(Reprint)A Sincere Voice from The New York Times -- “Revealing the Fault of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism”

Copied from:  http://foundation.enlighten.org.tw/trueheart_en/35

(By the True Heart News interviewing team in Taipei)The New York Times, with its international circulation and having long been regarded as a newspaper of credibility and authority, made a notable report together with a magnificent large-format photo, entitled “Yoga Sex Scandals: No Surprise Here” on March 13, 2012 (The translated Chinese version was published in the United Daily News in Taiwan on 14th of March.) The report detailed accusations of John Friend’s sexual impropriety with female students; John Friend is the founder of Anusara yoga style. After looking into the subject of “Why does yoga produce so many philanderers?” the columnist concludes, “One factor is ignorance. Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult. Hatha yoga — the parent of the styles now practiced worldwide — began as a branch of Tantra. In medieval India, the rites of Tantric cults could also include group and individual sex. Hatha used poses, deep breathing and stimulating acts — including intercourse — to hasten rapturous bliss.”

http://mag.udn.com/mag/campus/storypage.jsp?f_MAIN_ID=381&f_SUB_ID=3731&f_ART_ID=377357

Zhang Gongpu, Chairman of the True Enlightenment Education Foundation remarks that The New York Times’ analysis indeed gives a profound insight. In the case of “Hatha Yoga,” for instance, in Sanskrit “Ha” refers to the sun, and “tha” refers to the moon; the compound word “Hatha” simply represents an idea of “union of yin and yang,” or joining of the sun and the moon.

The “Tantric yoga,” which originated in 1955 and has since become popular in recent decades, inherited the same Tantric ideas and the famous Couple-Practice Tantra of copulation as well. For example, in June 2006, Chien Shan-Chi, Associate Professor of Department of Sculpture at National Taiwan University of Art, aged 43, presided over two symposiums on how ancient India Tantric Yoga (Tantra Yoga) enhances sex performance and prolongs orgasm, in Taipei and Kaohsiung cities. During the symposiums, the male and female gurus were dressed in bodysuit, intimately demonstrating the posture of “union of the sun and the moon.” The so-called “union of the sun and the moon” means the male vajra (penis) must be placed inside the female lotus (vagina). At that time, such a striking and appalling demonstration resulted in a public outcry.

Chairman Zhang points out that this training method of “Tantric Yoga” can trace its origin back to the ancient India tantra, and Tantric Buddhism is precisely a non-Buddhist cult influenced by Hindu Shaktism. In the mid-eighth century (roughly during the reign of Emperor Daizong of Tang Dynasty in China), the Tibetan emperor Trisong Detsän invited Indian teacher Padmasambhava to Tibet to propagate the Hindu Tantric Buddhism, which is referred to as the “Left-Hand Path of Tantra” in the ancient texts; thus, this period is called the "Old Transmission Period” by the Tibetans; as a result, the Nyingma began to appear in the Tibetan plateau, and it is commonly known as the Red Hat Sect, which is primarily based on the teachings of Padmasambhava, the Left-Hand Path of Tantra.

During the “New Transmission Period,” Atisha visited Tibet and reintroduced the Left-Hand Path of Tantra, together with the erroneous view of Prasangika Madhyamika; thereafter, the Kadampa was founded. The Left-Hand Path of Tantra belongs to a filthy cult that has nothing to do with Mahayana Buddhism at all, but Atisha cunningly coated its promiscuous Tantric doctrines with Buddhist terminology; subsequently, Tibetan Tantrism uncritically became a branch of Buddhism. In fact, it is a useless religious belief unique to Tibetans– Lamaism, which is what they shamelessly call the Highest Yoga Tantra of Tibetan “Buddhism” today.

Thus, whether it is called “Tibetan Tantrism,” “Lamaism,” “Tibetan Buddhism,” or other different names of “Yoga” such as the Highest Yoga Tantra of Tibetan Tantrism, to be blunt, they are all about sex.

Just like in the aforesaid Tantric Yoga symposiums, a practitioner honestly replied to questions by journalists, “Eventually, we will of course reach the sex part.”

Journalist: “In plain words, it is about the union of sex organs, right?”

The practitioner admitted: “It is about sex, the sex part.”
http://www.nownews.com/2006/06/14/350-1953721.htm
http://bbs.moninet.com.tw/board/view.cgi?forum=19&topic=1567
http://foundation.enlighten.org.tw/fact/history/3

The special article of The New York Times states: “Science has begun to clarify the inner mechanisms. In Russia and India, scientists have measured sharp rises in testosterone. Czech scientists have shown how poses can result in bursts of brainwaves indistinguishable from those of lovers. More recently, scientists at the University of British Columbia have documented how fast breathing — done in many yoga classes — can increase blood flow through the genitals.”

