Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

means “the presence” or “precious presence”, i.e., the presence of a deity, or of a Buddha in human
form. To translate “Kundun” as “living Buddha” is thus thoroughly justified. In Playboy, in answer to
the question of the word’s meaning, His Holiness replied, “Precious presence. According to Tibetan
tradition 'Kundun' is a term with which I alone can be referred to. It is taken to mean the highest level
of spiritual development which a being [that is, not just a person, but also a god] can attain” (Playboy,
German edition, March 1998, p. 40).
The visible presence (Kundun) of a god on the world political stage as the head of government of a
“democratically elected parliament” may be difficult to conceive of in a western way of thinking.
Perhaps the office can be better understood when we say that the Dalai Lama is strictly bound to his
tantric philosophy, ritual procedures, and politico-religious ideology, and therefore possesses no
further individual will. His body, his human existence, and hence also his humanism are for him
solely the instruments of his divinity. This is most clearly expressed in a song the Seventh Dalai Lama
composed and sang to himself:
Wherever you go, whatever you do,
See yourself in the form of a tantric divinity
With a phantom body that is manifest yet empty.
(Mullin, 1991, p. 61)
Nonetheless, it has become thoroughly established practice in the western press to refer to the Dalai
Lama as the “god-king”. Whether or not this is meant ironically can barely be decided in many cases.
“A god to lay your hands on”, wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1998 of the Tibetan religious leader,
and at the same time the Spiegel proclaimed that, “Ultimately, he is the Dalai Lama and the most
enlightened of the enlightened on this planet, that puts things in the proper light.” (Süddeutsche
Zeitung November 1, 1998, p. 4; Spiegel 45/1998, p.101).
Eschatology and politics
The history of the European Middle Ages was focused upon a single cosmic event: the Second
Coming of Christ. In such an eschatological world view, human history is no longer a copying of
myths or a playground for divine caprice (as in the Ancient Greek belief in the gods), but rather the
performance of a gigantic, messianic drama played out over millennia, which opens with a perfect
creation that then constantly disintegrates because of human imperfection and sin and ends in a
catastrophic downfall following a divine day of judgment. At the “end of time” the evil are destroyed
in a brutal cosmic war (the apocalypse) and the good (the true Christians) are saved. A Messiah
appears and leads the small flock of the chosen into an eternal realm of peace and joy. The goal is
called redemption and paradise.
Eschatological accounts of history are always salvational history, that is, in the beginning there is a
transgression which should be healed. A Christian refers to this transgression as original sin. Here the
healing takes place through the Resurrection and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, as well as
through the resurrection from the dead of the goodly which this occasions. After this, history comes to
an end and the people, freed from all suffering, enter an eternal paradise in a blissful time without
history. For Christians it is primarily the Apocalypse of St. John (The Book of Revelations) which
provides the script for this divine theater.
From a Buddhist/tantric point of view human history — and consequently the history of Tibet — is