A Cuckoo in the Peacock Palace: The Decline of Tradition and the Rise of the New Kadampa Tradition in 21st Century Western Buddhism

No Relationship? The UK Charity Commission Confirms the New Kadampa Tradition and the Western Shugden Society are One and the Same.
The NKT, the WSS and Politics
One of the greatest concerns of the NKT is its preservation of the illusion of it being a Buddhist ‘religious’ charity rather than a political movement. For the wider world to perceive the NKT as a political movement, an essential aspect of the group’s actual character (though one not readily talked about at its beginners groups) would be a PR disaster. They, after all teach a form of ‘pure’ Buddhism untarnished by the pollutions of extant forms of the faith, long established ‘traditions’ which, they claim, have ‘degenerated’ into ‘politics’. Hence, the internal rules of the NKT-IKBU state “The New Kadampa Tradition shall always be an entirely independent Buddhist tradition and the NKT-IKBU shall have no political affiliations.”
Kelsang Gyatso himself distanced the NKT from the whole issue of the conflict over Dorje Shugden more than a decade ago when, in a letter to the Washington Times he proclaimed the issue a “Tibetan political problem” and publicly avowed that,
‘…in October 1998 we decided to completely stop being involved in this Shugden issue because we realized that in reality this is a Tibetan political problem and not the problem of Buddhism in general or the NKT. We made our decision public at this time- everyone knows the NKT and myself completely stopped being involved in this Shugden issue at all levels. I can guarantee that the NKT and myself have never performed inappropriate actions and will never do so in the future. This is our determination. We simply concentrate on the flourishing of holy Buddhadharma throughout the world – we have no other aim.”
The corollary of this rhetoric is epitomised by the Western Shugden Society’s allegations against the present Dalai Lama that he (not generations of masters and independent minded Dalai Lamas before him) has polluted Buddhism by ‘politicizing’ it via the issue of Dorje Shugden. The Western Shugden Society book, ‘A Great Deception’ brims with such rhetoric. The group’s website describes its membership as “freeing Buddhism from Political pollution, protecting Shugden practitioners from persecution by the Dalai Lama”.
There is then a definite desire on the part of Kelsang Gyatso and the NKT to keep the two, politics and religion, separate in the minds of newcomers and potential converts; indeed, this distinction is repeatedly emphasized throughout the follower’s encounter with the organization.
And yet, what one gradually ‘learns’ about Buddhism when one encounters the NKT is:
Dalai Lama=politics=pollution of ‘pure’ Buddhism;
Kelsang Gyatso/NKT=’Pure’, non-political Buddhism.
This routinely perpetuated, highly political motif is prominent throughout one’s involvement with the NKT, even in the upper echelons of the organization’s ruling elite. In his letter to NKT centre directors in April 2008 for instance, after elsewhere stating he would personally organize demonstrations against the Dalai Lama as the ‘representative’ of the Western Shugden Society, Gyatso wrote:
It is very possible that The Western Shugden Society will organise demonstrations against the Dalai Lama. Concerning this issue, we should know five things:
1. The demonstrations will be organised by the Western Shugden Society, not by the NKT.
2. The Western Shugden Society is the unification of all the Western Shugden practitioners, and NKT is a part of this main body.
3. When the main body, The Western Shugden Society, organises demonstrations, the NKT needs to voluntarily contribute and help.
4. There is no basis to break our constitution or internal rules because this is not organised by the NKT.
We should recognise that the NKT is not involved politically, simply supporting The Western Shugden Society with these demonstrations.”
Clearly, the idea that the NKT is an apolitical organization is considered a valuable asset from the NKT’s perspective. This maintenance of the dualistic distinction between politics and religion, between the ‘polluted’ and ‘politicised’ on the one hand and the ‘pure’ and the ‘apolitical’ on the other, provides both the mantra and mindset which drive the NKT’s Shugden devotees in their allegedly ‘apolitical’ war against the Dalai Lama in the material world and in cyberspace.
