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© Victor
& Victoria Trimondi
The
Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part II – 15. The buddhocratic
conquest of the west
15. THE BUDDHOCRATIC CONQUEST
OF THE WEST
Robert A. Thurman: “The academic
godfather of the Tibetan cause”
The stolen revolution
Thurman’s forged history
A worldwide Buddhocracy
Tibet a land of
enlightenment?
Thurman as “high priest” of
the Kalachakra Tantra
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 1 WTC, 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 to 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 correctness. 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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