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

invoked the deceased spirits of an international, on closer examination extremely problematic, warrior
caste: the Japanese samurai, the North American plains Indians, the Jewish King David, and the
British King Arthur with his round table — all archetypal leading figures who believed that justice
could only be achieved with a sword in the hand, who were all absolutely ruthless in creating peace.
These “holy warriors” always stood opposed to the “barbarians” of another religion who had to be
exterminated. The non-dualist world view which many of the original Buddhist texts so forcefully
demand is completely cancelled out in the mythic histories of these warlike models.
Trungpa led his courses under the name of “Dorje Dradul” which means “invincible warrior”.
Completely in accord with an atavistic fighter tradition only beasts of prey were accepted as totem
animals for his pupils: the snow lion, the tiger, the dragon. Dorje Dradul was especially enthusiastic
about the mythic sun bird, the garuda, about its fiery redness, wildness, and its piercing cry
commanding the cessation of thought like a lightning bolt (Hayward, 197, p. 251). Garuda is the sun
bird par excellence, and since time immemorial the followers of the warrior caste have also been
worshippers of the sun. Thus in the center of Trungpa’s Shambhala mission a solar cult is fostered.
But it is not the natural sun which lights up all, but rather the “Great Eastern Sun” which rises at the
beginning of a new world era when the Shambhala warriors seize power over the world. It sinks as a
mighty cult symbol into the hearts of his pupils: “So, we begin to appreciate the Great Eastern Sun,
not as something outside from us, like the sun in the sky, but as the Great Eastern Sun in our head and
shoulders, in our face, our hair, our lips, our chest” (Trungpa, 1986, p. 39). Why of all people it was
the chairman of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong, who was worshipped by the Red Guard
as the Great Eastern Sun is a topic to which we shall return.
The basic ideology of the Shambhala program divides the world into two visions: Great Eastern Sun,
which corresponds to enlightenment in the Buddhist path, and setting sun, which corresponds to samsara.
[...] Great Eastern Sun is cheering up; setting sun is complaining and criticizing. Great Eastern sun ist
elegant und rich; setting sun is sloppy and poor. To paraphrase George Orwell: “Great Eastern Sun
good, setting sun bad.” (Butterfield, 1994, p. 96).
From anarchy to despotism
Trungpa played brilliantly with the interchangeability of reality and non-reality, even regarding his
own person, he was especially a master of the tantric law of inversion. He thus simply declared his
excessive alcoholism and his sexual cravings to be the practicing of the tantra path. Whether alcohol
is a poison or a medicine depends on one’s own attentiveness. Conscious drinking — that is when the
drinker remains self-aware — changes the effect of the alcohol. Here the system is steeled through
attentiveness. Alcohol becomes an intelligent protective mechanism. But it has a destructive effect if
one abandons oneself to comfort (Hayward, 1997, pp. 306–307). Yet Dorje Dradul was not free of the
aggressive moods which normally occur in heavy alcoholics. He thus spread fear and horror through
his frequent angry outbursts. But his pupils forgave him everything, proclaimed him a “holy fool” and
praised his excesses as the expression of a “crazy wisdom”. They often attempted to emulate his
alcoholism: I think there is a message for us in his drinking, Dennis Ann Roberts believed, “I know
his drinking has certainly encouraged all of us to drink more” (Boucher, 1985, p. 243). Another pupil
enthusiastically wrote: “He's great. I love the fact that he works on his problems the way he does. He
doesn't hide it. He drinks, and it's almost killed him. So he is working on it. I find that
great” (Boucher, 1985, p. 243).
Similar reasons are offered for his sexual escapades. In 1970 he abandoned his vow of celibacy and