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

anarchic side) and were not infrequently held up to ridicule by the bourgeois public, also on the other
hand battled fiercely for social recognition and the assertion of their ideas as culturally acknowledged
values. A visit by the Dalai Lama lent their events considerable official status, which they would not
otherwise have had. They invested much money and effort to achieve this. Since the Dalai Lama was
only very rarely received by state institutions before the late eighties but nonetheless saw extended
travels as his political duty, the material resources of the New Age scene likewise played an important
role for him. “He opens Buddhist centers for New Age nouveau riche protagonists”, wrote the
Spiegel, “whose respectability he cannot always be convinced about” (Spiegel 16/1998, p. 111). Up
until the mid eighties, it was small esoteric groups who invited him to visit various western countries
and who paid the bills for his expenses afterwards — not the ministers and heads of state in Bonn,
Madrid, Paris, Washington, London, and Vienna.
Such an arrangement suited the governments well, since they did not have to risk falling out with
China by committing themselves to a visit by the Dalai Lama. On the other hand, the exotic/magic
aura of the Kundun, the “living Buddha” and “god-king”, has always exercised a strong attraction
over Society. Hardly anyone who had a name or status (whether in business, politics, the arts, or as
nobility) could resist this charming and “human” arch-god. To be able to shake the hand of the
“yellow pontiff” and “spiritual ruler from the roof of the world” and maybe even chat casually with
him has always been a unique social experience. Thus, on these somewhat marginalized New Age
trips, time and again “secret” meetings took place “on the side “ with the most varied heads of state
and also very famous artists (Herbert von Karajan for example), who let themselves be enchanted by
the smile and the exoticism of the Kundun. Countless such unofficial meetings laid the groundwork
for the Kundun’s Great Leap into the official political sphere, which he finally achieved at the end of
the eighties with the Tibet Lobby and the award of the Nobel peace prize (1989).
Since then, it has been the heads of state, the famous stars, the higher ranks of the nobility, the rectors
of the major universities, who receive the Tibetan Kalachakra master with much pomp and
circumstance. The intriguing, original but naive New Age Movement no longer exists. It was rubbed
out between the various religious traditions (especially Buddhism) on one side and the “bourgeois”
press (the so-called “critical public”) on the other. For all the problems this spiritual heir and
successor to the movements of 1968 had, it also possessed numerous ideas and life practices which
were adequate for a spiritually based culture beyond that of the extant religious traditions. But the
bourgeois society (from which the “Children of the Age of Aquarius came) had neither recognized
nor acted upon this potential. In contrast, the traditional religions, but especially Buddhism, reacted to
the New Age scene with great sensitivity. They had experienced the most dangerous crisis in their
decline in the sixties and they needed the visions, the commitment, and the fresh blood of a young and
dynamic generation in order to survive at all. Today the New Age is passé and the Kundun can
distance himself ever further from his old friends and move over into the establishment completely.
In the following chapter we shall show just how decisive a role the Kundun played in the conservative
process of resorption (of the New Age). He succeeded, in fact, in binding the intellectual and scientific
elite of the New Age Movement to his own atavistic system. These were both young and elder western
scientists trained in the classic disciplines (nuclear physics, chemistry, biology, neurobiology) who
endeavored to combine their groundings in the natural sciences with religious and philosophical
presentations of the subject, whereby the Eastern-influenced doctrines became increasingly important.
This international circle of bold thinkers and researchers, who include such well-known individuals as
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, David Bohm, Francisco Varela, and Fritjof Capra, is our next topic. A