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The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part
II – 15. The
buddhocratic conquest of the west
© Victor & Victoria Trimondi
15. THE BUDDHOCRATIC CONQUEST
OF THE WEST
In the view of the Tibetan lamas,
the spread of Buddhism in the West is predicted
by an ancient prophecy. The historical Buddha
is said to have made the following prognosis:
“Two thousand and five hundred years after my
passing the Dharma will spread to the land of
the red-faced people” (Mullin, 1991, p. 145).
This they take to be a reference to the USA and the continent’s native inhabitants,
the North American Indians. There is an astonishingly
similar prophecy by the founder of Tibetan culture,
Padmasambhava: “When the iron bird flies and horses
run on wheels … the Dharma will come to the land
of the Red Man” (Bernbaum, 1982, p. 33). Western
cultural figures like the director Martin Scorsese
cite a famous pronouncement of the Tibetan state
oracle prior to the flight of the Kundun
in the 1950s: “The jewel that grants wishes shines
in the West” says the prophecy (Focus, 46/1997, p. 168) “The
jewel that grants wishes” is an epithet for the
Dalai Lama.
In the 1960s and 70s the spread
of Tantric Buddhism in the West still proved difficult,
especially with regard to its social acceptance.
The Buddhist groups shared more or less the same
fate as all the other “exotic” sects. No distinction
was drawn in public between Hare Krishna, Bhagwan
followers or Gelugpa monks. Yet thanks to the
mobility, political skill, sophisticated manner
and charismatic aura of the Dalai Lama, Lamaism’s
isolation has in the meantime become transformed
into its opposite and in recent years it has become
a triumphal parade. Whilst for the other Eastern
sects the number of new members has been stagnating
or even declining since the 90s, Tibetan Buddhism
has been growing “like an ocean wave” the news
magazine Spiegel reports, continuing, “In the wake
of sects and esoterica, Germans have [found] a
new haven from the crisis of senselessness: Buddhism.
In the [German] Federal Republic 300,000 people
are sympathetic towards the far Eastern religion
which discriminates against women, requires celibacy
of its monks and nuns, and whose western teachers
preach banalities as truths.” (Spiegel,
6/1994) Four years later the same magazine reports,
this time in a leading article which over many
pages reads like a hymn of praise for the Kundun, that half a million
Germans now follow the Buddhist path already.
The Spiegel says that, “Advertising
copywriters and heads of business, university
professors and housewives profess their faith
in the far Eastern religion — a rapidly increasing
tendency. ... Even in the new federal states,
in Menz in Brandenburg for instance, prayer flags
now flutter, freshly converted mumble mantras
[and] work on gilded Buddha figures” (Spiegel,
16/1998, p. 109). The number of Tibetan centers
in the Federal Republic increased from 81 to 141 within
just six years (1998).
The German press has — probably
unknowingly — become an instrument of propaganda
for Tibetan Buddhism. The following short (!)
collection of quotations is offered as a demonstration:
“Tibet is booming in the West. Buddhism
is the religion à
la mode.” (Spiegel,
13.4.1998); “In Germany too, Buddhism is becoming more
and more of a topic” (Gala, 21.3.1998); “The victory
march of the Dalai Lama leaves even the Pope pale
with envy. In Hollywood the leader of is currently worshipped
like a god ” (Playboy [German edition],
March 1998); “Buddhism is booming and no-one is
really sure why” (Bild 19.3.1998); “ In Buddha’s
arms more and more power women discover their
souls behind the facade of success” (Bunte, 1.11.1997); “Buddhism
is becoming a trend religion in Germany” (Focus 5/1994).
The USA and other western countries exhibit
even higher growth rates than Germany. In the United States there are said to be 1.5 million Buddhists
in the meantime. “An ancient religion grows ever
stronger roots in a new world, with the help of
the movies, pop culture and the politics of repressed
Tibet” writes the news magazine Time. (Time, vol. 150 no. 15, October
13, 1997). Between New York and San Francisco Buddhist centers are springing
up one after another, “religious refuges in which
actors, but also managers and politicians flee
for inner reflection. ... Nowhere outside of the
Vatican do so many prominent pilgrims
meet as in this ‘little Lhasa’ [i.e., Dharamsala]. Tibet is booming in the West. Buddhism
is the religion à
la mode. An audience with the god-king is
considered the non plus ultra” reports the
Spiegel
(Spiegel 16/1998, pp. 109,
108). Tens of thousands of Americans and Europeans
have performed some tantric practices, many hundreds
have undertaken the traditional three-year retreat, and the number of
ordained “Westerners” is constantly growing.
Tibetan Buddhism confronts Western
civilization with an image of longing which invokes
the buried and forgotten legacy of theocratic
cultures (which in pre-modern times defined European
politics as well). Here, after the many sober
years of rationalism (since the French Revolution),
half dead of thirst for divine revelation, the
modern person comes across a bubbling spring.
Lamas from “beyond the horizon”, revered in occult
circles up until the middle of this century as
enigmatic Eastern masters of a secret
doctrine and who rarely met an ordinary person,
have now descended from the “Roof of the World”
and entered the over-sophisticated cities of western
materialism. With them they have brought their
old teachings of wisdom, their mystical knowledge,
their archaic rites and secret magical practices.
We can meet them in flesh and blood in London, New York, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, even in Jerusalem — as if a far Eastern fairytale
had become true.
We have described often enough
the political goal of this much-admired religious
movement. It involves the establishment of a global
Buddhocracy, a Shambhalization of the world, steered
and governed, where possible, from Potala, the
highest “Seat of the Gods” From there the longed-for
Buddhist world ruler, the Chakravartin, ids supposed
to govern the globe and its peoples. Of course,
His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama would never
speak so directly about this vision. But his prophet
in the USA, Robert Thurman, is less circumspect.
Robert A. Thurman: “the academic
godfather of the Tibetan cause”
Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman,
the founder and current head of the Tibet House in New York, traveled to Dharamsala in the
early 1960s. There he was introduced to the Dalai
Lama as “a crazy American boy, very intelligent,
and with a good heart” who wanted to become a
Buddhist monk. The Tibetan hierarch acceded to
the young American’s wish, ordained him as the
first Westerner to become a Tibetan monk, and
personally supervised his studies and initiatory
exercises. He considered Thurman’s training to
be so significant that he required a weekly personal
meeting. Thurman’s first teacher was Khen Losang
Dondrub, Abbot of the Namgyal monastery which
was specifically commissioned to perform the so-called
Kalachakra ritual. Later, the Kalmyk Geshe Wangal
(1901–1983) was appointed as teacher of the “crazy”
American (born 1941), who today maintains that
he will be able to celebrate the Buddhization
of the USA within his lifetime.
