Talk:Trinley Thaye Dorje
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A section of the article (see below) seems to be confusing Thaye Dorje with Urgyen Trinley Dorje. Surely it is the latter who had fleed Tibet given that Thaye Dorje is recognised/supported by the Chinese Government. Can anyone confirm/disconfirm this?
"In March 1994, Thaye Dorje and his family escaped from Tibet to Nepal and then to India, where Shamar Rinpoche formally recognized him as the 17th Karmapa. In 1994 Thaye Dorje was enthroned by the 14th Kunzig Shamarpa as the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa at the Karmapa International Buddhist Institute in New Dehli, India."
--Ant108 19:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC) - The article is accurate. Thaye Dorje escaped from Chinese-occupied Tibet in 1994. Urgyen Trinley Dorje did not leave Tibet until January 2000, although the exact timing and the circumstances around his alleged escape are subject to debate. Furthermore, Thaye Dorje is not recognised by the Communist Chinese government - it is Urgyen Trinley Dorje who has their blessing. Thaye Dorje was recognised by Sharmar Rinpoche, the second highest teacher in the Karma Kagyu lineage, and was never under the control of the Communist government.
- probably best explained on Karmapa controversy. Billlion 10:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
This doesn't really explain that the majority of Karma Kagyu support the other one. I appreciate we need a neutral source for that. Secretlondon (talk) 06:30, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
How do you know that the majority of Karma Kagyu support the other one? Have you done a worldwide Kagyu poll? The identification of past Karmapas was never subject to popular vote, so I'm not really sure the relevance of this either way! --Changchub (talk) 12:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
- The only evidence I know of that most of Karma Kagyü supports Ogyen Trinley Dorje is from this statement from Geoffrey Samuel, a scholar who has studied the history of Karma Kagyü. This is from a statement that he gave in a court case which generally supports Trinley Thaye Dorje's side: "it would seem that the Dalai Lama's recognition cannot be regarded as conclusive or final. While it appears to have been accepted by a majority of Karma Kagyu monasteries and lamas, there remains a substantial minority of monasteries and lamas who have not accepted Urgyen Trinley as Karmapa." As for the relevance of this, yes, it matters a great deal to the outside world. On purely religious grounds, Lucian Pulvermacher, a.k.a. Pius XIII, makes the argument that he is the current valid Pope and Bishop of Rome. Other Catholics will make a theological argument that this is incorrect, but to everyone who is not Catholic, theological discussion is irrelevant: what matters is that the vast majority of Catholics believe that Ratzinger is Pope and Pulvermacher is not. Now, I certainly don't mean to say that religious arguments should be ignored in this article, since the identity of the Karmapa's identity is certainly most relevant to people who are Kagyüpas; however, the viewpoints of other people should not be ignored, either.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 17:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Geoffrey Samuel is correct about the majority of monasteries and lamas supporting Ogyen Trinley rather than Thaye Dorje. My point was that the Karma Kagyu branch of Tibetan Buddhism is now by far the largest of the four branches in terms of practitioners (not just monks, nuns, lamas, etc...) and the statement "the majority of Karma Kagyu support [Ogyent Trinley]" is vague, and quite probably inaccurate given the huge number of Diamond Way centers all through Europe and Russia that support TD. Again... I must reiterate that in the past the recognition of tulkus was not a matter of popular vote either amongst monks and lamas, or practitioners of the various lineages. Controversies were small, secret and limited to the highest lamas of a lineage and were usually resolved much more quickly than this one has been. --Changchub (talk) 20:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I think that's a good point: "the majority of monasteries and lamas" is not the same thing as "the majority of Karma Kagyü"—we probably don't have any evidence at all about the latter. That mid-level religious authorities tend to support one of the candidates is also a fact of interest to outside observers—just as it is a meaningful fact that the vast majority of Catholic bishops who are not cardinals support Pope Benedict XVI rather than Pius XIII, even though people who are not cardinals have no formal role in choosing the pope (I don't mean to imply that these two cases are generally similar, by the way).
- As an aside, I find it interesting that the charter of the Karmapa Charitable Trust, as written by the administration of the 16th Karmapa, apparently says: "It is further declared hereby that in the case of the death of any of the trustees named from Nos. 5 to 7 herein above representing the Karmapa sect (order) ... the members of the Karmapa sect of Tibetan Buddhism will elect the required member or members of their sect as vacancy may arise (amongst the trustees Nos. 5 to 7) to act as trustees in place of the deceased trustees." That is, the charter calls for the election of new trustees by "the members of the Karmapa sect [i.e. the Karma Kagyü]". I wonder what this was intended to mean. Who are the members and how was an election to be carried out? In any event, this provision seems to have been ignored in practice, and so it was never really decided.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 21:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] 14th Sharmapa "concurred that Ugyen Trinley Dorje be a Karmapa and the seat holder of Tsurphu monastery in Tibet" in June 1992 prior to taking a contradictory view that only this biographical subject is the only 17th Karmapa"
- July 2000 statement from him referencing that. Relevant background information for inclusion.Mesplay (talk) 05:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
- Shamar Rinpoche Letter of June 17, 1992 concurring with Dalai Lama's recognition of Orgyen Trinley Dorje as 17th KarmapaMesplay (talk) 06:02, 27 March 2008 (UTC)