http://www.american-buddha.com/trimondi.interviewjamesstephens.htm

AN

INTERVIEW WITH VICTOR AND VICTORIA TRIMONDI

 by

James C. Stephens

Reflections

on the Dalai Lama’s September 2003 Visit to America and the

Ceremony at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on the Second

Anniversary of 9/11

An Interview

with Victor and Victoria Trimondi (Germany)

September 11,

2003

Stephens:

This September 11 on the second anniversary of the terrorist attack

on America, the keynote speaker at the National Cathedral in

Washington, D.C. was not the American evangelist Billy Graham, but

Tenzin

Gyatso, better known as the XIV

Dalai Lama, the exiled God-King of Tibet.

Accompanied by five Tibetan Lamas from his New York Monastery, he

officially began with Buddhist ritual chanting followed by a talk to

an audience of 7,000 on “Cultivating Peace as an Antidote to

Violence.” Our interview today from Germany is with Victor and

Victoria Trimondi, who previously worked to promote the Dalai Lama’s

message in Europe. They are co-authors of a critical European

bestseller entitled The

Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan

Buddhism. How did you first come to know the Dalai Lama?

Trimondi:

We first met the XIV Dalai Lama in the eighties and became friends

while publishing his writings in our publishing house,

Trikont-Dianus-Verlag. While organizing international conferences

with him and other famous speakers on interreligious and

intercultural topics and specifically securing governmental level

invitations to Germany and Austria for him, we began to seriously

explore Tibetan Buddhism. However,

after many years of extensive study and reflection, we seriously

questioned some of the fundamental tenets of the Tantric Buddhism the

Dalai Lama professed and eventually became one of his sharpest

critics.

Stephens:

Today, the Dalai Lama was warmly received by the Christian clergy of

the National Cathedral who invited him as the keynote speaker and

allowed him to perform his religious rituals with several Tibetan

Buddhist lamas on the second anniversary of September 11. How should

we as Americans view his visit?

Trimondi:

Frankly

speaking, the

Dalai Lama has two faces. He makes his official contact with the

West under the maxim of Mahayana Buddhism and then deftly assimilates

the highest values and ideals of western culture (Christian, Jewish

and humanist). On his present trip to America he has met with Muslims

like Mohammed Ali, Jesuits at the University of San Francisco,

political leaders from Republican and Democratic persuasions, and

then will comfortably meet with ethicists and scientists at MIT and

Harvard.

Through

diplomatic tolerance he wins Agnostics as well as the hearts of

unsuspecting Jews and Christians, to whom he preaches in the tongue

of “a man of peace” and as a human rights activist relates

passages of “compassion, love, and non-violence” from the “Sermon

on the Mount.” Nearly all of the speeches the Dalai Lama delivers

in public are extremely tolerant, human and compassionate. You can

only agree. And yet, there is another face that peeks out from behind

the mask of goodness, charity and kindness, which gives one pause to

think more deeply about the shadow of this “man of peace.”

Stephens:

I understand what you mean. I recall attending his press conference

at the 1993 Parliament of the World Religions in Chicago and being

somewhat stunned by his response to a journalist’s question, “Have

you studied the life and teachings of Jesus?” He commented about

the Tibetan Bible translation in the 1930’s and then said, “I

learned something reading these books, but I learned a more deeper

way from my personal friend, the late Thomas Merton.” Although it

revealed that he had a relationship with a Catholic, it also showed

at that time another side to me that he didn’t have much feeling

for Jesus or for the Bible. In light of your first book, The Shadow

of the Dalai Lama, could you spell out your concerns about his

“shadow side” and his forays into the West from your experiences

in Germany?