Having returned from India to the United States, Thurman began an academic career, studying
at Harvard and translating several classic Buddhist
texts from Tibetan. He then founded the “Tibet
House” in New York, a missionary office for the spread
of Lamaism in America disguised as a cultural institute.
Alongside the two actors Richard
Gere and Steven Segal, Thurman is the crowd puller
of Tibetan Buddhism in the USA. His famous daughter, the Hollywood
actress Uma Thurman, who as a small child sat
on the lap of the Tibetan “god-king”, has made
no small contribution to her father’s popularity
and opened the door to Hollywood celebrities. The Herald Tribune called Thurman
“the academic godfather of the Tibetan cause”
(Herald Tribune, 20 March 1997,
p. 6) and in 1997 Time magazine ranked him among
the 25 most influential opinion makers of America. He is described there with a
telling ironic undertone as the “Saint Paul or Billy Graham of Buddhism” (Time, 28 April 1997, p. 42)
Thurman is in fact extremely eloquent and understands
how to fascinate his audience with powerful polemics
and rhetorical brilliance. For example, he calls
the Tibetans “the baby seals of the human right
movement”.
In the Shugden affair, Thurman
naturally took the side of the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama and proceeded with the most stringent measures
against the “sectarians”, publicly disparaging
them as the “Taliban of Buddhism”. When three
monks were in stabbed to death in Dharamsala he
saw this murder as a ritual act: “The three were
stabbed repeatedly and cut up in a way that was
like exorcism” (Newsweek,
5 May 1997, p. 43).
Thurman is the most highly exposed
intellectual in the American Tibet scene. His
profound knowledge of the occult foundations of
Lamaism, his intensive study of Tibetan language
and culture, his initiation as the first Lamaist
monk from the western camp, his rhetorical brilliance
and not least his close connection to the Fourteenth
Dalai Lama, which is more than just a personal
friendship and rests upon a religious political
alliance, all make this man a major figure in
the Lamaist world. The American is — as we shall
see — the exoteric protagonist of an esoteric
drama, whose script is written in what is known
as the Kalachakra Tantra. He promotes
a “cool revolution of the world community” and
understands by this “a cool restoration of Lamaist
Buddhism on a global scale”.
We met Robert Thurman in person
at a Tibet Conference in Bonn (“Myth Tibet” in 1996). He was without doubt
the most prominent and theatrical speaker and
far exceeded the aspirations laid out by the conference.
The organizers wanted to launch an academically
aseptic discussion of Tibet and its history under the motto
that our image of Tibet is a western projection. In truth,
Tibet was and is a contradictory country
like any other, and the Tibetans like other peoples
have had a tumultuous history. The image of Tibet therefore needs to be purged of
any occultism and one-sided glorification. Thus
the most well-known figures of modern international
Tibetology were gathered in Bonn. The proceedings were in fact
surprisingly critical and an image of Tibet emerged which was able to peel
away some illusions. There was no more talk of
a faultless and spiritual Shangri-La up on the
roof of the world.
Despite this apparently critical
approach, the event must be described as a manipulation.
First of all, the cliché that the West alone is
responsible for the widespread image of Tibet found here was reinforced. We
have shown at many points in our book that this
blissful image is also a creation of the lamas
and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama himself. Further,
the fact that Lamaism possesses a world view in
which western civilization is to be supplanted
via a new Buddhist millennium and that it is systematically
working towards this goal was completely elided
from the debate in Bonn. It appears the globalizing claims
of Tibetan Buddhism ought to be passed over silently.
At this conference Tibet continued to be portrayed
as the tiny country oppressed by the Chinese giant,
and the academics, the majority of whom were practicing
Buddhists, presented themselves as committed ethnologists
advocating, albeit somewhat more critically than
usual, the rescue of an endangered culture of
a people under threat. By and large this was the
orientation of the conference in Bonn. It was hoped to create an island
of “sober” scholarliness and expertise in order
to inject a note of realism into the by now via
the media completely exaggerated image of Tibet — in the justifiable fear that
this could not be maintained indefinitely.
This carefully considered objective
of the assembled Tibetologists was demolished
by Thurman. In a powerfully eloquent speech entitled
“Getting beyond Orientalism in approaching Buddhism
and Tibet: A central concept”, he sketched
a vision of the Buddhization of our planet, and
of the establishment of a worldwide “Buddhocracy”.
Here he dared to go a number of steps further
than in his at that stage not yet published book,
Inner Revolution. The quintessence
of his dedicated presentation was that the decadent,
materialistic West would soon go under and a global
monastic system along Tibetan lines would emerge
in its stead. This could well be based on traditional
Tibet, which today at the end of the materialistic
age appears modern to many: “Three hundred years
before, this is the time, what I called modern
Tibet, which is the Buddhocratic, unmilitaristic,
mass-monastic society …” (Thurman at the conference
in Bonn).
Such perspectives clearly much
irritated the conference organizers and immensely
disturbed their ostensible attempt to introduce
a note of academic clarity. The megalomaniac claims
of Tibetan neo-Buddhism plainly and openly forced
their way into the limelight during Thurman’s
speech. A spectacular row with the officials resulted
and Thurman left Bonn early.
Irrespective of one’s opinion of
Thurman, his speech in Bonn was just plain honest;
it called a spade a spade and remains an eminently
important record since it introduced the term
“Buddhocracy” into the discussion as something
desirable, indeed as the sole safety anchor amid
the fall of the Western world. Those who are familiar
with the background to Lamaism will recognize
that Thurman has translated into easily understood
western terms the religious political global pretensions
of the Tibetan system codified in the Kalachakra Tantra. The American
“mouthpiece of the Dalai Lama” is the principal
witness for the fact that a worldwide “Buddhocracy”
is aspired to not just in the tantric rituals
but also by the propagandists of Tibetan Buddhism.
Thurman probably revised and tamed down his final
manuscript for Inner
Revolution in light of events in Bonn. There, the emotive terms Buddhocracy and Buddhocratic are no longer
so central as they were in his speech in Bonn. Nonetheless a careful reading
of his book reveals the Buddhocratic intentions
are not hidden in any way. In order to more clearly
give prominence to these intentions, however,
we will review his book in connection with his
speech in Bonn.
