In 1996 the administration of Sera-Je Monastery in south India, wrote Ven. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso ‘a letter of expulsion‘ from the monastery. While in Tibet, Geshe Kelsang had studied at Sera-Je Monastery near Lhasa, but later did not have any connection with the monastery, even after it was re-located in south India. Geshe Kelsang was later asked:
Geshe-la, in the letter from the people of Sera-Je, it says that you were expelled from the monastery. Are you upset about this?
And he replied:
No, I am not upset. I had already stopped my affiliation with Sera-Je twenty years ago and had no intention of renewing it. So, I feel this doesn’t make any sense.
The reason for Sera Je Monastery’s letter against Geshe Kelsang was his outspoken criticism of the Dalai Lama’s ban against Dorje Shugden practice. James Belither, who was the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT) Secretary at the time, said:
The campaign to discredit Geshe Kelsang is clearly a deliberate attempt to silence him and act as a warning to others. As a Tibetan Lama in America he told another Lama living in Germany that he was planning to take public action against the Dalai Lama’s censorship “No, you can’t do that, you mustn’t. They will do to you what they did to Geshe Kelsang. What does it mean to be “expelled” from an institution where you studied? This will not detract from your years of study and meditation or detract from your spiritual qualifications. From this we can see that expulsion is simply a political action and an empty gesture.
Sera-Je is a Gelugpa monastery. Geshe Kelsang cannot be excommunicated from the Gelug tradition because it is not a club; Gelugpas are those who follow the teachings of Je Tsongkhapa, and Geshe Kelsang devoted his life to upholding and propagating those teachings.
Many Tibetan monasteries and masters never accepted this expulsion and hold Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in very high regard as a scholar and one of the greatest contemporary Buddhist masters. Please see the comments below for more detail.
Labelling the New Kadampa Tradition a cult
The accusation of cult was also made to stick quite convincingly by the Tibetan Government in Exile when they issued this politically motivated letter expelling Geshe Kelsang from Sera Je Monastery. This letter, intended to ostracize Geshe Kelsang, is full of strong accusatory language and numerous references to ‘cult’, ‘cultists’ and ‘cult leader’. Through these actions, the Tibetan Government in Exile intended that the cult label would stick to punish Geshe Kelsang for standing up to the Dalai Lama’s ban and pose a serious obstacle to the growth of the NKT (which, unlike Tibetan Buddhist groups, is not under their control). To this day, Tibetan followers of the Dalai Lama unfortunately routinely refer to the NKT as a cult and demon-worshippers.
See also: Is Geshe Kelsang Gyatso a real Geshe?
May all this false accusations and lies end forevermore.
I think its worth noting that 10 years after this letter, the Gelug monasteries were forced to split. Tibetan Monks who continued to practice the lineage of Dorje Shugden passed down to them by the Gelug Lineage Holders including Je Phabongkha, Serkyong Rinpoche, Trijang Rinpoche, Zong Rinpoche etc, were forced to establish their own monasteries. Even the nominal head of the Gelug School, the 101st Ganden Tripa Jetsun Lungrik Namgyal showed great courage when, upon his retirement he left Gaden Monastery in January 2010 to join the monks of Shar Gaden.
All of these monasteries including Shar Gaden, Segyu, Phelgyeling and many more have shown great respect to Geshe-la since they became free to do so. This also shows that the letter was politically motivated.
Expressions of this respect from these temples and Tibetan masters includes requesting teachings from Geshe-la: which became the book The Oral Instructions of Mahamudra (which was first published in Tibetan); they also regularly offered long life prayers on his birthday, sent him offerings when he last taught (in Portugal 2013), and wish Kadampa students great success during NKT International festivals via Facebook. They also made prayers for Geshe-la’s swift return after he showed the manner of passing away. Additionally his books are studied in the centres of other Gelug teachers, including Joyful Path of Good Fortune and Clear Light of Bliss.
All of these things show that free from political interference the masters, students and peers of Geshe Kelsang in the Tibetan community and institutions continue to express the same view, which was widely held before the Dalai Lama started to say that Dorje Shugden practitioners are not Buddhist, namely that Geshe Kelsang is a great and precious scholar and upholder of the Buddha’s teachings.
yes, this is correct. I visited Shar Gaden in 2015 and they had a statue of Geshe Kelsang on their shrine.