So how political are the NKT? More importantly, to whom can we ask that question and guarantee a trustworthy response?
Of course, we could ask the NKT. But we already know that the NKT could never possibly be a political organization from their own perspective; the internal rules of the group state,” the NKT-IKBU shall have no political affiliations.” And if that’s what the NKT rules say, then it must be true.
Gyatso explicitly disassociates the NKT from political activity above when he states that because the WSS and not the NKT were organizing demonstrations, the NKT’s internal rules on political affiliation were therefore not being breached. ‘The NKT is not involved ‘politically’, claimed Gyatso, it was simply ‘supporting’ the activities of the Western Shugden Society.
So, from Gyatso’s perspective, the NKT has no involvement with the Shugden Society, they are just their ‘supporters’. The NKT ‘party line’ answer to our question then, is that the two, the NKT and the WSS, are distinct entities.
Critics of the NKT/WSS
We have already seen that the NKT’s critics consider this distinction to be a false one. They point to the fact that, before the demonstrations against the Dalai Lama, Kelsang Gyatso declared, “As the representative of the Western Shugden Society, I personally will organise demonstrations against the Dalai Lama directly”.
Similarly, critics point to the fact that the WSS Press speaker during the 2008 anti Dalai Lama campaign was Kelsang Pema (Helen Gradwell), personal assistant to Kelsang Gyatso for 8 years. Again, in the US, the frontman and leader of WSS demos was Kelsang Khyenrab, then Deputy Spiritual Director of the NKT, second only to Gyatso. The frontwoman and leader of the same WSS demos was Kelsang Dekyong, then National Spiritual Director of NKT USA, now General Spiritual Director of the whole organization. In Germany, the WSS frontman and leader of demonstrations was Kelsang Ananda, National Spiritual Director of NKT Germany. Finally, the leader of WSS demos in Australia was Kelsang Rabten, National Spiritual Director of NKT Australia and New Zealand. On each occasion, the vociferous demonstrators were overwhelmingly members of the NKT.
So one for, one against. The NKT say they are not political and that they only ‘support’ the activities of the WSS, and their opponents say they are political because the NKT are the WSS, simply pretending not to be the NKT so as not to become tarred by the brush of ‘politically polluted religion’ . Remember, according to the NKT, that’s where the Tibetans got it wrong and where the NKT get it right; the NKT definitely does not perpetuate the fault of mixing politics with religion.
Inform: Neutral Advice?
Perhaps a third more neutral party such as the Home Office financed ‘Inform’ might be able to provide a more academic opinion on whether the NKT is the same as the WSS and whether it engages in political activity or not. Inform, according to its aims, provides accurate, balanced, up-to-date information about new and/or alternative religious or spiritual movements. These are the people government departments talk to when they want information on established religious groups and New Religious Movements. Notably, in 2008, they received more enquiries about the NKT than any other controversial British New Religious Movement.
The standard letter Inform issue when contacted about the NKT confirms that “the NKT-IKBU stresses that it is an independent organisation with no official political position or formal association with the Western Shugden Society.” The file Inform hold on the NKT lists the WSS as an ‘associated organization’ because of the “substantial demonstrable connections between the two,” and what an Inform spokesperson described as “the visible overlap of the membership base and spokespersons of both groups “. New Religious Movements often set up legally independent charities and companies in which their members are encouraged actively to become involved, Sun Yung Moon’s Unification Church providing numerous examples of such practice.
So, it would appear that the ‘neutral’ position is that the NKT and the WSS are ‘associated’, the former having set up the latter and then encouraged its followers to become members.
However, one must ask how ‘neutral’ this information actually is. As mentioned above, 2008 saw Inform receiving more enquiries about the NKT than any other NRM. In response to the ever-growing concern about the organization, Inform decided to produce a leaflet on the NKT charting its history and some, though not all, of the controversies surrounding it. As academics involved in the study of New Religious Movements, Inform have always provided the organizations they comment on with draft copies of anything they write about them so that the organization has chance to comment before publication. But when Inform provided the NKT with what they intended to write, the NKT responded, characteristically, by threatening legal action.