The stolen revolution
Anybody who summarizes the elements
of the political program running through Thurman’s
book Inner Revolution from cover
to cover will soon recognize that they largely
concern the demands of the “revolutionary” grass
roots movement of the 70s and 80s. Here there
is talk of equality of the sexes, individual freedom,
personal emancipation, critical thought, nonconformity,
grass roots democracy, human rights, a social
ethos, a minimum income guaranteed by the state,
equality of access to education, health and social
services for all, ecological awareness, tolerance,
pacifism, and self-realization. In an era in which
all these ideas no longer have the same attraction
as they did 20 years ago, such nostalgic demands
are like a balsam. The ideals of the recent past
appear to have not been in vain! The utopias of
the 1960s will be realized after all, indeed,
according to Thurman, this time without any use
of violence. The era of “cool revolution” has
just begun and we learn that all these individual
and social political goals have always been a
part of Buddhist cultural tradition, especially
Tibetan-style Lamaism.
With this move, Thurman incorporates
the entire set of ideas of a protest generation
which sought to change the world along human-political
lines and harnesses it to a Tibetan/Buddhist world
view. In this he is a brilliant student of his
smiling master, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Tens
of thousands of people in Europe and America (including Petra Kelly and the
authors) became victims of this skillful manipulation
and believed that Lamaism could provide the example
of a human-politically committed religion. Thousands
stood up for Tibet, small and oppressed, because
they revered in this country a treasure trove
of spiritual and ethical values which would be
destroyed by Chinese totalitarianism. Tibetan
Buddhism as the final refuge of the social revolutionary
ideals of the 70s, as the inheritance of the politically
involved youth movement? This is — as we shall
show — how Lamaism presents itself in Thurman’s
book, and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama gives this
interpretation his approval. “Thurman explained
to me how some Western thinkers have assumed that
Buddhism has no intention to change society ...
Thurman’s book provides a timely correction to
any lingering notions about Buddhism as an uncaring
religion.” (Thurman1998, p. xiii)
But anyone who peeps behind the
curtains must unfortunately ascertain that with
his catalog of political demands Thurman holds
a mirror up to the ideals of the “revolutionary”
generation of the West, and that he fails to inform
them about the reality of the Lamaist system in
which used to and still does function along completely
contrary social political lines.
Thurman’s forged history
In order to prevent this abuse
of power becoming obvious, the construction of
a forged history is necessary, as Thurman conscientiously
and consistently demonstrates in his book. He
presents the Tibet of old as a type of gentle “scholarly
republic” of introspective monks, free of the
turbulence of European/imperialist politics of
business and war. In their seclusion these holy
men performed over centuries a world mission,
which is only now becoming noticeable. Since the
Renaissance, Thurman explains, the West has effected
the “outer modernity”, that is the “outer enlightenment”
through the scientific revolution. At the same
time (above all since the rule of the Fifth Dalai
Lama in the seventeenth century) an “inner revolution”
has taken place in the Himalayas, which the American
boldly describes as “inner modernity”: “So we
must qualify what we have come to call ‘modernity’
in the West as ‘materialistic’ or ‘outer’ modernity,
and contrast it with a parallel but alternative
Tibetan modernity qualified as ‘spiritualistic’
or ‘inner’ modernity” (Thurman 1998, p. 247).
At the 1996 conference in Bonn he did in fact refer to the “inner
modernization of the Tibetan society”.
Committed Buddhism, according to
Thurman, is instigating a “cool revolution” (in
the sense of ‘calm’).It is “cool” in contrast
to the “hot” revolutions of the Western dominated
history of the world which demanded so many casualties.
The five fundamental principles of this “cool
revolution” are cleverly assigned anew to a Western
(and not Oriental) system of values: transcendental
individualism, nonviolent pacifism, educational
evolutionism, ecosocial altruism, universal democratism.
For Thurman, the Tibetan culture
of “sacralization”, “magic”, “enlightenment”,
“spiritual progress”, and “peaceful monasticism”
stands in opposition to a Western civilization
of “secularization”, “disenchantment”, “rationalization”,
“profane belief in material progress”, and “materialism,
industrialism, and militarism” (Thurman 1998,
p. 246).Even though the “inner revolution” is
unambiguously valued more highly, the achievements
of the West ought not be totally abandoned in
the future. Thurman sees the world culture of
the dawning millennium in a hierarchical (East
over West) union of both. Upon closer inspection,
however, this “cool revolution” reveals itself
to be a “cool restoration” in which the world
is to be transformed into a Tibetan-style Buddhist
monastic state.
To substantiate Lamaism’s global
mission (the “cool revolution”) in his book, Thurman
had to distort Tibetan history, or the history
of Buddhism in general. He needed to construct
a pure, faultless and ideal history which from
the outset pursued an exemplary, highly ethical
task of instruction, aimed to culminate eschatologically
in the Buddhization of the entire planet. The
Tibetan monasteries had to be portrayed as bulwarks
of peace and spiritual development, altruistically
at work in the social interests of all. The image
of Tibet of old needed to appear appropriately
noble-minded, “with”, Thurman says, “the cultivation
of scholarship and artistry; with the administration
of the political system by enlightened hierarchs;
with ascetic charisma diffused among the common
people; and with the development of the reincarnation
institution. It was a process of the removal of
deep roots in instinct and cultural patterns”
(Thurman 1998, p. 231). A general misrepresentation
in Thurman’s historical construction is the depiction
of Buddhist society and especially Lamaism as
fundamentally peaceful (to be played out in contrast
to the deeply militaristic West): “[T]he main
direction of the society was ecstatic and positive;
intrigues, violence and persecution were rarer
than in any other civilization” (Thurman 1998,
p.36). Although appeals may be made to relevant
sutras in support of such a pacifist image of
Tibetan Buddhism, as a social reality it is completely
fictive.
As we have demonstrated, the opposite
is the case. Lamaism was caught up in bloody struggles
between the various monastic factions from the
outset. There was a terrible “civil war” in which
the country’s two main orders faced one another
as opponents. Political murder has always been
par for the course and even the Dalai Lamas have
not been spared. Even in the brief history of
the exiled Tibetans it is a constant occurrence.