Trimondi:

The XIV Dalai Lama, the God-King of

Tibet is the highest representative of Tantric Buddhism, established

in Tibet in the 8th century, A.D. Tantrism, the last stage in the

history of Buddhism (since the 5th century A.D. in India) is based on

ritual and magic formulas. Not unlike other religions it also has

“skeletons in its’ closet” which it carefully conceals as a

guest in the Western world. Tibetan Tantrism is a belief in spirits

and demons, secret

sexual practices,

occultism, mind control, and an obsession

with power. In

contrary to every democratic custom, the present Dalai Lama consults

with the Nechung Oracle, a monk who is possessed by a Mongolian war

God, on all important state decisions.

What

primarily concerns us about the interreligious ceremony in the

National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. is the level of naivety in the

West. For the past 25 years, the Dalai Lama has quietly performed the

Kalachakra Tantra (“The Wheel of Time”), the highest of all

ancient Tantric initiations for tens of thousands of spiritual

novices in the West; introducing Tantric ideology, secret sexual

practices, and magic rituals integrated into the context of his

religious-political worldview. Critical voices have been raised,

while he continues to secretly transmit the Kalachakra’s prophetic

vision of the establishment of a universal Buddhocracy (Shambhala) in

which spiritual and worldly power are united in one person, the

“world emperor” (Chakravartin), wherein other religions will no

longer exist.

Stephens:

Samuel Huntington, Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at

Harvard warned in 1993 in his essay on The

Clash of Civilizations that, “What ultimately counts for people

is not political ideology or economic interest. Faith and family,

blood and belief are what people identify with and what they will

fight and die for.” In light of this what is your concern about the

ideology that the Dalai Lama is promoting in the Kalachakra Tantra?

Trimondi:

In the Kalachakra Tantra is prophesized the establishment of a

Buddhocratic Empire,

a clash of civilizations will arise as the military forces of

Buddhism wage war against the armies of non-Buddhist religions.

Murderous super-weapons possessed by the Buddhist Shambhala Army are

described at length and in enthusiastic detail in the Kalachakra

Tantra Text (Shri Kalachakra I. 128 – 142) and employed against

"enemies of the Dharma (Buddha’s teachings).”

Over the

last five years in the German speaking countries, these

shadow-aspects of Lamaism have lead to a vast, steady and increasing

stream of criticism in the media. During

the Kalachakra-Initiation of the Dalai Lama last year in Austria

there were very controversial debates on TV and Radio Stations and

Press Media. The internationally well known newspaper “Der

Standard” published an article entitled “A Warrior Ritual with

the Dalai Lama: The Kalachakra”. The German Weekly of Christian

intellectuals “Der Rheinische Merkur” entitled an article: “What

is hidden behind the Kalachakra Tantra? Supremely ferocious

warriors!”

Stephens:

Who are these non-Buddhist enemies spoken of in the Kalachakra

Teachings? I’ve seen articles in the Buddhist magazines the

Shambhala Sun and Tricycle about Lamas dressing up in military

uniforms. I thought Buddhism was a peaceful faith?

Trimondi:

The secret text of the Kalachakra explicitly names the "leaders"

of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as the opponents of Buddhism:

"Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mani, Muhammad and the

Mahdi" describing them as "the family of the demonic

snakes" (Shri Kalachakra I. 154). The final, Armageddon-like

battle (Shambhala war) ends in the total victory of the Buddhists.

The official Kalachakra-Interpreter Alexander Berzin openly

compares the principles of the Islamic “Jihad” with that of the

Shambhala war. As in the Islamic martyr-ideology

Shambhala-Warriors, who will be killed in the last battle have earned

passage into the [Buddhist] paradise.

The

military scenarios in some Buddhist Centers such as the Shambhala

training camps of the deceased Lama Chögyum Trungpa, have until

now only a symbolic meaning, and yet they are interpreted as a

spiritual preparation of the prophesized great Shambhala War. In the

imagination of some Lamas all participants in a Kalachakra initiation

have the questionable privilege of being reborn as "Shambhala

Warriors" in order to be able to participate in the coming

apocalyptic battle either as infantry or officers, dependant on rank.

High lamas of particular lineages have already been assigned to

commanding positions in the future.