This means that Inform cannot even tell the Home Office, the government office that finances it, exactly what it knows about the organization because the NKT has prevented it from doing so, indeed it has prevented Inform from presenting the full extent of its information to all government bodies or to the public via its increasingly ubiquitous threat of litigation. From this perspective, it would seem that NKT has even more power than the UK Government itself.
Therefore, we cannot be sure that Inform’s stance is a neutral one, not because of inadequacies or biases on the part of Inform’s academic staff, but rather because their responses must always be considered against the knowledge that the threat of NKT legal retribution hangs, like the sword of Damocles, over everything they might dare to say or print. From this perspective, it would seem that NKT has even more power than the UK Government itself
At least the author Gary Beesley, can take some solace from this. The widespread response from the NKT web-police after he was forced to withdraw his book on the NKT, ‘A Cuckoo in the Peacock Palace’, from circulation was that the legal suppression of his work was due to its being filled with libellous falsehoods. However, it is quite clear that the suppression of ANY information that does not concur with their version of truth has become routine practice for the NKT, whether it is false or true. The 19th century German philosopher Schopenhauer observed that all truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed, secondly, it is violently suppressed and then thirdly, it is accepted by all as self-evident. If such is the case, the NKT’s suppression of Beesley’s work has already set in motion a process which will ultimately lead to widespread acceptance of its content.
The UK Charity Commission
Another important body that has had a long relationship with the NKT is the UK Charity Commission. Like Inform, one of the fundamental tenets of the Charity Commission is neutrality. Unlike Inform, the NKT have a vested interest in maintaining a healthy relationship with the Commission since their charitable status as the registered charity ‘NKT-IKBU’ brings significant benefits, both in terms of funding and tax exemption.
After the demonstrations of 2008, a number of individuals wrote to the Commission to express their concerns about the NKT-IKBU’s infrastructure, assets and membership being utilised in the WSS’s highly political anti Dalai Lama campaign. Generally speaking, charities are advised not to engage directly in political activity. In a recent report on the activities of the League Against Cruel Sports, for instance, Andrew Hind, Chief Executive of the Charity Commission said:
“Charities must guard their independence very carefully, which means not engaging in any party political activity or leaving the charity open to the perception that they may be.” Critics of the NKT would certainly suggest that the NKT, in the guise of the WSS, was engaged in just such activity.
However, the Commission rejected this complaint stating:
“Our view, is that the charity is undertaking campaigning rather than political activity, (a view) based on the distinct definitions of these terms, derived from charity law. Political activity involves trying to secure support or oppose a change in the law or in the policy or decisions of a central government, local authority, or other public body whether in this country or abroad. Campaigning is about mobilising support and raising awareness about an issue, whether in the public domain generally or particularly among stakeholders or governments, or both.
In this case, the charity is campaigning against an edict or a resolution (I refer However, we do not think that this is a political campaign or political activity because the edict has not been pronounced by a functioning government or political leader. Neither is the edict capable of being legally enforced. Clearly, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in Exile do pass resolutions, decisions and edicts which are followed by their supporters. However, these do not become laws or policies in Tibet, India or any other country, and their supporters have the choice of whether to comply or not.”
In other words, the campaign against the Dalai Lama is not a political one because the Dalai Lama is not a political leader and his edicts are not legally enforceable.
Supporters of the Dalai Lama’s position on the Shugden issue can be forgiven for perhaps perceiving this somewhat characteristically evasive and insipid response something of a disappointment. To suggest that the Dalai Lama is not a political leader simply because he is not currently the head of state or that his actions are not political simply because his edicts are not legally enforceable seems a very convenient way for the Charity Commission to, once again, refrain from acting when action is urgently needed. Even the NKT would disagree with them on both issues. After all, their central argument is that the Dalai Lama is a political figure and his edicts on Shugden are being enforced within the exiled Tibetan community.