The concept of the enemy was deeply anchored in
ancient Tibetan culture, and persists to this
day. Thus the destruction of “enemies of the teaching”
is one of the standard requirements of all tantric
ritual texts. The sexual magic practices which
lie at the center of this religion and which Thurman
either conceals or interprets as an expression
of cooperation and sexual equality are based upon
a fundamental misogyny. The social misery of the
masses in old Tibet was shocking and repulsive, the
authority of the priestly state was absolute and
extended over life and death. To present Tibet’s traditional society as a political
example for modernity, in which the people had
oriented themselves toward a “broad social ethic”
and in which anybody could achieve “freedom and
happiness” (Thurman 1998, p. 138) is farcical.
Thus one shudders at the thought
when Thurman opens up the following perspective
for the world to come: “In the sacred history
of the transformation of the wild frontier [pre-Buddhist]
land of Tibet [into a Buddhocracy], we find
a blueprint for completing the taming of our own
wild world” (Thurman 1998, p. 220)
Thurman introduces the Buddhist
emperor Ashoka (regnant from 272 to 236 B.C.E.),
who “saw the practical superiority of moral and
enlightened policy” (Thurman 1998, p. 115), as
a political example for the times ahead. He portrays
this Indian emperor as a “prince of peace” who
— although originally a terrible hero of the battlefield
— following a deep inner conversion abjured all
war, transformed hate and pugnacity into compassion
and nonviolence, and conducted a “spiritual revolution”
to the benefit of all suffering beings. In the
chapter entitled “A kingly revolution” (Thurman
1988, pp.109ff.), the author suggests that the
Ashoka kingdom’s form of government, oriented
along monastic lines, could today once again function
as a model for the establishment of a worldwide
Buddhist state. Thurman says that “[t]he politics
of enlightenment since Ashoka proposes a truth-conquest
of the planet—a Dharma-conquest, meaning a cultural,
educational, and intellectual conquest” (Thurman
1998, p. 282).
Thurman wisely remains silent about
the fact that this Maurya dynasty ruler was responsible
for numerous un-Buddhist acts. For instance, under
his reign the death penalty for criminals was
not abolished, among whom his own wife, Tisyaraksita,
must have been counted, as he had her executed.
In a Buddhist (!) description of his life, a Sanskrit
work titled Ashokavandana, it states that
he at one stage had 18,000 non-Buddhists, presumably
Jainas, put to death, as one of them had insulted
the “true teaching”, albeit in a relatively mild
manner. In another instance he is alleged to have
driven a Jaina and his entire family into their
house which he then ordered to be burnt to the
ground.
Nonetheless, Emperor Ashoka is
a “cool revolutionary” for Thurman. His politics
proclaimed “a social style of tolerance and admiration
of nonviolence. They made the community a secure
establishment that became unquestioned in its
ubiquitous presence as school for gentleness,
concentration, and liberation of critical reason;
asylum for nonconformity; egalitarian democratic
community, where decisions were made by consensual
vote” (Thurman 1998, p. 117). To depict the absolutist
emperor Ashoka as a guarantor and exemplar of
an “egalitarian democratic community”, is a brilliant
feat of arbitrary historical interpretation!
With equal emphasis Thurman presents
the Indian/Buddhist Maha Siddhas (‘Grand Sorcerers’)
as exemplary heroes of the ethos for whom there
was no greater wish than to make others happy.
However, as we have described in detail, these
“ascetics who tamed the world” employed extremely
dubious methods to this end, namely, they cultivated
pure transgression in order to prove the vanity
of all being. Their tantric, i.e., sexual magic,
practices, in which they deliberately did evil
(murder, rape, necrophagy) with the ostensible
intention of creating something good, should,
according to Thurman, be counted among the most
significant acts of human civilization. Anyone
who casts a glance over the “hagiographies” of
these Maha Siddhas will be amazed
at the barbaric consciousness possessed by these
“heroes” of the tantric path. Only very rarely
can socially ethical behavior be ascertained among
these figures, who deliberately adopted asociality
as a lifestyle.
But for Thurman these Maha Siddhas
and their later Tibetan imitations are “radiant
bodies of energy” upon whom the fate of humanity
depends. “It is said that the hillsides and retreats
of central Tibet were ablaze with the light generated
by profound concentration, penetrating insights,
and magnificent deeds of enthusiastic practitioners.
The entire populace was moved by the energy released
by individuals breaking through their age-old
ignorance and prejudices and realizing enlightenment.”
(Thurman 1998, pp. 227-228) When one compares
the horrors of Tibetan history with the horrors
in the tantric texts followed by the “enthusiastic
practitioners”, then Thurman may indeed be correct.
It is just that it was primarily dark energies
which affected the Tibetan population and kept
them in ignorance and servitude. Serfdom and slavery
are attributes of old Tibetan society, just like
an inhumane penal code and a pervasive oppression
of women.
Padmasambhava, the supreme ambivalent
founding figure of Tibetan Buddhism, is also celebrated
by Thurman as an committed scholar of enlightenment.
(Thurman 1998, 210). Nothing could be less typical
of this sorcerer, who covered the Land of Snows
with his excommunications and introduced the wrathful
gods of pre-Buddhist Tibet in a horror army of
aggressive protective spirits, not so that their
terrible character could be transformed, but rather
so that they could now protect with sword and
fright the “true teaching of Buddha” from its
enemies. Great scholars of the Gelugpa order have
time and again pointed out the ambivalence of
this iridescent “cultural founder” (Padmasambhava),
among whose deeds are two brutal infanticides,
and expressly distanced themselves from his barbaric
lifestyle.
When the Indian scholar Atisha
began his work in Tibet in the 11th century,
he encountered a completely dissolute monastic
caste in total chaos and where one could no longer
speak of morals. At least this is what the historical
records (the Blue Annals) report. Thurman
suppresses this Lamaist moral collapse and simply
maintains the opposite: “When Atisha arrived in
Tibet, monastic practitioners were limiting
themselves to strict moral and ritual observances”
(Thurman 1998, p. 226). This is indeed a very
euphemistic representation of the whoring and
secularized monasteries against which Atisha took
to the field with a new moral codex.