Stephens:

Of late, the

scandal of sexual abuse among Catholics and other Christian

clergy has hit the news. I recall that a number of years ago, we

spoke to members of Dharmadhatu in West Hollywood who openly

mentioned that their founder Osel

Tenzin had knowingly infected many of their members with the aids

virus and that nine lamas had died in Boulder, Colorado. We were

humbled by their vulnerability on the subject. They obviously felt

terribly violated. Another

Christian woman we met in Seattle who was formerly a sexual consort

to a local Tibetan lama was so severely wounded by her experience

that she would not even speak of it in detail.

On October 5 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art an exhibit

entitled, “The Circle of Bliss-Buddhist Meditational Arts” opens

the largest Tantric Art exhibit in the Western Hemisphere. What

should the public be aware of about the dangers of sexual practices

of Tantric Buddhism?

Trimondi:

The sexual practices of Buddhist

Tantrism are not to be confused with normal sexual

abuse by some Lamas. The latter also has been a great problem in the

Buddhist communities, which were rocked by scandals caused by such

prominent leaders as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of Colorado's

Naropa University, who was accused of having sex with his women

students. In 1993, 21 Western Buddhist teachers met the Dalai Lama in

India and issued an open letter that lamented various teachers'

``sexual misconduct with their students, abuse of alcohol and drugs,

misappropriation of funds and misuse of power.'' The group urged

believers to confront teachers and publicize their misconduct.

Here

in Europe, one of the most well known and discussed cases involved

the Scottish Buddhist June Campbell and the attempt of her teacher,

the most honorable eighty year old Lama Kalu Rinpoche, to misuse her

sexually. The 10. February 1999 headline of the British newspaper The

Independent read: “I

was a Tantric sex slave.”

But

Campbell shows also in her confessional book Traveller

in Space that the sexual misuse of women is not only a blameable

attitude but that it is a central part of the Lamaist Tantric

religion. The sexual magic practice exercised by a Lama with a woman

has the specific goal to transmit the erotic and female energy into

the spiritual and worldly power of the male partner. Such sexual

rituals are the core of Tibetan Buddhism. Also in the secret higher

initiations of the Kalachakra Tantra sexual magical rites take place.

The ritual texts can be interpreted symbolically or real (!). Both

are possible. The originals say that eleven-year-old girls may be

used as sexual partners.

Stephens:

Shocking! Especially in our society where so much sexual abuse of

children is being exposed in religious circles. That public money is

being appropriated to promote this in the name of culture is of great

concern, especially as many children go on field trips to these

exhibits. Another concern in America has been the rise of the

Neo-Nazi movement. I understand that you have since co-authored

another bestseller on the influence of Asian religion on the

foundational ideology of Adolph Hitler. Evidently, this has unleashed

quite a debate in Europe. What’s the cause of the controversy?

Trimondi:

In our historical essay “Hitler

– Buddha – Krishna – an Unholy Alliance from the Third Reich to

Today” we show that the warlike and racist ideas of Heinrich

Himmler of the SS and of other well known Neo-fascists have been

fundamentally inspired by elements of different Asian religions, such

as Vedism, Buddhism, Lamaism and that prominent German Zen

Teachers-Dürckheim & Herrigel have been convinced Nazis.

It’s

really shocking, in the “SS-Ahnenerbe”, which was the academic

brain trust of the SS, that its Chief Heinrich Himmler, was openly

engaged in ongoing discussions with the most distinguished German

Orientalists of his time in the construction of a new Indo-Arian

Nazi-Religion. After WW II this discussion was continued by prominent

neo-fascist ideologues. Both of our books have stimulated a great

discussion about the ideological sources of religious fundamentalism

and about the

clash of civilisations.

Stephens:

I recall attending the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in 1996

when the Dalai Lama was awarded “The Simon Wiesenthal Peace Prize”

and the director equated him with “Aaron, our man of peace.” What

should the Jewish community be concerned about in light of your

research on his connections with Nazism?

