stay in Tsurphu, in the interest of the Karmapa's safety.

The new details provided by Newsweek include some of the following points. At the end of last year, the Karmapa entered a solitary retreat, and on December 28 surreptitiously slipped out to a waiting "Mitsubishi four-wheel-drive." With his attendants, the vehicle was driven over the Nepal border into Mustang, where the car was abandoned near an "icy river." Skirting Chinese patrols and overcoming physical hardships, the party made its way through Mustang and into India.

"The party was helped along the way by devotees who provided food, money and other assistance. NEWSWEEK has learned that the Karmapa and his entourage rode a commercial helicopter, chartered by two Kagyupa lamas, to cross a rugged stretch of lower Mustang." (We note that private helicopter charters are a common method of travel for well-heeled trekkers seeking to traverse some of spectacular expeditionary trails in Mustang.) Finally, the Karmapa, complete with the physical signs of a difficult journey such as blisters, cracking skin and scratches, arrived in Dharamsala, the home of the Dalai Lama. "News of the Karmapa's arrival in India startled even the Dalai Lama. When the two men met, says an eyewitness, they held each other 'as if a father was meeting his dear son after a long separation.'"

Mazumdar was able to attend an audience given by the Karmapa to Tibetans and Westerners a few weeks after the Karmapa had arrived. He describes His Holiness as "totally at peace, very serene, calm, tall, strikingly handsome, and very much in command." Speaking to Westerners, the Karmapa thanked them for their interest in and help with Tibetan affairs. Speaking with Tibetans, His Holiness asked them not to forget about Tibet, and to always strive to preserve and protect the culture.

In his interview, His Holiness the Dalai Lama reported that the Karmapa's "first word [to me] was that he wants to serve Buddhism as well as the Tibetan people. He found it very difficult to fulfill his goal there [in Tibet]. There was no other alternative except escape, in spite of great risks." As for why he wanted to leave even though he was supposedly favorably treated by Beijing, the Dalai Lama explained that "Superficially, there is some religious freedom. But there are restrictions on serious practice. The Chinese want religious people to be patriotic toward the Communist Party. The communists destroyed Tibetan Buddhism. A religious person should be faithful towards the destroyer of religion? How can that happen?"

Newsweek reports that officials in Beijing w