Re: "Doubts about the Dalai Lama"/
Date: September 09, 2010 12:25AM
For an alternative understanding of the Kalachacra, you might want to read what the Dalai Lama has to say about it on his website or in book s like this one:The wheel of time: the Kalachakra in context By Geshe Lhundub Sopa, Roger Jackson, John Newman, Beth Lee Simon
as well as this excerpt from wikipedia:
Controversy
The Kalachakra Tantra has occasionally been a source of controversy in the west because the text contains passages which may be interpreted as demonizing Islam. This is principally because it contains the prophecy of a holy war between Buddhists and so-called "barbarians" (Skt. mleccha). One passage of the Kalachakra (Shri Kalachakra I. 161) reads, "The Chakravartin shall come out at the end of the age, from the city the gods fashioned on Mount Kailasa. He shall smite the barbarians in battle with his own four-division army, on the entire surface of the earth."
Though the Kalachakra prophesies a future religious war, this appears in conflict with the vows of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhist teachings that prohibit violence. According to Alexander Berzin, the Kalachakra is not advocating violence against people but rather against inner mental and emotional aggression that results in intolerance, hatred, violence and war. Fifteenth century Gelug commentor Kaydrubjey interprets "holy war" symbolically, teaching that it mainly refers to the inner battle of the religious practitioner against inner demonic and barbarian tendencies. This is the solution to violence, since according to the Kalachakra the outer conditions depend on the inner condition of the mindstreams of beings. Viewed that way, the prophesied war takes place in the mind and emotions. It depicts the transformation of the archaic mentality of violence in the name of religion and ideology into sublime moral power, insight and spiritual wisdom.[9]
Tantric iconography including sharp weapons, shields, and corpses similarly appears in conflict with those tenets of non-violence but instead represent the transmutation of aggression into a method for overcoming illusion and ego. Both Kalachakra and his dharmapala protector Vajravega hold a sword and shield in their paired second right and left hands. This is an expression of the Buddha's triumph over the attack of Mara and his protection of all sentient beings.[10] Symbolism researcher Robert Beer writes the following about tantric iconography of weapons and mentions the charnel ground:
Many of these weapons and implements have their origins in the wrathful arena of the battlefield and the funereal realm of the charnal grounds. As primal images of destruction, slaughter, sacrifice, and necromancy these weapons were wrested from the hands of the evil and turned - as symbols - against the ultimate root of evil, the self-cherishing conceptual identity that gives rise to the five poisons of ignorance, desire, hatred, pride, and jealousy. In the hands of siddhas, dakinis, wrathful and semi-wrathful yidam deities, protective deities or dharmapalas these implements became pure symbols, weapons of transformation, and an expression of the deities' wrathful compassion which mercilessly destroys the manifold illusions of the inflated human ego.[11]
This prophecy could also be understood to refer in part to the Islamic incursions into central Asia and India which deliberately destroyed the Buddhist religion in those regions. The prophecy includes detailed descriptions of the future invaders as well as suggested (non-violent) ways for the Buddhist teachings to survive these onslaughts.[12][13]
One interpretation of Buddhist teachings that portray military conflict - such as elements of the Kalachakra Tantra and the Gesar Epic - is that they may be taught for the sake of those who possess a karmic tendency towards militancy, for the purpose of taming their minds.[who?] The passages of the Kalachakra that address religious warfare can be viewed as teachings to turn away from any religious justification of war and violence, and to embrace the precepts of love and compassion.
Another portion of the Kalachakra teachings describes women in a very negative way. In his teaching of the Kalachakra in Illinois in 1999, the Dalai Lama even paused in his rendition of the teachings to almost apologize for the seeming harshness of the text regarding women and noted that this part was directed to monks who should avoid women. Further controversy, especially in the West, centers on the sexual dimension of the teachings and the graphic representation of the united couple in Kalachakra paintings. The ecstatic state of sexual union is an elementary part of the Kalachakra practice but all are warned against this actual practice because base human factors can so easily enter what should be a pure practice.