Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

Already in Vedic times fire was considered to be the cause of life. The ancient Indians saw a fire
ritual in the sexual act between man and woman and compared it with the rubbing together of two
pieces of wood through which a flame can be kindled. The spheres assigned to the “fire Buddha”,
Amitabha, are thus also those of erotic passion and sexuality. Of the sexual magic fluids, the male
seed is associated with him. This makes him the predestined father of Tantric Buddhism. In his hand
the “fire god” holds a lotus, by which his affinity to the symbolic world of the feminine is indicated.
“The Lotus lineeage is that of Amitabha”, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama writes in a commentary upon
the Kalachakra Tantra, “practitioners of which especially should keep the pledge of restraining from,
or abandoning, the bliss of emission, even though making use of a consort” (Dalai Lama XIV, 1985,
p. 229).
Amitabha rules as the sovereign of the western paradise, Sukhavati. After their deaths, upright
Buddhists are reborn here from out of a lotus flower. They all move through this hereafter in a golden
body. Women, however, are unwelcome. If they have earned great merit during their earthly
existence, then they are granted the right to change their sex and they are permitted to enter
Amitabha’s land after they have been incarnated as men. [2]
Apart from this, the light Buddha is worshipped as the “lord of language”. Analytic thought and
distinctions also belong to his area of responsibility. This induced Lama Govinda to make him the
patron of the modern (and western) sciences. He is “differentiating”, “researching” and
“investigative” (Govinda, 1984, p.123).
Let us summarize then: Buddha Amitabha possesses the character traits of a light, fire, and sun deity.
His cardinal point is the West. As founding father of the Lotus family he stands in a deep symbolic
connection to sexuality and through this to Tantrism.
In the light of his qualities as “fire god”, “lord of the West”, and “patron of science”, Amitabha could
indeed be regarded as the regent of our modern age, then the last two hundred years of western
civilization and technological development have been predominantly dominated by the element of
fire: electricity, light, explosions, and the modern art of war count as part of this just as much as the
greenhouse effect and worldwide desertification. The great inventions — the steam engine, dynamite,
the automobile, the airplane, rockets, and finally the atomic bomb — are also the handiwork of “fire”.
The fiery element rules the world as never before in history.
Committed Buddhists — headed by the Dalai Lama — describe our western civilization as decadent
and unbalanced, because it is no longer fair to spiritual values. But, one could say, an elementary
imbalance likewise determines the myth of the “world dominion” of Amitabha, who as the Buddha of
a single (!) element ("fire”) controls our epoch. In terms of cultural history, fire and the sun can be
considered the classic patriarchal symbols, whilst the moon and water represent the feminine. Hence,
Amitabha is also a symbol for our global androcentric culture, which, however, can only develop its
complete purity when totally freed of women in the paradise of Sukhavati.
The various masks of Avalokiteshvara
As an emanation from the right eye of his spiritual father, Amitabha, emerged his son,
Avalokiteshvara, with the Tibetan name of Chenrezi. He is the “Bodhisattva” of our age, the “chief
deity” of Tibet and the divine energy which functions directly behind the person of the Dalai Lama.