American Buddha Online Library
American Buddha Online Library is an American website, that is Buddhist, but rather than a reverential attitude towards Buddhism, adopts a free and skeptical view of it, and doesn't hesitate to critique anything that seems unhealthy, immoral or just plain wrong.
American Buddhas tone of unflinchingly objectivity towards what can be accepted or not in religion and refusal to whitewash scandals and wrongful behaviours, makes it stand out in the Buddhist landscape; and this is a good reason to describe it here as this makes up its difference.
It reviews the influences within Western Buddhism throughout history and then marks definite lack of blind reverence particularly to the modern forms of propagating it.
American Buddha appears thus to be a judge of behaviours of Buddhists in the West. Because of largely unfitting behaviour by him it has particularly singled out Chögyam Trungpa, but also many other masters and groups (list below). As for Trungpa, it underlines, lengthily, the problems that arose with his disciple Osel Tendzin and also Trungpa-family disputes that have arisen since his death concerning his spiritual descendance. American Buddha also presents numerous cult-activities as abound throughout the world in all religious traditions... and many aspects also of varying philosophical systems, other than Buddhism.
Buddhism has many wrathful deities like Mahakala that oppose all obstacles to practitionners progress, chastizing errors. The following list of Buddhist teachers or representatives are thus singled out by Charles and Tara Carreons American Buddha Online Library site for often wrathful scrutiny and critique. But this wrath, as often as not, indicates their sincerity and lack of lip service to people who have often deviated from the right path under the cover of religion, as does, in truth, unfortunately happen in all of the worlds religions. Human nature is fallible in truth. They thus set themselves up as the judges of peoples deeds here :
- Robert Thurman
- Chögyam Trungpa
- Dzongsar Khyentse
- Zen Buddhism
- Dalai Lama
- Sogyal
- Sakya Trizin
- Kalu
- Penor
- Steven Seagal
- Jetsunma <- she receives special notice
- Kusum Lingpa
- Lama Fabulous of Kansas City
- Õsel Tendzin <- special notice
- Ashoka and Gesar Mukpo
- Eleventh Trungpas son
Excerpts
Chögyam Trungpa
"When Trungpa XI died in Vermont in April 1987, everyone expected the Regent to hold his position until what was expected to be a relatively swift rebirth and reassumption of the Trungpa throne. During the interregnum between the death of Trungpa XI and the birth of Trungpa XII, the “Regent” would hold power and occupy the position of head of Vajradhatu. Trungpa chose his regent badly – a bisexual first known as “Narayana” upon whom he bestowed the nom-de-buddha of “Osel Tendzin.” That Trungpa XI was infatuated with Tendzin is clear, and it may have blinded his judgment, because a review of Trungpa’s poems dedicated to the Regent suggests that by a naïve admiration of the Regent’s rapacity, he stoked the flames of a dangerous madness that destroyed all of their plans."....
....
"Had the Regent performed his job properly, keeping his own nerve centres under control, he would have lived until the 12th Trungpa tulku had been born, identified, and enthroned as the new lineage-holder. But the Regent failed in his mission, dying of AIDS in 1990, leaving his highly literate crew of disciples unusually silent concerning his habit of engaging in unprotected sex with a wide circle of people. The Regent apparently suffered from a bad case of Tantra-Induced Delusional Syndrome (TIDS), that caused him to believe his toxic emissions would bless his students, not kill them.
Two of the Regent’s blessing-recipients died relatively quickly, a young man who was Tendzin’s lover, and his girlfriend, who didn’t realize that dating a Buddhist could be lethal. Call it the collateral damage from the quest for enlightenment – or one more casualty of Colorado’s notoriously slack prosecution in high-profile homicides. The Regent never saw the inside of a courtroom, despite having committed, before the eyes of witnesses, multiple toxic assaults on the bodies of people who loved and trusted him. But it’s all water under the bridge of innumerable lifetimes, right?"....
From an American Buddha-page on Trungpa : Born in Tibet, again. Part three.
Sakya Trizin
"As for Sakya Trizin, I had known him and his family for years. I know the Rajpur community where he lives extremely well. There are a number if Indians living along Rajpur Road who rent apartments or rooms to foreign visitors. I rented the upper floor of an Indian family's house across the road from Sakya Trizin. I also spent a lot of time at the houses of many other families in Rajpur. Three of Sakya Trizin's disciples knew of his request to be yab-yum with me at the time. One of his disciples read my diary and discussed the fact she read "His Holiness Sakya Trizin came to my place to do consort practice" both with her boyfriend and with me. I still have the diary. The exact dates were: December 3rd and 6th, 1981. I also discussed this "consort practice" with my best friend who was a disciple of Sakya Trizin. I had been a student of Sakya Trizin for only a few months before he asked me to have sex with him. It is my belief he was interested in the sex not for my or other beings benefit, but to satisfy his personal lust. The effect was that I totally lost faith in Lamas as trustworthy. In fact, I felt sickened, disgusted and miserable. "
From Page on Sakya Trizin
Steven Seagal
This person is embroiled in various scandals and conflicts that are more cases of street-fighting than anything a moral and responsable religious figure could be accepted to be seen in.
See also
External links
American Buddha pages about (Sign in may be required) :
- American Buddha Online Library home page
- Trungpa
- Sakya Trizin