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

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