Persecution of H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III in China

        You may have seen that H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III was in trouble with the law in China and had fled to America to escape prosecution. It is true that at one point, INTERPOL had issued a warrant for His arrest. What you may not have heard was the true story behind those accusations and what happened to resolve those issues and you may not know how the Buddha Master responded to these charges. I want to share what I know about those events.

        The Buddha Master was persecuted in China by corrupt officials who were in powerful positions at the time in two provinces where he had lived and who did so to cover up for their own crimes. It took over a decade for the truth to be revealed as to how the then Party Secretary of Sichuan Province Zhou Yongkang and the then Secretary of the Politics and Law Committee and Chief of the Public Security Department of Guangdong Province Chen Shaoji had falsely fabricated cases to persecute Wan Ko Yee³⁹ to cover up their own extensive corruption. An arrest warrant was issued, and the case elevated to the national level with China requesting involvement of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) after Wan Ko Yee left China. In 2010 Chen Shaoji, who also later served as the chairman of the Political Consultative Conference of his province, was tried and sentenced to death (with stay) for embezzlement and corruption. I believe the other official and others were also jailed. The case is well documented and quite fascinating, but what I wanted to report on was how the Buddha Master handled the whole mess.

        I remember that when we were working on the Big Blue Treasure Book, the Buddha Master showed me a huge binder that His attorney had compiled for INTERPOL to counter the charges. Some charges were so ridiculous, they were funny. As I recall, the Chinese officials were trying to pin extortion charges or something like that on the Buddha Master. They had one person testify that not only would Master Wan Ko Yee not accept a large donation, Mr. Yee wanted to give the student money or maybe only accept one dollar. I forget the details but how could that be extortion? The so-called victims in the case would not testify against their Buddha Master, but instead praised Him.

        There were serious charges, but they were simply not true. Several corrupt government officials had stolen valuable artwork and tens of millions from the Buddha Master and from His students and were trying to cover their tracks. They were eventually found out and received their just rewards. The Chinese do not fool around on these matters.

        There was another part of the scandal that I even played a very small role in and went to Hong Kong to give testimony as to the good character of my Master at a very large press conference held in December 2014. One of the so-called “victims” who also testified at that press conference was Mr. Lau Pak Hun, a very wealthy Hong Kong developer and vajra brother, who the corrupt officials claimed had been defrauded of $60 million Hong Kong dollars. The truth of the situation was that, yes, this gentleman had been defrauded of that amount of money, but the Buddha Master had nothing to do with that deception. The developer had tried to give that amount of money to his Master, that was also true, but the Buddha Master would not accept it. The Buddha Master finally agreed he could use the money to establish a museum to house some of the Buddha Master’s paintings and other artwork. The woman who was put in charge of the museum did establish the museum (I have friends who attended the Grand Opening), however, she took the bulk of the money, including a loan on the museum, and gave it to her brother to invest in his factory. An audit of her accounts revealed what had happened and even though she had highly placed political connections, she was sent to prison. All of the other charges against the Buddha Master were similarly debunked, the charges dropped, and the Buddha Master cleared of any wrongdoing.

        There are still false articles on the internet concerning this matter. It was a juicy salacious affair. However, the Buddha Master never appealed or complained about the framing, persecution or slandering against him. When asked why He had not even published INTERPOL’s conclusion from the investigation to refute the rumors, H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III said, “The thing that I want to do is: I will bear all negative karmas and sins of living beings, I will give all my good karmas and merit to you. If I show that to exonerate me, the people who slandered me would not get exonerated. Then, who will bear their sins and negative karmas?”