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

civilization”, the author says, “is a continuous process of inner revolution and cool evolution. In
spiritual history, Tibet has been the secret dynamo that throughout this millennium has slowly turned
the outer world toward enlightenment. Thus Tibetan civilization’s unique role on the inner plane of
history assumes a far greater importance than material history would indicate” (Thurman 1998, p.
225). In Thurman’s version of history, it was not the Western bourgeoisie which fought for its
freedoms and human rights in battle with the institutions of the Church; rather, all this was thought
out in advance by holy men meditating among the Himalayan peaks: “The recent appearance of
modern consciousness in the industrial world is not something radically new or unprecedented.
Modern consciousness has been developed all over Asia in the Buddhist subcultures for thousands of
years” (Thurman 1998, p. 255). —And it flowed into the consciousness of the modern, Western
cultural elite as an Eastern energy source. That is, to speak clearly, the Tibetan monks meditating
were one of the causes of the European Enlightenment. A bold thesis indeed, in which a Tibet
controlled by a belief in ghosts, oracles, torture chambers, the oppression of women, and human superbeings
becomes the cradle of modern rationalism.
The enlightening radiation began, says Thurman, with the Tibetan scholar Tsongkhapa’s edifice of
teachings and the founding of the Gelugpa order: “This tremendous release of energy caused by
thousands of minds becoming totally liberated in a short time was a planetary phenomenon, like a
great spiritual pulsar emitting enlightenment in waves broadcast around the globe” (Thurman 1998, p.
233). Accordingly, Thurman considers all of the great Tibetan scholars of past centuries to be more
significant and comprehensive than their European “peers”. They were “scientific heroes”, “”the
quintessence of scientists in this nonmaterialistic civilization [i.e., Tibet]” (quoted by Lopez in
Prisoners of Shangri-La, p. 81). As “psychonauts” they conquered inner space in contrast to the
western “astronauts” (again quoted by Lopez, 1998, p. 81). But the “stars” of modern European
philosophy like Hume and Kant, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, Hegel and Heidegger, Thurman
speculates, could also at some future time turn out to be line-holders for and emanations of the
Bodhisattva of knowledge, Manjushri (Lopez, 1998, p. 264). Ex oriente lux — now also true for
occidental science.
This incorporation of the Western cultural heroes is an underground current which flows through the
entire neo-Buddhist scene. It is outwardly strictly denied, through the Dalai Lama’s demands for
tolerance in broad publicity. In contrast, writings accumulate in the milieu, which celebrate Jesus
Christ as an avatar of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara for example, the same super-being who has
also been incarnated as the Dalai Lama. A recurrent image of modern myth building is the placement
of the Tibetans on a par with the Nazarene.
Thurman as “high priest” of the Kalachakra Tantra
A worldwide Buddhocratic vision of Tibetan Buddhism is contained in what is known as the
Kalachakra Tantra (the “Wheel of Time”). We have studied and commented upon this central
Lamaist ritual in detail. The goal of the Kalachakra Tantra is the construction of a superhuman being,
the ADI BUDDHA, whose control encompasses the entire universe, both spiritually and politically, “a
mythical world-conqueror” (Thurman 1998, p. 292, § 5).
From a metapolitical point of view, Robert Thurman appears to have been appointed to implant the
ideas of the Kalachakra Tantra in the West. We have already noted that the teacher the Dalai Lama
assigned him to was Khen Losang Dondrub, Abbot of the Namgyal monastery which is especially
commissioned to perform the Kalachakra ritual. In the USA he was in constant contact with the