As a brief spiritual background, Dorje Shugden has been a Dharma Protector of Je Tsongkhapa’s tradition for around 350 years, but it became a ‘mainstream’ practice during the time of Je Phabongkhapa (1878-1941) and Trijang Rinpoche (1900-1981), the two most prominent Gelug Lamas of the 20th century. Directly or indirectly, virtually all Gelugpas descend from these two great masters. Trijang Rinpoche was the Spiritual Guide of the 14th Dalai Lama; Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa, the founders of the Federation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT); Geshe Rabten, founder of Rabten Choeling monastary in Switzerland; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, founder of the New Kadampa Tradition, and many other prominent lamas who have come to the West. Trijang Rinpoche passed the practice of Dorje Shugden to these great lamas and he taught the practice extensively until the day he died. The 14th Dalai Lama himself had taken a lifetime commitment to practice Dorje Shugden from his Spiritual Guide. He wrote an extensive prayer praising Dorje Shugden as a Buddha.
Later, when the Chinese invaded Tibet, it put the Dalai Lama in a very difficult situation. He essentially wears two different hats: spiritual guide for some and political head of state for Tibet, but his primary responsibility is the head of state. He believed that for the Tibetan cause to be advanced, all of the different Tibetan schools of Buddhism would need to come together. Towards this end, he became a strong defender of the Rimé (literally, ‘non-lineage’) movement, which promotes having the instructions of all four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism embodied within the practice of a single practitioner. Practitioners of Rimé are encouraged to mix instructions from across the different schools into a synthetic whole. The Dalai Lama has since tried to bring all Tibetans into this new way of practicing.
Some practitioners, however, wanted to continue to rely soley upon their own tradition without mixing, not out of sectarianism but rather a personal decision about what they think would work best for them as individual practitioners. In particular, Trijang Rinpoche said that the cause of Dharma is more important than the political cause of Tibet, and so we should not sacrifice centuries of unbroken lineage for political expediency. So he, and some of his key disciples (Geshe Kelsang included), refused to go along with the Dalai Lama’s way of practicing (i.e., mixing traditions). The common denominator of many who would not go along with the Dalai Lama’s government approved way of practicing is they were Dorje Shugden practitioners. Because of this, it was said that they were undermining the cause of Tibet, and since the life of the Dalai Lama is tied to Tibet, anything that undermines the cause of Tibet is by extension a threat to the life of the Dalai Lama. So the State Oracle of Tibet, Nechung (who all sides agree is not an omniscient Buddha), claimed that Dorje Shugden was behind this ‘treason’ and so Dorje Shugden was declared ‘evil.’ Again, this is because not going along was a threat to the unity of Tibet, and anything that harms Tibet harms the life of the Dalai Lama. Subsequently, the practice of Dorje Shugden was banned.
Initially the Dalai Lama simply spoke out against the practice of Dorje Shugden. Later, in the mid-1990s he banned the practice for any governmental employees, ministers or judges. And in 2008 he has launched an extensive campaign to rid Tibetan society of Dorje Shugden practitioners by having all Tibetans swear a ‘double oath’ in which they vow to (1) forever renounce the practice of Dorje Shugden and (2) to deny material and spiritual support to those who do not renounce their practice of Dorje Shugden. Those who do not swear the double oath lose their jobs, are denied access to basic social services such as medical care and buying food, their children are expelled from schools, they are declared national traitors who are collaborating with the Chinese and they generally face complete social ostracism. This has lead not only to mass expulsions from monastaries, but more tragically from Tibetan society itself.
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