‘A Critical Enquiry of ‘Padma Gonpo Rinpoche’

This blog questions claims made by the person calling himself Padma Gonpo and a practice he calls ‘Dagpa Bon’ (it is not concerned with the person per se). Kindly note that the author of this blog is not to be confused with that person. Nor is this blog, URL, and title associated with any company bearing any similar sounding name. Its contents are the written work of the author, unless citing other sources or quotations. This blog seeks, though critical examination and speculative enquiry, to reveal the facts, and questions if this individual is responsible for exploiting a genuine Tibetan tradition, for the puposes of profit and self-promotion? Blog hosting service please note: Padma Gonpo is a personal name, derived from Tibetan, there are untold numbers of individuals across Tibet, Bhutan, and the Himalayan regions bearing that name. It is therefore not, legitimately, the intellectual, or copyrighted property, of any one individual or organization, and cannot reasonably form any basis for challenge. Any more than a website for John Brown’s grocery store in Neenah Wisconsin, USA, can claim rights over the name, against John Brown from Scotland’s, fishing blog.

ISP/Blog-Hosts please note that according to EFF such useage is permitted “….as long as you’re not making commercial use in the same category of goods or services for which the trademark applies. Anyone can sell diesel fuel even though one company has trademarked DIESEL for jeans. Only holders of “famous” trademarks, like CocaCola, can stop use in all categories, but even they can’t block non-commercial uses of their marks.”.

According to the EFF Website “courts have found that non-misleading use of trademarks in URLs and domain names of critical websites is fair. (Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. v. Faber, URL http://www.compupix.com/ballysucks; Bosley Medical Institute v. Kremer, domain name www.bosleymedical.com)…..”.

They based this untruth upon a libellous post made by a supporter of another individual, who falsely claimed to have received Tibetan Bon teachings and set himself up as a ‘Physician’ of Tibetan Bon medicine. That person’s claims were completely exposed as bogus.Since he too could not present any factual or independent material, which would verify his  bizarre claims, his supporters, like those of self-styled ‘Padma Gonpo’, resorted to a transparent calumny.

According to this fiction (written anonymously on a public forum) I was, prior to my involvement with Tibet,  writing and researching on the issue of ‘UFO’s’. I have invited the original author of this blatant falsehood  to present any essay, article or other written information bearing my signature, name and date which involves this subject. Curiously, rather like the supporters of so-called ‘Padma Gonpo’ he/she has been singularly unable to offer any evidence whatsoever to support their fabrication.

For those who are curious as to why I have invested time and effort into examining and exposing the claims made by ‘Padma Gonpo’. Simple, I care about Tibet and its people. Moreover, I happen to believe that Bon, the native religion of Tibet, is worthy of my concern, and that it’s fundamentally  wrong for anyone to abuse, exploit, distort, or misrepresent what is a highly profound and ancient tradition. I like to consider that my motivation for such action, is based upon principles of respect and understanding, values which have informed my wider work, in support of Tibet, since 1988. Since then I have actively campaigned against human rights abuses, and written widely on the issue of Tibet, challenging a range of injustices, which are forced upon the Tibetan people.

Such an extreme process of denial is really a type of fundamentalism, and one wonders, in light of the false nature of the ‘teachings’ and ‘teacher’ what is operating that generates such a psychotic resistance to embrace the truth about self-titled ‘Padma Gonpo’.