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

is said to have exclaimed, “Long live the People’s Republic of China!” (Tibetan Review, November
1994, p. 9).
What a perspective would be opened for the politics of the Kalachakra deities if they were able to
anchor themselves in China with a combination of the Panchen and Dalai Lamas so as to deliver the
foundations for a pan-Asian ideology! At last, father and son could be reunited, for those are the titles
of the ruler from Tashilunpho (the father) and the hierarch from the Potala (the son) and how they also
refer to one another. Then one would have taken on the task of bringing the Time Tantra to the West,
the other of reawakening it in its country of origin in Central Asia. Amitabha and Avalokiteshvara,
always quarreling in the form of their mortal incarnations, the Panchen and the Dalai Lama, would
now complement one another — but this time it would not be a matter of Tibet, but China, and then
the world.
The Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China’s official position on the social role of religion admittedly still shows
a Marxist-Leninist influence. “Religious belief and religious sentiments, religious ceremonies and
organizations that are compatible with the corresponding beliefs and emotions, are all products of the
history of a society.
The beginnings of religious mentality reflect a low level of production... “, it says in a government
statement of principle, and the text goes on to say that in pre-communist times religion was used as a
means “to control and still the masses” (MacInnes, 1993, p. 43). Nevertheless, religious freedom has
been guaranteed since the seventies, albeit with some restrictions. Across the whole country a
spreading religious renaissance can be observed that, although still under state control, is in the
process of building up hugely like an underground current, and will soon surface in full power.
All religious orientations are affected by this — Taoism, Chan Buddhism, Lamaism, Islam, and the
various Christian churches. Officially , Confucianism is not considered a faith but rather a philosophy.
Since the Deng era the attacks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution upon religious
representatives have been self-critically and publicly condemned. At the moment, more out of a bad
conscience and touristic motives than from religious fervor, vast sums of money are being expended
on the restoration of the shrines destroyed.
Everyone is awaiting the great leap forwards in a religious rebirth of the country at any moment.
“China’s tussle with the Dalai Lama seems like a sideshow compared to the Taiwan crisis” writes the
former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, Yoichi Clark Shimatsu, “But Beijing is waging a political
contest for the hearts and minds of Asia's Buddhists that could prove far more significant than its
battle over the future democracy in Taiwan” (Shimatsu, HPI 009).
It may be the result of purely power political considerations that the Chinese Communists employ
Buddhist constructions to take the wind out of the sails of the general religious renaissance in the
country via a strategy of attack, by declaring Mao Zedong to be a Bodhisattva for example (Tibetan
Review, January 1994, p. 3). But there really are — as we were able to be convinced by a television
documentary — residents of the eastern provinces of the extended territory who have set up
likenesses of the Great Chairman on their altars beside those of Guanyin and Avalokiteshvara, to
whom they pray for help in their need. A mythification of Mao and his transformation into a
Bodhisattva figure should become all the easier the more time passes and the concrete historical