Trimondi:

It is a fact that the Shambhala War Ideology of the Kalachakra-Tantra

has led to aggressive behaviour, megalomaniacal visions and

conspiracy theories both in the history of the Asia as well as in

that of religious fascism and neo-fascism. Already in the

SS-Ahnenerbe, where Heinrich Himmler’s Nazi-Religion was born,

there was an interest in the contents of the Kalachakra-Tantra. The

influential fascist and cultural philosopher Julius Evola saw in the

mythic world of Shambhala an esoteric centre of a sacred warrior

race. This vision is today still firmly anchored in the religious

ideas of the international far-right movement. That alone makes it

necessary for the Dalai Lama to distance himself clearly from the

war-mongering Shambhala Myth.

Instead of

this he has cultivated friendly contacts with people such as the

ex-SS men Bruno Beger (convicted as helping to murder more than 86

Jews) and Heinrich Harrer, author of Seven Years in Tibet (a

chronicle of his experience with the Dalai Lama over seven years

prior to his exile to India). The Homepage of the Government of Tibet

in Exile www.tibet.com/Status/statement.html shows the XIV Dalai Lama

between Bruno Beger on his right and Heinrich Harrer on his left.

Beger has been a member of the famous SS-Tibet Expedition organized

by the SS in 1938/1939 whose primary goal was to find traces of an

ancient, lost indo-Arian religion in the Himalayas. Some occult

leaders in the SS were convinced that Tibetan Lamas are the key

holders of these Indo-Arian Mysteries. Beger is highly respected by

the Government of Tibet in Exile as a chief witness for the political

independence of the country in the 30’s and 40’s of the last

century.

Nearly

unknown until now are the contacts of the Dalai Lama with the French

SS-collaborator, convinced anti-Semite, recognised Orientalist and

Kalachakra Tantra Expert Jean Marquès-Rivière (in his

absence convicted and given the death sentence for turning Jews over

to the Gestapo in France). The founder of an esoteric Hitler movement

the ex-Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano (promoter of an extremely

racist SS-mysticism, which is based on Tantric practices and on the

idea of the Shambhala

Warriors) met the Dalai Lama four times.

Well

known became his relationship with the Japanese terrorist, Shoko

Asahara, whom he described, even after the Tokyo sarin gas

attacks, as his "friend, albeit an imperfect one”.

Only later he did distance himself from the Guru. Asahara's Doomsday

Philosophy was mainly influenced by the Shambhala Ideology and by

Tibetan Tantrism.

Stephens:

It seems that this ideological discussion is being raised globally.

For us in California, it is quite relevant in light of the California

recall and recent political attack on “Terminator” candidate

Schwarznegger’s Austrian Nazi connections with Waldheim. But after

probing more deeply we understand that he’s actually one of the

largest contributors to Holocaust Awareness education and the Simon

Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance. I was concerned however, about the

uncritical acceptance of the Dalai Lama at that ceremony,

understanding some of the connections he has with prominent

Neo-Nazis.

Trimondi:

Yes, it is astonishing why the Jewish Community is so uncritical

vis-à-vis the Dalai Lama. On 09.04.03 the Swiss Newspaper Neue

Zürcher Zeitung reported, that the Tibetan religious leader said

on a journey in Jerusalem,

Hitler

would also have the potential of a good man in himself. Hitler was

not born as a wicked man, his hatred of the Jewish people made him

malicious and this hatred must be battled. But this doesn’t mean

that there was not also lying dormant some Goodness in Hitler. A

wicked man can be tomorrow a good man, said the Dalai Lama. For this

we have to fight.

Also if

such a statement can be interpreted as an expression of Buddhist

compassion, it seems tasteless remembering the murdering of six

million Jews by the Nazis and the death of millions and millions of

war victims on the account of Hitler’s madness. There would be a

worldwide protest, if for example the Pope or a Western statesman

made such a sympathetic remark on the most prominent mass murderer in

human history, especially if such a remark is done in Israel, where

many survivors of the Holocaust and their children are living.

Stephens:

And then there’s the Hollywood connection. Exactly, what is so

attractive to the Dalai Lama about Hollywood?

