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

thought to be unlimited; he flew through the air, spoke all languages, knew every magic battle
technique, and could assume any shape he chose. Nonetheless, all these magical techniques were not
sufficient for him to remain the spiritual advisor of Trisong Detsen for long. The Bon priests and the
king’s wife (Tse Pongza) were too strong and Guru Rinpoche had to leave the court. Yet this was not
the end of his career. He moved north in order to do battle with the unbridled demons of the Land of
Snows. The rebellious spirits, usually local earth deities, constantly blocked his path. Yet without
exception all the “enemies of the teaching” were defeated by his magic powers. The undertaking soon
took on the form of a triumphal procession.
It was Guru Rinpoche’s unique style to never destroy the opponents he defeated but rather to demand
of them a threefold gesture of submission: 1. the demons had to symbolically offer up to him their life
force or “heart blood”; 2. they had to swear an oath of loyalty; and 3. they had to commit themselves
to fighting for instead of against the Buddhist teachings in future. If these conditions were met then
they did not need to abandon their aggressive, bloodthirsty, and extremely destructive ways. In
contrast, they were not freed from their murderous fighting spirit and their terrifying ugliness but
instead from then on served Tantric Buddhism as it terrible protective deities, who were all the more
holy the more cruelly they behaved. The Tibetan Buddhist pantheon was thus gradually filled out with
all imaginable misshapen figures, whose insanity, atrocities, and misanthropy were boundless. Among
them could be found vampires, cannibals, executioners, ghouls (horrifying ghosts), and sadists. Guru
Rinpoche and his later incarnations, the Dalai Lamas, were and still are considered to be the
undisputed masters of this cabinet of horrors, who they regally command from their lotus throne.
His victory over the daemonic powers was sealed by the construction of a three-dimensional mandala,
the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet. Samye symbolized nothing less than a microcosmic model of
the tantric world system, with Mount Meru at its center. The inaugurating ceremony conducted by
Padmasambhava was preceded by the banishment of all venomous devils. Then the earth goddess,
Srinmo, was nailed down, in that Guru Rinpoche drove his phurba (ritual dagger) into the ground with
a ceremonial gesture. Among those present at this ritual were 50 beautifully adorned girls and boys
with vases filled with valuable substances. Durong the subsequent construction works the rebellious
spirits repeatedly tried to prevent the completion of the temple and at night tore down what had been
achieved during the day. But here too, the guru understood how to tame the nightly demons and then
make construction workers of them.
In the holiest of holies of Samye there could be found a statue of Avalokiteshvara which was said to
have arisen of itself. Apart from this, the monastery had something of an eerie and gloomy air about
it. The saga tells of how once a year Tibet’s terror gods assembled on the roofs of the monastery for a
cannibalistic feast and a game of dice in which the stakes were human souls. On these days all the
oracle priests of the Land of Snows were said to have fallen into a trance as if under the instruction of
a higher power. Because of the microcosmic significance of Samye, its protective god is the Red Tsiu,
a mighty force in the pandemonium of the highlands. “He possesses red locks, his body is surrounded
by a glory of fire. Shooting stars fly from his eyes and a great hail of blood falls from his mouth. He
gnashes his teeth. ... He winds a red noose about the body of an enemy at the same time as he thrusts a
lance into the heart of another” (Nebesky-Wojkowitz, 1955, p. 224).
A puzzling red-brown leather mask also hung in the temple, which showed the face of a three-eyed
wrathful demon. Legend tells that it was made from clotted human blood and sometimes becomes
alive to the horror of all. Alongside the sacred room of the Red Tsiu lay a small, ill-lit chamber. If a