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

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