Trimondi:

Hollywood films are the most

powerful vectors of fantasy ever known to humankind. So the

extensive and well known connection of the Dalai Lama with the film

world and with famous actors and actresses is certainly an effective

propaganda instrument. Since

the nineties, Tibet, the Tibetan God King and Tibetan Buddhism have

been glorified by the most prominent film-directors, neglecting even

a minimum of critique of Tibet’s feudalistic and bloody past

controlled by a despotic monk aristocracy with absolute power.

Bernardo

Bertolucci’s “Little Buddha” or Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun”

are constructions of a

virtual Tibet, which never did exist. Even the ancient anti-Nazi

tradition of the American film-fabric was broken, when Jean Jacques

Annaud brought out “Seven years in Tibet”. This film with Brad

Pitt is a mystification and hero worship of the former SS-man

Heinrich Harrer who in the forties became the teacher of the young

Dalai Lama. In his book Virtual Tibet (2000) Orville Schell details

the “incredible” story of one of the most effective delusions in

the film world: The Tibet Fantasies of Hollywood.

Stephens:

I remember running into Richard Gere at the Wiesenthal Museum Peace

Prize presentation and discovered that his Foundation has financed

the building of over 300 sand Mandalas throughout the continental US.

What exactly is a sand Mandala? Do these Monk’s Mandala tours have

some other purpose than an art display? Why should we be concerned?

Trimondi:

A Mandala is a sacred pictogram; one also can call it a “magic

circle”. It is an instrument to evoke the gods, goddesses and

demons of the Tantric pantheon. For a modern Western approach, in

which religion and arts are not yet unified, the Mandala is a work of

art. However, in the Lamaist tradition where there is no difference

between the aesthetic and the sacred and where art is always sacred

art, the Mandala is a spiritual power vortex, an assembly point of

gods and demons, a palace of the divine, a spiritual battery from

where powerful energies are radiating. It is also connected with the

Lamaist idea that the place, where the Mandala is erected, stands

under the absolute control of its divine or, we would say, demonic

“inhabitants”.

The

intricate Mandala, constructed during the Kalachakra Ceremony, is

made with coloured sand and symbolizes the whole universe. At the end

of the ritualistic performance the sand construction will be

destroyed by the Tibetan monks. The

so called “dismantling” of the sand Mandala symbolizes the

destruction of the world and of the universe. This

is part of the apocalyptic Doomsday Scenarios in the Kalachakra

prophecies which culminate in a final battle and the End of our

planet. Nevertheless the construction and destruction of the Mandala

is presented by the Dalai Lama as a contribution to world peace.

Although

one would desire to believe in its peace producing energy,

realistically one has to accept, that the construction of this magic

circle after more than 25 years in the West has brought no more

appeasement to the people than it did in Tibet which has suffered

much. The aggressive and terrorist energies have become more and

stronger in our world and the clash of religions has become an

everyday-problem in politics. Is it not evident that the construction

of 300 sand Mandalas throughout the U.S. you are speaking of has not

contributed peace to this country? History on the contrary has

proceeded in the opposite direction and is on the way of destruction

and war.

In our

studies it was alarming to find that following the first World Trade

Center bombing in 1993 a Wheel of Time (Kalachakra) Sand Mandala was

built in the lobby of Tower One. For over thirty days, many of the

World Trade Center workers and visitors were invited by the Tibetan

Monks to participate in the construction of this Mandala. When the

Dalai Lama visits New York in the next days, we would ask: Why the

terrible event of 9/11 could happen at the World Trade Center that

was consecrated by the so called “Circle of Peace,” the

Kalachakra Sand Mandala, the same mandalas that were unable to

prevent the destruction of 7500 monasteries of Tibet? In this context

a sentence of the Tantra expert and Indian scholar Shashi Bhusan

Dasgupta may be remarkable: "The word Kala means time, death

and destruction. Kala-Chakra is the Wheel of Destruction."

