Please use your discretion in reading this article, as it contains some information about tantra.
Tsem and Kechara House radically depart from Buddhist doctrine on many points. Many are overtly pseudo Buddhist teachings such as Tsem’s insistence that a student should only have one Buddhist teacher and must be unendingly subservient to that teacher after taking even one pratimoksha vow. [Pratimoksha vows are a rudimentary commitments Buddhists make to adhere to the minimum ethical standard of a Buddhist and while they are typically made with a teacher, they don’t constitute a student teacher relationship and many Buddhists take them frequently and indiscriminately in order to renew freshly broken vows.] And other teachings from Tsem are pseudo Buddhist in ways only educated Buddhists would recognize as such.
In tantra enlightened protectors are typically emanations of a practitioner’s enlightened yidam, the empty identity of which the qualified practitioner assumes. These enlightened dieties are not seen as separate from oneself, but instead they are extensions that are assigned with various tasks such as protecting the mandala from interfering spirits. Enlightened protectors can also be identified by their iconography in Tibetan images. Traditionally, the protector spirit shugden is neither an emanation of an enlightened yidam, nor do traditional images of shugden possess the iconography of an enlightened being. In addition, traditionally, the enlightened protector deities are ordered to exclude shugden, a spirit, from rituals such as empowerments and even from entering monasteries. In another article I will write about the current historical fiction surrounding the shugden spirit used by Tsem and Kechara House.
As part of taking refuge, a fundamental Buddhist right of passage that distinguishes Buddhists from non-Buddhists, a Buddhist resolves to take refuge in the Triple Gem to the exclusion of gods, spirits, demons, etc..
Here we can see an image of Tsem bowing to a man who Kechara House says is a shugden oracle with the caption, “Even wanting to quit, I would never do so without permission from my protector”. That a practitioner is subservient to a protector is contradictory to tantric teachings, whether that protector is enlightened or unenlightened.
Tibetan Buddhists are instructed explicitly never to place a protector image, enlightened or unenlightened, above the image of the Buddha, in the central position of a Buddhist shrine, or larger than the Buddha image because humans instinctively associate size, position, and elevation with relative status. Here we can see Tsem, not adherring to Gelug Buddhism, has constructed a shrine with the protector image larger, higher, and in a central position to indicate shugden’s superiority to Buddha Shakyamuni.
It also over emphasizes the importance of protectors in Tibetan Buddhism; as they only play a very minor role, similar to a security guard in a parliament. A security guard may be necessary for a parliament to function, but they don’t pass laws or carry out the purpose of a parliament.
As a note of lesser consequence, the shugden and Buddha Shakyamuni images are made of inferior and inappropriate materials.
Other pseudo Buddhist teachings require a basic Buddhist education to recognize. Below is an example of Tsem’s fundamentally wrong understanding of the emptiness doctrine of Buddism.
For readers that do not have a Buddhist background or are just learning the English language, I’ll try to make the mistake apparent. In the quote, Tsem says “Nothing is empty”. There are three possible interpretations of this statement. Below are the possible interpretations and the reasons they are incorrect or redundant.
1) “Nothing is empty”, meaning that no things are empty of inherent existence is incorrect because there is at least one thing that is empty of inherent existence. For example, a government is not inherently existent because it relies on people to acknowledge its authority. If no one acknowledges a government’s authority, then there is no government.
2) “Nothing is empty”, meaning that the lack of things is physically empty of things is a redundant statement. For example, “the empty space on the shelf is empty of things”, is a redundant statement.
3) “Nothing is empty”, meaning that the lack of things has emptiness nature is incorrect because the quality of being empty of an inherent existence can only be attributed to things that are premised to exist in some manner.
The third possible interpretation was discussed at length in my Gelug education and I expect it is a commonly elucidated and debated among the Gelug monastics of Gaden Shartse, the monastery Tsem claims to be affiliated with.
In the image below we can see Tsem is deeply confused about what enlightenment is and equates it with negating conventions. Keep in mind, some schizophrenic and mentally disabled people’s activity defy convention.
There are teachings from Tsem which bare no resemblance to Buddhist teachings and seem to serve only to baffle readers.
Please keep in mind this is only an extremely brief sampling of incorrect Buddhist teachings from Kechara House and Tsem, both of which have claimed to be upholding traditional Gelug Buddhism. All images here are presented in accordance with US copyright law.
