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

BUDDHA, his pupils are obliged to worship him as an omnipotent super-being, who commands the
gods and goddesses, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The following apotheosis of a tantric teacher, which
the semi-mythical founder of Buddhism in Tibet, Padmasambhava, laid down for an initiand, is
symptomatic of countless similar prayers in the liturgy of Tantrism: “You should know that one’s
master is more important than even the thousand buddhas of this aeon. Why is that? It is because all
the buddhas of this aeon appeared after having followed a master. ... The master is the buddha
[enlightenment], the master is the dharma [cosmic law], in the same way the master is also the sangha
[monastic order]” (Binder-Schmidt, 1994, p. 35). In the Guhyasamaja Tantra we can read how all
enlightened beings bow down before the teacher: “All the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout the
past, present and future worship the Teacher .... [and] make this pronouncing of vajra words: ‘He is
the father of all us Buddhas, the mother of all us Buddhas, in that he is the teacher of all us
Buddhas’” (Snellgrove, 1987, vol. 1, p. 177).
A bizarre anecdote from the early stages of Tantrism makes this deification of the gurus even more
apparent. One day, the famous vajra master, Naropa, asked his pupil, Marpa, “If I and the god
Hevajra appeared before you at the same time, before whom would you kneel first?”. Marpa thought,
“I see my guru every day, but if Hevajra reveals himself to me then that is indeed a quite
extraordinary event, and it would certainly be better to show respect to him first!”. When he told his
master this, Naropa clicked two fingers and in that moment Hevajra appeared with his entire retinue.
But before Marpa could prostrate himself in the dust before the apparition, with a second click of the
fingers it vanished into Naropa’s heart. “You made a mistake!” cried the master (Dhargyey, 1985, p.
123).
In another story, the protagonists are this same Naropa and his instructor, the Kalachakra Master
Tilopa. Tilopa spoke to his pupil, saying, “If you want teaching, then construct a mandala!”. Naropa
was unable to find any seeds, so he made the mandala out of sand. But he sought without success for
water to cement the sand. Tilopa asked him, “Do you have blood?” Naropa slit his veins and the blood
flowed out. But then, despite searching everywhere, he could find no flowers. “Do you not have
limbs?” asked Tilopa. “Cut off your head and place it in the center of the mandala. Take your arms
and legs and arrange them around it!” Naropa did so and dedicated the mandala to his guru, then he
collapsed from blood loss. When he regained consciousness, Tilopa asked him, “Are you content?”
and Naropa answered, “It is the greatest happiness to be able to dedicate this mandala, made of my
own flesh and blood, to my guru”.
The power of the gurus — this is what these stories should teach us — is boundless, whilst the god is,
finally, just an illusion which the guru can produce and dismiss at will. He is the arch-lord, who reigns
over life and death, heaven and hell. Through him speaks the ABSOLUTE SPIRIT, which tolerates
nothing aside from itself.
The pupil must completely surrender his individual ego and transform it into a subject of the SPIRIT
which dwells in his teacher. “I and my teacher are one” means then, that the same SPIRIT lives in
both.
The appropriation of gynergy and androcentric power strategies
Only in extremely rare cases is the omnipotence and divinity of a yogi acquired at birth. It is usually
the result of a graded and complicated spiritual progression. Clearly, to be able to realize his
omnipotence, which should transcend even the sexual polarity of all which exists, a male tantric