For Thurman, the Great Prayer Festival
(Mönlam) institutionalized by Tsongkhapa and reactivated
by the Fifth Dalai Lama, a raw Lamaist carnival
in which monks were allowed absolutely everything
and a truly horrible scapegoat ritual was performed,
was a sacred event where “the power of compassion
is manifest, the immediacy of grace is experienced”
(Thurman 1998, p. 235). At another stage he says
that, “[i]n Tibet, the Great Prayer Festival guaranteed
the best of possibilities for everyone. People’s
feelings of being in an apocalyptic time in a
specially blessed and chosen land—in their own
form of a “New Jerusalem”, a Kingdom of Heaven
manifest on earth—had a powerful effect on the
whole society” (Thurman 1998, pp. 238-239). When
we compare this apotheosis of the said event with
the already cited eyewitness report by Heinrich
Harrer, we see the lack of restraint with which
Thurman reveres the Tibet of old. Harrer, whose portrayal
is confirmed by many other travel accounts, regarded
the scenario completely differently: “As if emerging
from hypnosis”, writes the mentor of the young
Dalai Lama, “at this moment the tens of thousands
spring from order in to chaos. The transition
is so sudden, that one is speechless. Shouting,
wild gesticulation .. they trample over one another,
almost murder each other. The still-weeping prayers,
ecstatically absorbed, become ravers. The monastic
soldiers begin their duty! Huge fellows with stuffed
shoulders and blackened faces — so that the deterrent
effect becomes even stronger. Ruthlessly they
lay into the crowd with their batons ... one takes
the blows wailing, but even the beaten return
again. As if they were possessed by demons” (Heinrich
Harrer, 1984, p. 142). — Thurman’s “New Jerusalem”,
possessed by demons on the roof of the world?
—an interesting scenario for a horror film!
We find a further pinnacle of Thurman’s
historical falsification in the portrait of the
greatest Lamaist potentate, the Fifth Dalai Lama.
Of all people, this “Priest-King” attuned to the
accumulation of external power and pomp is built
up by the author in to a hero of the “inner revolution”.
He paints the picture of a prudent and farsighted
fathers of his country (“a gentle genius, scholar,
and reincarnate saint” — Thurman 1998, p. 248),
who is compelled — against his will and his fundamentally
Buddhist attitude — to conduct a n horrific “civil
war” (in which he lets great numbers of monks
from other orders be massacred by the Mongol warriors
summoned to the country). Thurman presents the
conflict as a quarrel between various warlords
in which the “peaceful” monks become embroiled.
Here again, the opposite was the
case: the two chief Tibetan Buddhist orders of
the time (Gelugpa and Kagyupa) were pulling the
strings, even if they let worldly armies battle
for them. Thurman misrepresents this monastic
war as a battle between cliques of nobles and
ultimately “the final showdown in Tibet between
militarism and monasticism” (Thurman 1998, p.
249), whereby the latter as the party of peace
is victorious thanks to the genius of the Fifth
Dalai Lama and goes on to all but establish a
“Buddha paradise” on earth.
All this is a pious/impudent invention
of the American Tibetologist. The merciless warrior
mentality of the Fifth Dalai Lama spread fear
and alarm among his foes. His dark occult side,
his fascination for the sexual magic of the Nyingmapa
(which he himself practiced), his unrestrained
rewriting of history and much more; these are
all highly unpleasant facts, which are deliberately
concealed by Thurman, since an historically accurate
portrait of the “Great Fifth” could have embarrassing
consequences, as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
constantly refers to this predecessor of his and
has announced him to be his greatest example.
It would be wrong to deny the Fifth
Dalai Lama any political or administrative skill;
he was, just like his contemporary, Louis the
Fourteenth, to whom he is often compared, an “ingenious”
statesman. But this made him no prince of peace.
His goal consisted of resolutely placing the fate
of the country in the hands of the clergy with
himself as the undisputed spiritual and secular
leader. To this end (like the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama today) he played the various orders off against
one another. The Fifth Dalai Lama
formulated the political foundations of
a “Buddhocracy” which Robert Thurman would be
glad to see as the model for a future worlds community,
and which we wish to examine more closely in the
next section.
A worldwide Buddhocracy
At the conference on Tibet in Bonn mentioned above (“Mythos Tibet”, 1996) Robert Thurman with stirring
pathos prophesied the “fall of the West” and left
no doubt that the future of our planet lies in
a worldwide, as he stressed literally, “Buddhocracy”.
Europe has renounced its sacred past, demystified
its natural environment, established a secular
realm, and closed off access to the sacred “represented
by monasticism and its organized striving for
perfection”. Materialism, industrialization and
militarization have taken the place of the sacred
(Thurman 1998, p. 246).
At the same time a reverse process
has taken place in Tibet. Society has become increasingly
sacralized and devoted itself to the creation
of a “buddhaverse”. (In the wake of the Tibetologists’
criticisms in Bonn, Thurman appears to have opted
for his own neologism “buddhaverse” in place of
the somewhat offensive “Buddhocracy”; the meaning
intended remains the same.) A re-enchantment of
reality has taken place in Tibet, and the system is dedicated to
the perfection of the individual. The warrior
spirit has been dismantled. All these claims are
untrue, and can be disproved by countless counterexamples.
Nevertheless, Thurman presumes to declare them
expressions of traditional Tibet’s “inner modernity”,
which is ultimately superior to Europe’s “outer
modernity”: “As Europe was pushing away the Pope,
the Church, and the enchantment of everyday life,
Tibet was turning over the reins of its country
to a new kind of government, which cannot properly
be called ‘theocratic’, since the Tibetans do
not believe in an omnipotent God, but which can
be called ‘Buddhocratic’” (Thurman 1998, p. 248).
This form of government is supposed to guide our
future. At the Tibet conference in Bonn, Thurman made this clearer: “Yes,
not theocratic, because that brings [with it a]
comparison to the Holy
Roman Empire ... because it has the conception of an authoritarian
God controlling the universe” (Thurman at the
conference in Bonn). Thurman seems to think the concept
of an “authoritarian Buddha” does not exist, although
this is precisely what may be found at the basis
of the Lamaist system.
For the author, the monasticization
of Tibetan society was a lucky millennial event
for humanity which reached its preliminary peak
in the era in which the Gelugpa order was founded
by Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) and the institution
of the Dalai Lama was established. In Bonn Thurman
praised this period as “the millennium of the
fifteenth century of the planetary unique form
of modern Tibetan society ... [which] led to the
unfolding in the seventeenth century [of] what
I call post-millennial, inwardly modern, mass-monastic,
or even Buddhocratic [society]”. Tsongkhapa is
presented as the founding father of this “modern
Tibet”: he “was a spiritual prodigy.