Significantly more noteworthy however, is the repeated use of the phrase “the charity is …campaigning”. To whom exactly do the Commission refer when they speak of ‘the charity’ campaigning against the Dalai Lama’s edicts? Certainly, it is not the Western Shugden Society; the WSS have, at least until now, not registered as a UK charity. Moreover, the complaints that the Charity Commission received were not made against the WSS but rather, against the NKT-IKBU itself.
Thus, when the Commission refer to the non-political ‘campaigning’ activities of ‘the charity’, the charity are referring directly to the NKT. From the perspective of UK Charity Commission, the demonstrations against the Dalai Lama that were carried out in the deliberate guise of the WSS were in fact, the activity of registered charity 101504, the New Kadampa Tradition-International Kadampa Buddhist Union.
The Charity Commission’s response continues:
“…it would appear the charity believes its involvement in the issue to be political. We will therefore write to the trustees to explain the legal position that applies to charities taking part in political activity and campaigning, and the duties and responsibilities that must be complied with. As mentioned above, the reason for being involved in the campaign must be related to the charity’s purposes and trustees must be able to justify the resources applied….Our advice will also include trustees considering the methods used to campaign, such as taking part in demonstrations or associating with another organisation(s).”
This then, further confirms that it is the NKT-IKBU to which the Commission refer in their response. In fact, several phrases in the passage raise some very interesting questions. For instance, if “the charity believes its involvement in the issue to be political.” why does “the charity” publicly deny that it engages in any form of political activity? Again, why do the Commission believe the NKT-IKBU considers its “involvement in the issue to be political.”? Is it because they have consistently denied any association between their own activities and those of the WSS? Is such apparently deceptive behaviour acceptable for a charity in the eyes of the Commission?
According to the Commission’s response to the complaint that the NKT IKBU charity has bee engaging in political activities, charities can undertake such campaigning activity, “as long as they are only undertaken in the context of supporting the delivery of the charity’s purposes or aims, in this case the Dalai Lama’s edict against Shugden propitiation”.
The Charity Commission website states that the aims and purpose of the NKT-IKBU are the “Public promotion of Kadampa Buddhism throughout the world, by supporting the development of Kadampa Buddhist centres throughout the world, by publishing and distributing book on Kadampa Buddhism and training teachers in the same, and finally the maintenance of a year-round programme of Buddhist teachings and meditation at the charity’s home premises.”
Where in this statement of aims and purposes, does the NKT IKBU refer to its ‘religious freedom’ campaigns against the Dalai Lama? Is it not the case that, despite the fact that this has very clearly been one of the NKT IKBU’s most prominent activities of recent, such activities do not appear to link to any of the stated aims or purposes, either explicitly or indeed, implicitly? Why is it that the NKT-IKBU’s significant involvement in these activities is not made clear in the statement aims and purposes?
Surely, if this campaigning has become a significant aspect of the NKT-IKBU’s activities, this should be made clear in its statement of aims and purposes? If not, how are the general public or indeed non-governmental bodies such as English Heritage and the National Lottery to know whether they are contributing to a cause, the aims of which they agree with? Is this perhaps why the NKT have been so keen to hide the fact that, though they and the WSS are nominally distinct, they are in fact the same entity?
After the 2008 demonstrations by the NKT/WSS the Administrative Director of Kadampa Meditation Centre, Florida resigned, declaring:
“Since the beginning of our involvement with the NKT we have been repeatedly told that the NKT was not involved in politics. Now that the NKT has opened up with its political position and begun demonstrating I can no longer be a part of the organization. This complete lack of honesty about the NKT’s involvement in Tibetan politics is the reason for my departure.”
If more people were aware of this total dishonesty over the NKT’s thoroughly political nature, how long would it be before it was no longer one of the largest and fastest growing New Buddhist Movements in the West? How long would it be before the mortgage payments could no longer be met and its burgeoning property empire began to collapse inwards, like the proverbial sand castle slipping back into the sea?