Dalai Lama & Sweet Sarin-ade
On March 20, 1995 there was a poison gas attack in Tokyo’s underground system that killed a number of people and injured around 5,500 further victims and shook the world public. It was a sect leader, Shoko Asahara, who gave the command. Asahara was born in 1955 as the son of a large Japanese family. As he could barely see, he had to attend a school for the blind. After finishing school he tried without success to gain admittance to Tokyo University. In the following years he became involved in Asian medicine and started to practice various yoga exercises. He married in 1978. This marriage produced six children. The first spiritual group, which he founded in 1984,was known as AUM Shinsen-no-kai, that is, “AUM — Group of the mountain ascetics”.
But Asahara was not a complete nobody for the god-king. According to the German magazine, Stern, they had met five times since 1987 (Stern 36/95, p. 126). Amazingly, weeks after the first poison gas attack, His Holiness still called the guru a “friend, although not necessarily a perfect one” (Stern 36/95, p. 126). Then a document from 1989 came to light in which the Kundun thanked the AUM sect for donations and confirmed that they “encouraged public awareness through religious and social activities” (Focus 38/95, p. 114). On January 21, 1989 Asahara had sent the sum of $100,000 to Dharamsala for the assistance of Tibetan refugees. As a kind of service in return he received an official note from the Council for religious and cultural affairs of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in which one can read: “To the best of our knowledge, AUM attempts to promote public well-being through various religious and social activities, for example through instruction in Buddhist doctrines and yoga” (Focus 38/95, p. 116–117).
As evidence for this suspicion Asahara appeals to synchronicities and miraculous signs. Like the Panchen Lama, his son was also deaf in one ear. Yet the vision which appeared to the child’s mother was even more unambiguous: “A boy flying in spurts over a snowy mountain range with his legs crossed in a full Lotus posture. A low male voice said: 'Panchen Lama'. The voice continued, 'Tibetan Buddhism is finished. I have come to rebuild it …'" (Shimatsu, I).
Asahara also met with other high Tibetan tantra masters — Khamtrul Rinpoche, for example, an important Nyingmapa teacher, and Kalu Rinpoche, the Kalachakra specialist of the Kagyupas whose multifarious activities we have already considered. There is supposed to have been a meeting between the Tibetan scholar, Khamtrul (who the Kundun had prophesied to be the future Rudra Chakrin), the Dalai Lama, and a member of the AUM sect (Hisako Ishii) at which the publication of esoteric teachings of Padmasambhava in Japanese was discussed. According to statements by Asahara, Khamtrul Rinpoche confirmed his “perfect, absolute, divine wisdom” (quoted by Repp, 1997, p. 18). On May 24, 1989, the Tibetan is supposed to have issued the Japanese guru with the following letter of recommendation:
“Teacher Asahara is my old friend, and I consider it an honor to be able to say the following in favor of him and of his religious activities:
I am filled with boundless admiration for Teacher Asahara’s innate Buddhist traits, like enthusiasm for his work, goodliness, generosity, and selflessness.
He is an experienced and qualified meditation; tantra; and yoga instructor.
On the condition that he receives fitting recognition, Teacher Asahara can become a truly well-known teacher of Buddhism, who is capable of re-establishing the true doctrine of the Dharma in Japan.
I also know that AUM Shinrikyo, Teacher Asahara’s religious organization, is a religious association that distinguishes itself through discipline and good organization and wide-ranging activities in order to suitably further social well-being.
Teacher Asahara’s sympathy and assistance in regard to the people and culture of Tibet is an example of generosity and concern for the poor.
It is painful for me to see that AUM, with no regard for its good intentions and activities, has up until now not found the recognition and support it is due from the Japanese government.
I emphatically recommend that AUM be accorded the justly deserved status of a tax-free organization, and that it likewise receive all necessary governmental and social privileges. Many thanks, Khamtul Giamjang Dontup Rinpoche.” (AUM Shinrikyo, HPI 013)