Thu, 29 Jun 2006
Off and Away
This will be my last post until July 10th. I'll be away at the annual ten day teaching at KTD, where Khenpo Karthar will be teaching on Karma Chagme's Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. So don't think that I've fallen over and had a heart attack. Interestingly, I just heard that the Drikung incarnation of Karma Chagme will be back in the Washington area in November.
There's been a new development in one of the fronts of the long running "Karmapa Wars." Beru Khyentse Rinpoche who was the spiritual advisor of the New Zealand Karama Kagyu community, supports Thaye Dorje as the Seventeenth Karmapa, while most New Zealanders, and Karma Kagyu students generally, support Orgyen Trinlay, who just celebrated his twenty first birthday. Beru Khyentse tried to take control of one of the centers and dismiss the trustees. They fought back in court and recently the court ruled in their favor.
The Court of Appeal says it cannot rule on the wider doctrinal and spiritual dimension of the disagreement, but the spiritual director, Khyentse Rinpoche Lama, did not have the power to dismiss four New Zealand trustees.
The trustees Ð Ross Hope, Lama Karma Shedrup, Thelma Burchell and Ellen Duckworth Ð administer the New Zealand Karma Kagyu Trust, which runs the Karma Choeling Monastery at Kaukapakapa, northwest of Auckland.
Khyentse Rinpoche visited New Zealand in 2004 after a lama who had taught at the monastery resigned over criminal allegations. He brought with him a locksmith and a group of supporters. Police were called but declined to become involved. A short lived accord ended with one trustee forcing entry to the monastery and issuing trespass notices to the visiting spiritual director and supporters, the Court of Appeal said.
Khyentse Rinpoche responded by issuing notices saying the four were no longer trustees. The removed trustees asked the High Court to rule on the legality of their removal. The Public Trustee has acted as manager of the trust in the interim.
The High Court found in favour of Khyentse Rinpoche, but the Court of Appeal overturned that decision.
It said his general powers to supervise and assist the trust board did not extend to removing trustees. It called for an orderly handover of control.
This restores the stalemate between the factions: neither can dismiss the other.
