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

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