... He perceived a cosmic shift from universe
to buddhaverse” (Thurman 1998, pp. 232–233).
The Tibet of old was, according to Thurman,
just such a buddhaverse, an earthly “Buddha paradise”,
governed by nonviolence and wisdom, generosity,
sensitivity, and tolerance. An exemplary enlightened
consciousness was cultivated in the monastic Jewel
Community. The monasteries provided the guarantee
that politics was conducted along ethical lines:
“The monastic core provides the cocoon for the
free creativity of the lay Jewel Community” (Thurman
1998, p. 294).
This “monastic form of government”,
pre-tested by Old Tibet, provides a vision for
the future for Thurman: “I am very interested
in this. I feel a very strong trend in this [direction]”
(Thurman’s presentation in Bonn). The “monasticization” which
was then (i.e., in the fifteenth century) spreading
through Asia whilst the doors to the monasteries of Europe were closing, has once again become significant
on a global political level. “And if you study
Max Weber carefully... in fact what secularization
and industrial progress brought had a lot to do
with the slamming of the monastery doors. ... So,
a monastic form of government is an unthinkable
thing for Western society. We often say Tibet is frozen in the Middle Ages because
Tibet is not secularized in the way
the Western world is! It moved out of the balance
between sacred and secular and went into a sacralization
process and enchanted the universe. The concrete
proof of that was that the monasteries provided
the government” (Thurman in Bonn).
Here, Thurman is paraphrasing Weber’s
thesis of the “disenchantment of the world” which
accompanied the rise of capitalism. The “re-enchantment
of the world” is a political program for him,
which can only be carried out by Lamaist monks.
Monasticism “is the shelter and training ground
for the nonviolent ‘army’, the shock troops for
the sustained social revolution the Buddha initiated
...” (Thurman 1998, p. 294, § 15). The monastic
clergy would progressively assume control of political
matters via a three-stage plan. In the final phase
of this plan, “the society is able to enjoy the
universe of enlightenment, and Jewel Community
institutions [the monasteries] openly take responsibility
for the society’s direction” (Thurman 1998, p.
296, § 24).
But this is no unreal utopia, since
“Tibetan society is the only one in planetary
history in which this third phase has been partially
reached” (Thurman 1998, p. 296, § 25).In this
sentence Thurman quite plainly proclaims a Buddhocracy
along Lamaist lines to be the next model for the
world community! Elsewhere, the Tibetologist is
more precise: “The countercultural monastic movement
no longer needs to lie low and is able to give
the ruling powers advice, spiritual and social.
Enlightened sages can begin to advise their royal
disciples on how to conduct the daily affairs
of society, such as what should be their policies
and practices. Likewise, after a long period of
such evolution, the entire movement can reach
a cool fruition, when the countercultural enlightenment
movement becomes mainstream and openly takes responsibility
for the whole society, which eventually happened
in Tibet” (Thurman 1998, p. 166, footnote).
According to Thurman, the Lamaist
clergy assumes political power with — as we shall
see — the incarnation of a super-being at its
helm, an absolute monarch, who unites spiritual
and worldly power within himself. The triumphant
advance of the monastic system began in India in around 500 B.C.E. and spread
throughout all of Asia in the intervening years. But this, Thurman
says, is only a prelude: “The phenomenal success
of monasticism, eventually Eurasia-wide, can be
understood as the progressive truth-conquest of
the world” (Thurman 1998, p. 105). Pie in the
sky, or a event soon to come? Thurman’s statements
on this are contradictory. In his book he talks
of a “hope for the future”. But in interviews
with the press, he has let it be known that he
will experience the Buddhization of America in
his own lifetime. In 1997, his friend, the Hollywood
actor Richard Gere, was also convinced that the
transformation of the world into a Buddhocracy
would occur suddenly, like an atomic explosion,
and that the “critical mass” would soon be reached
(Herald
Tribune, 20 March 1997, p. 6).
According to the author, the Lamaist
power elite of the coming “Buddhocracy” is basically
immortal because of the incarnation system. They
already pulled the political strings in Tibet in the past, and will, in the
author’s opinion, assume this role for the entire
world in future: “Whatever the spiritual reality
of these reincarnations, the social impact of
this form of leadership was immense. It sealed
the emerging spirituality of Tibetan society,
in that death, which ordinarily interrupts progress
in any society, could no longer block positive
development. Just as Shakyamuni could be present
to the practitioner through the initiation procedure
and the sophisticated visualization techniques,
so fully realized saints and sages were not withdrawn
by death from their disciples, who depended on
them to attain fulfillment (Thurman 1998, p. 231).
One can only be amazed — at the
impudence with which Thurman praises the “Buddhocracy”
of the Lamas as the highest form of “democracy”;
at how he portrays Tibetan Buddhism, which is
based upon a ritual dissolution of the individual,
as the highest level of individual development;
at how he depicts Tantrism, with its morbid sexual
magic techniques for male monks to absorb feminine
energies, as the only religion in which god and
goddess are worshipped as balanced equals; at
how he glorifies the cruel war gods and warrior
monks of the Land of Snows as pacifists; at how
he presents the medieval/monastic social form
of Tibet as an expression of the modern and as
offering the only model for a global world-society.
Tibet a land of enlightenment?
The Tibet of old, with its monastic culture
was, according to Thurman, the cosmic energy body
which irradiated our world in enlightened consciousness.
“Hidden in the last thousand years of Tibet’s civilization”, the author says,
“is a continuous process of inner revolution and
cool evolution. In spiritual history, Tibet has been the secret dynamo that
throughout this millennium has slowly turned the
outer world toward enlightenment. Thus Tibetan
civilization’s unique role on the inner plane
of history assumes a far greater importance than
material history would indicate” (Thurman 1998,
p. 225). In Thurman’s version of history, it was
not the Western bourgeoisie which fought for its
freedoms and human rights in battle with the institutions
of the Church; rather, all this was thought out
in advance by holy men meditating among the Himalayan
peaks: “The recent appearance of modern consciousness
in the industrial world is not something radically
new or unprecedented. Modern consciousness has
been developed all over Asia in the Buddhist subcultures for thousands
of years” (Thurman 1998, p. 255). —And it flowed
into the consciousness of the modern, Western
cultural elite as an Eastern energy source. That
is, to speak clearly, the Tibetan monks meditating
were one of the causes of the European Enlightenment.
