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

spiritual orientation of his conversation partner may be. Through this he succeeds in making himself
popular everywhere.
His nonchalance on this occasion in contrast to the in other contexts strongly emphasized meditative
discipline is congruent with Ginsberg’s fundamentally anarchist and anti-authoritarian attitudes. In
turn, the latter’s unconventional escapades are compatible with the Tibetan archetype of the “holy
fool”. For this reason, Ginsberg also explained his poems to be an expression of “crazy wisdom”, a
phrase which soon proved to be a mark of quality for the anti-conventional attitude of many Tibetan
lamas in the West.
Within the tantric system of logic, the god-king did not need to fear the chaotic and anti-bourgeois
lifestyle of the sixties or its anarchic leaders. Indeed, all the Maha Siddhas had been through a wild
phase before their enlightenment. The Beat Generation represented an almost ideal starting substance
(prima materia) for the divine alchemist upon the Lion Throne to experiment with, and he was in fact
successful in “ennobling” many of them into propagandists for his Buddhocratic vision.
From the beginning of his artistic career, the famous and unconventional German conceptual artist,
Joseph Beuys, saw himself as an initiate of a shamanist/Tartar tradition. He justified his renowned
works in felt, a material used primarily by the Mongolian nomads, with his affinity to the culture and
religion of the peoples of the steppes. A number of meetings between him and the Dalai Lama
occurred, which — without it being much discussed in public — were of decisive significance for the
development of the artist’s awareness.
In Amsterdam in 1990 famous artists like Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage met with His
Holiness. The painter, Roy Lichtenstein, and Philip Glass the composer are also attracted to
Buddhism. In 1994 together with the Czech president and former writer, Vaclav Havel, the Kundun
amused himself over the erotic poems of his anarchist predecessor, the Sixth Dalai Lama.
The god-king is even celebrated in the pop scene. Major stars like David Bowie, Tina Turner, and
Patty Smith openly confess their belief in the Buddha’s teachings. Monks from the Namgyal
monastery, which is especially concerned with the Kalachakra Tantra, perform at pop festivals as
exotic interludes.
But – as we know — anarchist Buddhism is always only the satyric foreplay to the idea of the
Buddhocratic state. Just as wild sexuality is transformed into power in Vajrayana, indeed forms the
precondition for any power at all, so the anarchist art scene in the West forms the raw material and the
transitional phase for the establishment of a totalitarian Buddhocracy. We can observe such a sudden
change from anti-authoritarian anarchy into the concept and ideas of an authoritarian state within the
person of Chögyam Trungpa, who in the course of his career in the USA has transformed himself
from a Dharma freak into a mini-despot with fascistoid allures. We shall later present this example in
more detail.
Footnotes:
[1] In 1946 Artaud made a renewed about-face and composed a new pamphlet against the Dalai Lama. In it he
attacked the Tibetan clergy as swine, revolting idiots, the cause of syllogism, logic, hysterical mysticism, and
dialectic. He accused the lamas of being a warehouse “full of opium, heroin, morphine, hashish, narde, nutmeg,
and other poisons” (quoted by Brauen, 2000, p. 92).