This quote gives the clues why in the first three of the four empowerment stages of the Highest Yoga Tantra in Tibetan “Buddhism,” a Tantric practitioner is not yet involved in the actual couple-practice of copulation, but still needs to exercise various preparatory expedients of practice like yoga poses, Chi practice, etc., which all originated from the same source as the Hatha Yoga system; together with other absurd visualization practices of bright drop (bindu), Chi channels, and so on, such as the “Six Yogas of Naropa” propagated by Tibetan Kagyu Sect and different Chi practices and hand-seal of other sects, all aim to prolong sexual intercourse without semen emission through the so-called “inner heat” practice. This fact has proved that Tibetan Tantric Buddhists entirely focus on sexual pleasure, attempting to enhance their sex power to prolong sexual enjoyment. Every tantric practitioner is well trained, “ready to fight,” and “eager” to perform the actual Couple-Practice Tantra of copulation.

The New York Times assumes that if yoga can arouse everyday practitioners, it apparently has similar, if not greater, effects on “gurus.” Chairman Zhang indicates that those research findings can help explain why so many guru (lama) masters of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism are involved in sex scandals. No wonder wherever Tibetan Tantrism prevails, there are “philandering gurus,” and it is no surprise to have non-stop media coverage on pertinent cases of sexual abuse.

The quoted article also lists many yoga masters of different generations or schools, including the Yoga superstars Swami Satchidananda (1914-2002), Swami Rama (1925-96), and Swami Muktananda (1908-82) who had thousands of devotees. Those yogis were all publicly accused of committing sexual abuse and harassment, charged for being serial philanderers, or directly prosecuted for committing sexual assaults, and were liable to pay compensations after guilty verdicts.

Those “yoga masters” are actually, if not surprisingly, sexual offenders and end up with loss of their standing, reputation, and credibility. Regrettably, the truth only makes their worshippers more prone to shock and distress. Chairman Zhang points out that those yoga masters and Tantric gurus (lamas) received the same teachings from Tantra, and therefore, their bodily, verbal, and mental behaviors show the same style.

Those “Honorable” guru masters (lamas) all claimed to be officially certified “living Buddhas” or even “dharma kings”; with the resounding title and fame, they are surrounded by tens of thousands of enthusiastic followers as if they were model teachers in the human and heavenly realms. But behind the façade, they are immoral philanderers, repeatedly sexually abusing their female followers. Once their disgraceful behavior is exposed, they just hide themselves from the general public, quickly flee Taiwan leaving a sexual Rashomon behind, or are finally put into jail because of breaking the law. On the other hand, lamas do have their predicaments due to their “firm belief” in the “Couple- Practice Yoga,” so they, just like a preset clockwork, have to meet their need for orgasm and even to sexually abuse females.

The quoted article of The New York Times finally concludes and suggests, “But perhaps if students and teachers knew more about what Hatha was designed to do, they would be less prone to surprise and unyogalike distress.” Chairman Zhang reminds that having gone through modifications and developments for over hundreds and thousand of years, the Tantric yogis had already devised many intricate steps in a full-scale aspect including “body, mind, spirit, sentiment and intention,” in which there seems some pure choices to make. However, regardless of whether they pretend to practice “calm meditation” or play with the rhythm of the “poses,” whether under the guise of “spiritual unfolding” or the cloak of “religion,” whichever is the case, as long as they follow the copulation tradition of Tantric Couple-Practice, “their methods of practice are all wrong and leading to sex” because all those practices belong to the scope of Tantra.

The Nyingma (the red Sect), Gelug (the yellow Sect), Sakya (the tri-color Sect), and Kagyu (the white Sect) traditions all adhere to the teachings of Tibetan Lamaism, which claims to be Tibetan “Buddhism,” namely to have daily sexual practice with female followers on the Dual Operations of Bliss and Emptiness to seek the state of sexual pleasure. These secret practices are the prime reason that Tibetan Tantrism claims to be “Esoteric School,” since all such “secret doctrines” are not to be disclosed to outsiders.

Chairman Zhang points out seriously that in recent years, the True Enlightenment Education Foundation has made every effort to inform the general public so that they will recognize “the true face of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism and its Highest Yoga Tantra” and will fully understand that Tibetan Tantric Buddhism has inherited the pleasure-seeking tradition of sexual Hindu Tantra, which is NOT true Buddhism. Instead, it is under the guise of Buddhism, and many Buddhists, having been hypnotized over a long period of time, are slowly taking this fake Buddhism as a true Buddhist religion.

All practice methods and measures (expedients) propagated by the four sects of Tibetan Tantrism have a hidden seduction that lures followers into the Highest Yoga Tantra of the couple copulation. It is by all means the Foundation’s intention to make the truth known to the public, so “they would not run counter to their original intent of Buddhist cultivation and be less prone to surprise and anguish distress.”

The Foundation’s foresight and commitment correspond to those of the special article of The New York Times; the Eastern and Western viewpoints find an echo in each other. Despite their multifarious lineages and confusing Buddhist terms offered by Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, once having learnt of its true colors of “actual practice in sexual union” and that “every tantric dharma–gate leads to hell,” the public will not have any shock or disappointment after learning Lamaism. This article of The New York Times is indeed a sincere voice which could be taken in line with the rectification ongoing in Taiwan. (Reported by the Interviewing Team)

Editor’s Note:

This article is an English version of the Chinese edition published on

April 7, 2012.

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