A bold thesis indeed, in which a Tibet controlled
by a belief in ghosts, oracles, torture chambers,
the oppression of women, and human super-beings
becomes the cradle of modern rationalism.
The enlightening radiation began,
says Thurman, with the Tibetan scholar Tsongkhapa’s
edifice of teachings and the founding of the Gelugpa
order: “This tremendous release of energy caused
by thousands of minds becoming totally liberated
in a short time was a planetary phenomenon, like
a great spiritual pulsar emitting enlightenment
in waves broadcast around the globe” (Thurman
1998, p. 233). Accordingly, Thurman considers
all of the great Tibetan scholars of past centuries
to be more significant and comprehensive than
their European “peers”. They were “scientific
heroes”, “”the quintessence of scientists in this
nonmaterialistic civilization [i.e., Tibet]” (quoted by Lopez in Prisoners of Shangri-La, p.
81). As “psychonauts” they conquered inner space
in contrast to the western “astronauts” (again
quoted by Lopez, 1998, p. 81). But the “stars”
of modern European philosophy like Hume and Kant,
Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, Hegel and Heidegger,
Thurman speculates, could also at some future
time turn out to be line-holders for and emanations
of the Bodhisattva of knowledge, Manjushri (Lopez, 1998, p.
264). Ex
oriente lux — now also true for occidental
science.
This incorporation of the Western
cultural heroes is an underground current which
flows through the entire neo-Buddhist scene. It
is outwardly strictly denied, through the Dalai
Lama’s demands for tolerance in broad publicity.
In contrast, writings accumulate in the milieu,
which celebrate Jesus Christ as an avatar of the
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara for example,
the same super-being who has also been incarnated
as the Dalai Lama. A recurrent image of modern
myth building is the placement of the Tibetans
on a par with the Nazarene.
Thurman as “high priest” of the
Kalachakra Tantra
A worldwide Buddhocratic vision
of Tibetan Buddhism is contained in what is known
as the Kalachakra Tantra (the “Wheel
of Time”).
We have studied and commented upon this
central Lamaist ritual in detail. The goal of
the Kalachakra Tantra is the construction
of a superhuman being, the ADI BUDDHA, whose control
encompasses the entire universe, both spiritually
and politically, “a mythical world-conqueror”
(Thurman 1998, p. 292, § 5).
From a metapolitical point of view,
Robert Thurman appears to have been appointed
to implant the ideas of the
Kalachakra Tantra in the West. We have already
noted that the teacher the Dalai Lama assigned
him to was Khen Losang Dondrub, Abbot of the Namgyal
monastery which is especially commissioned to
perform the Kalachakra ritual. In the
USA he was in constant contact with
the Kalmyk lama Geshe Wangyal (1901–1983). Lama Wangyal
was Robert Thurman’s actual “line guru”, and this
line leads via Wangyal directly to the old master
Agvan Dorjiev (Lama Wangyal’s guru). Dorjiev the
Buriat, Wangyal the Kalmyk, and Thurman the American thus
form a chain of initiation. From a tantric point
of view the spirit of the master lives on in the
form of the pupil. One can thus assume that Thurman
as Dorjiev’s successor represents an emanation
of the extremely aggressive protective divinity
Vajrabhairava who is supposed to have become incarnate
in the Buriat. At any rate the American must be
drawn into the context of the global Shambhala utopia, which was
the principal concern of Dorjiev’s metapolitics.
What Thurman understands by this
can be most clearly illustrated by a vision which
was bestowed upon him in a dream in September
1979, before he saw the Dalai Lama again for the
first time in eight years: “The night before he
landed in New York, I dreamed he was manifesting
the pure land mandala palace of the Kalachakra
Buddha right on top of the Waldorf Astoria building.
The entire collection of dignitaries of the city,
mayors and senators, corporate presidents and
kings, sheikhs and sultans ,celebrities and stars—all
of them were swept up into the dance of 722 deities
of the three buildings of the diamond palace like
pinstriped bees swarming on a giant honeycomb.
The amazing thing about the Dalai Lama’s flood
of power and beauty was that it appeared totally
effortless. I could feel the space of His Holiness’s
heart, whence all this arose. It was relaxed,
cool, an amazing well of infinity” (Thurman 1998,
p. 18).
The magic projection of the Tibetan
“god-king” as ADI BUDDHA and world ruler cannot
be illustrated more vividly. He reigns as some
kind of queen bee in the middle of New York, and lets the world’s greatest,
whom he has bewitched with sweet honey, dance
to his tune. It is typical that there is no mention
of grass roots democracy here, and that it is
just the political, business, and show business
Establishment which performs the sweet dance of
the bees. Anyone who is aware how much significance
is granted to such dreams in the world of Tibetan
initiation will without further ado recognize
a metapolitical program in Thurman’s vision. [1]
In
1992, as Director of Tibet House in New York City which he co-founded
with Richard Gere, he sponsored “the Kalachakra Initiation at New York’s Madison Square Garden.”
(Farrer-Halls 1998, p. 92) The Tibet Center houses
a three dimensional Kalachakra Mandala and the
only life sized statue of the Kalachakra deity
outside of Tibet.
Following the first World Trade Center bombing
in 1993, “The Samaya Foundation, the Lower Manhattan
Cultural Council, and the Port Authority jointly
sponsored the Wheel of Time (Kalachakra)
Sand Mandala, or Circle of Peace, in the lobby
of Tower 1.” (Darton 1999, p. 219)
For over thirty days, many of the World Trade Center workers
and visitors were invited by the Namgyal Monks
to participate in the construction of the mandala.
It is said that, “ Its shape symbolized nature’s
unending cycle of creation and destruction and
in the countless grains of its material, it celebrated
life’s energy taking ephemeral form, then returning
to its source. At the end of the mandala’s month
long lifespan, the monks swept up the sand and
“offered it to the Hudson River.” This ritual,
they believed, purified the environment. (Darton
1999, p. 219)
Report of a former participant
of the Kalachakra Ceremony in New York: “Get
a call from one of my Kalachakra sisters I haven't
heard from since the Indiana
Kalachakra in '99. […] The topic shifted to the
Kalachakra mandala that was made at One
World
Trade
Center.
I was at the dissolution ceremony there, may be
around '96. The monks gathered up all the sand
from the mandala at 1WTC, put it in a vase, then
carried it across the bridge into World Financial
Center through the Winter Garden, then dumped
the sand ceremoniously into the Hudson River for
the sake of World Peace. The surface of the river
glittered with the afternoon sun, and I cried.