We just

did find in the Internet a statement of a participant of the WTC

Kalachakra Ceremony, which seems really revealing especially because

it is made by an initiand of the Tantra: “The topic shifted to the

Kalachakra Mandala that was made at One World Trade Center. I was at

the dissolution ceremony there, mayBe around '96. The monks gathered

up all the sand from the Mandala at 1WTC, put it in a vase, then

carried it across the bridge into World Financial Center through the

Winter Garden, then dumped the sand ceremoniously into the Hudson

River for the sake of World Peace. The surface of the river glittered

with the afternoon sun, and I cried. 5 years later, the whole

building is gone, just like the sand Mandala.”

In

contrary to this, Robert

Thurman, the “academic godfather of the Tibetan cause” (Time

Magazine) saw a dream (September 1979) the Dalai Lama as an absolute

King and Kalachakra God reigning New York City. “The night before

he [the Dalai Lama] landed in New York, I dreamed he was manifesting

the pure land mandala palace of the Kalachakra Buddha right on top of

the Waldorf Astoria building. The entire collection of dignitaries of

the city, mayors and senators, corporate presidents and kings,

sheikhs and sultans, celebrities and stars—all of them were swept

up into the dance of 722 deities of the three buildings of the

diamond palace like pinstriped bees swarming on a giant honeycomb.

The amazing thing about the Dalai Lama’s flood of power and beauty

was that it appeared totally effortless. I could feel the space of

His Holiness’s heart, whence all this arose. It was relaxed, cool,

an amazing well of infinity” Thurman did interpret this dream as a

prophecy.

Stephens:

From your experience in the Kalachakra Debate in Europe and your

observation of mass media’s romantic portrayal of Tibet, what are

the potential dangers to other faiths, including Buddhism and

democracy of this growing Shambhala myth?

Trimondi:

Tibetan Buddhism, like the New Age of the eighties appears to be the

“trendy religion” of the new millennium. But it is much more than

the charismatic appearance of the Dalai Lama and his speeches about

compassion, peace and happiness. The danger lies in that the

Kalachakra Tantra ritual subtlety builds an ideological foundation

for a future “war of religions.” If the problematic contents of

this archaic belief are not openly discussed, they may present a

dangerous ideological challenge to the positive legacy of Western

Civilization and Democratic institutions. There is also no doubt that

the Kalachakra ideology proposing the establishment of Buddhocratic

rule, a universal Emperor (Chakravartin), violence, the licence to

kill and the waging of a Buddhist holy war are in direct opposition

to the original peaceful teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha. Concerning

this discrepancy between the aggressive contents of the Kalachakra

Tantra and the original peaceful Dharma, taught by the historic

Buddha, we have formulated Eight Questions to the Dalai Lama.

Stephens:

Serious talks of the Dalai Lama’s return to China before the

Olympics are beginning to leak into the media. How will this impact

the future of the West?

Trimondi:

We are really uneasy, if you ask us, as to what may potentially

happen if this “Buddhist-Jihad-Ideology” of the Kalachakra Tantra

will become a new vision of the Chinese political self-understanding.

Will the much more peaceful and softer philosophy of Daoism and

Confucianism be replaced by the “Shambhala Warrior Doctrine”,

which was once propagated in thirties by the Japanese Shinto-Fascists

to mobilize the Mongolian minorities of Manchuria and West China? If

the present situation in Europe is any indicator, we must say that we

are alarmed as we witness the rising interest in Germany of Fascist,

Neo-fascist and Nazi-intellectuals and in Asia of a terrorist like

the Japanese Doomsday Guru Shoko Asahara in the ideological concepts

of the Shambhala War of the Kalachakra Tantra. This should be a

Menetekel, that the “writing is on the wall” as a major wake-up

call for the West.

“The

Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan

Buddhism” (1999) is available online for the next couple of

months in English and “Hitler

– Buddha – Krishna – an Unholy Alliance from the Third Reich to

Today” (2002) is also a German Bestseller and is being

translated into English.