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

The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part I – 1. Buddhism and misogyny – an historical overview
© Victor & Victoria Trimondi
Part I
RITUAL AS POLITICS
Playboy:
Are you actually interested in the topic of sex?
(14th) Dalai Lama:
My goodness! You ask a 62-year-old monk
who has been celibate his entire life a thing like that.
I don’t have much to say about sex
— other than that it is completely okay
if two people love each other.
(The Fourteenth Dalai Lama in a Playboy
interview (German edition), March 1998)
1. BUDDHISM AND MISOGYNY – AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
A well-founded critique and — where planned — a deconstruction of the Western image of
Buddhism currently establishing itself should concentrate entirely upon the particular school of
Buddhism known as “Tantrism” (Tantrayana or Vajrayana) for two reasons. [1] The first is that the
“tantric way” represents the most recent phase in the history of Buddhism and is with some
justification viewed as the supreme and thus most comprehensive doctrine of the entire system. In a
manner of speaking Tantrism has integrated all the foregoing Buddhist schools within itself, and
further become a receptacle for Hindu, Iranian, Central Asian, and even Islamic cultural influences.
Thus — as an oft-repeated Tantrayana statement puts it — one who has understood the “Tantric
Way” has also understood all other paths to enlightenment.
The second reason for concentrating upon Tantrism lies in the fact that it represents the most widely
distributed form of Buddhism in the West. It exerts an almost magical attraction upon many in
America and Europe. With the Dalai Lama at its head and its clergy of exiled Tibetans, it possesses a
powerful and flexible army of missionaries who advance the Buddhization of the West with
psychological and diplomatic skill.
It is the goal of the present study to work out, interpret and evaluate the motives, practices and visions
of Tantric Buddhism and its history. We have set out to make visible the archetypal fields and the
“occult” powers which determine, or at least influence, the world politics of the Dalai Lama as the