5 years later, the whole building is gone, just
like the sand mandala.” See: http://home.earthlink.net/~kamitera/news.html
Thurman’s devoted commitment as
Lamaist initiand, his absolute loyalty to the
Dalai Lama, his consistent vision of an earthly
“Buddha paradise”, his uncompromising affirmation
of a Buddhocratic state, his involvement with
the world of the Tibetan gods which reaches even
into his own dreams, his systematic training by
the highest Tibetan lamas over many years—all
these certify Thurman to be a “Shambhala warrior”,
a Buddhist hero, who according to legend prepares
for the establishment of the kingdom of Shambhala
over our globe. This is the goal of the Kalachakra
ritual (the “Wheel of Time” ritual) performed
all over the world by the Dalai Lama. Thurman
has, he reports, seen the Dalai Lama in a vision
as the supreme time god above the Waldorf Astoria.
But even here he conceals that the Shambhala myth
is not peaceful, and can only be realized after
a world war in which all nonbelievers (non-Buddhists)
are destroyed.
Perhaps such a perspective frightens
some Western intellectuals? No worries, Thurman
reassumes them, “who is afraid of the Dalai Lama?
Who is afraid of Avalokiteshvara? No Tibetans
are afraid” (Thurman in Bonn). How could one be afraid of the
supreme enlightened being currently on earth?
He, in whom all three levels are compressed, “that
of the selfless monk, the king, and the great
adept” (Thurman), who is (as great adept) preparing
the creation of “a buddhaversal human society”
(Thurman 1998, p. 39), even if he (as king and
statesman) is still concentrating chiefly on the
concerns of Tibet. Then, “Tibet’s unique focus on enlightenment
civilization makes the nation crucial to the world’s
development of spiritual and social balance” (Thurman
1998, p. 39).
Thurman is convinced that the Dalai
Lama represents a projection of the ADI BUDDHA,
who can liberate the world from its valley of
sorrows. He describes very precisely the micro-
and macrocosmic dimensions of such a redemptive
being in the form of the Fifth Dalai Lama. If
humanity were to recognize the divine presence
behind the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, it could calmly
place its political matters in his hands, just
as the Tibetan populace did in the time of the
“Great Fifth”: “Small wonder”, Thurman tells his
readers. “Suppose the people of a catholic country
were to share a perception of a particular spiritual
figure as not simply a representative of God,
as in the Pope being the vicar of Christ, but
as an actual incarnation of the Savior—or, say
an incarnation of the Archangel Gabriel. In such
a situation it would not be strange for the nation
to reach a point where the divine would actually
take responsibility for the government. In Tibet, this moment was the culmination
of centuries of grass-roots millennial consciousness,
the political ratification of the millennial direction
that had been intensifying since the Great Prayer
Festival tradition had begun in 1409. The sense
of the presence of an enlightened being was widespread
enough for the people to join together after the
last conflict and entrust to him their land and
their fate” (Thurman 1998, pp. 250–251).
There is no need to read between
the lines, simply paying close attention to the
text of his book is enough to be able to recognize
that, for Thurman, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama represents
the quintessence of political wisdom and decisive
power for the coming millennium. The author draws
attention to the five principles of his planetary
political program: “nonviolence, individualism,
education, and altruistic correctedness. The fifth
[principle], global democratism, is exemplified
in His Holiness the Great Fourteenth Dalai Lama
himself” (Thurman 1998, p. 279). The Tibetan “god-king”
as the incarnation of universal democracy—a true
piece of bravura in Thurman’s “political theology”.
No wonder the “god-king” applauds him so roundly
in his foreword: “I commend him for his careful
study and clear explanations, and I recommend
his insights for your own reflections” (Thurman
1998, p. xiv).
According to Thurman, the USA is the first western country in
which the lamas’ Buddhocratic vision will prevail:
“Most of the teachers from the various enlightenment
movements seem to agree on one thing: If there
is to be a renaissance of enlightenment sciences
in our times, it will have to begin in America. America is the land of extreme dichotomies:
the great materialism and the greatest disillusionment
with materialism; great self-indulgence and great
self-transcendence” (Thurman 1998, p. 280). The
Dalai Lama (“the fifth [principle of] global democratism”)
as the next American president? —But if he dies?—No
worries, thanks to the system of incarnation he
may remain among us as priest and king for ever.
Thurman’s methods, adapting himself
to the point of self-deception to the consciousness
and the customs of his environment (in this case
the western democratic environment), but without
losing sight of the actual grand metapolitical
goal, has a long tradition in Tibet. Padmasambhava, for instance,
Buddhized the Land of Snows by integrating with
aplomb the various tribal cultures which he encountered
on his missionary travels into his tantric system,
together with their particular ideas and cultic
practices. In doing so he was so skillful that
the pre-Buddhist inhabitants of Tibet believed Buddhism to be no more
than the realization of their own traditional
expectations of salvation. The Fourteenth Dalai
Lama is masterfully repeating this heuristic principle
from his eighth-century incarnation on the world
stage. In the meantime he knows all the variations
and rules of the game of Western civilization
and has managed to generate a public image as
a great reformer and democrat who brilliantly
combines modern political fundamentals with old
Eastern teachings of wisdom. There are countless
sermons from him in which he strongly advises
his audience to stay true to their own religious
tradition, since in the end they all come to the
same thing. Such superior invitations have as
we shall see a double-bind effect. People
are so enthused by the ostensible tolerance of
Tibetan Buddhism and its supreme representative
that they become converts to the Dharma and ensnared in the
tantric web.
Footnotes:
[1] During
the UN-organized Millennium Festival of Religions
at the end of August 2000, at which over a thousand
religious representatives were present, the Dalai
Lama was supposed to stay in the Waldorf Astoria.
Without doubt, thanks to his charisma and pretended
precept of tolerance, the Kundun would have become
the center of the entire occasion. But after great
pressure was applied by the Chinese he was not
invited. At this, a segment of the organizers
resolved to encourage him to take part in a kind
of private rally at the end of the assembly in
the Waldorf Astoria hotel. But the Kundun declined.
Robert Thurman’s vision of the Kalachakra Buddha at the summit
of the Waldorf Astoria did not eventuate.
Next Chapter:
16. TACTICS, STRATEGIES, FORGERIES, ILLUSIONS
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