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The Shadow of the Dalai Lama – Part
II – 15. The
buddhocratic conquest of the
west
© Victor & Victoria
Trimondi
15. THE BUDDHOCRATIC CONQUEST
OF THE
WEST
In the view of the Tibetan lamas,
the spread of Buddhism in the West is predicted by an ancient
prophecy. The historical Buddha is said to have made the following
prognosis: “Two thousand and five hundred years after my passing the
Dharma will spread to the land of the red-faced people” (Mullin,
1991, p. 145). This they take to be a reference to the USA and the
continent’s native inhabitants, the North American Indians. There is
an astonishingly similar prophecy by the founder of Tibetan culture,
Padmasambhava: “When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels …
the Dharma will come to the land of the Red Man” (Bernbaum, 1982, p.
33). Western cultural figures like the director Martin Scorsese cite
a famous pronouncement of the Tibetan state oracle prior to the
flight of the Kundun in
the 1950s: “The jewel that grants wishes shines in the West” says
the prophecy (Focus,
46/1997, p. 168) “The jewel that grants wishes” is an epithet for
the Dalai Lama.
In the 1960s and 70s the spread
of Tantric Buddhism in the West still proved difficult, especially
with regard to its social acceptance. The Buddhist groups shared
more or less the same fate as all the other “exotic” sects. No
distinction was drawn in public between Hare Krishna, Bhagwan
followers or Gelugpa monks. Yet thanks to the mobility, political
skill, sophisticated manner and charismatic aura of the Dalai Lama,
Lamaism’s isolation has in the meantime become transformed into its
opposite and in recent years it has become a triumphal parade.
Whilst for the other Eastern sects the number of new members has
been stagnating or even declining since the 90s, Tibetan Buddhism
has been growing “like an ocean wave” the news magazine Spiegel reports, continuing, “In the wake
of sects and esoterica, Germans have [found] a new haven from the
crisis of senselessness: Buddhism. In the [German] Federal Republic
300,000 people are sympathetic towards the far Eastern religion
which discriminates against women, requires celibacy of its monks
and nuns, and whose western teachers preach banalities as truths.”
(Spiegel, 6/1994) Four
years later the same magazine reports, this time in a leading
article which over many pages reads like a hymn of praise for the Kundun, that half a million
Germans now follow the Buddhist path already. The Spiegel says that,
“Advertising copywriters and heads of business, university
professors and housewives profess their faith in the far Eastern
religion — a rapidly increasing tendency. ... Even in the new
federal states, in Menz in 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 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 proceedings were
in fact surprisingly critical and an image of Tibet emerged which
was able to peel away some illusions. There was no more talk of a
faultless and spiritual Shangri-La up on the roof of the
world.
Despite this apparently critical
approach, the event must be described as a manipulation. First of
all, the cliché that the West alone is responsible for the
widespread image of Tibet found here was reinforced. We have shown
at many points in our book that this blissful image is also a
creation of the lamas and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama himself.
Further, the fact that Lamaism possesses a world view in which
western civilization is to be supplanted via a new Buddhist
millennium and that it is systematically working towards this goal
was completely elided from the debate in Bonn. It appears the
globalizing claims of Tibetan Buddhism ought to be passed over
silently. At this conference Tibet continued to be portrayed as the
tiny country oppressed by the Chinese giant, and the academics, the
majority of whom were practicing Buddhists, presented themselves as
committed ethnologists advocating, albeit somewhat more critically
than usual, the rescue of an endangered culture of a people under
threat. By and large this was the orientation of the conference in
Bonn. It was hoped to create an island of “sober” scholarliness and
expertise in order to inject a note of realism into the by now via
the media completely exaggerated image of Tibet — in the justifiable
fear that this could not be maintained
indefinitely.
This carefully considered
objective of the assembled Tibetologists was demolished by Thurman.
In a powerfully eloquent speech entitled “Getting beyond Orientalism
in approaching Buddhism and Tibet: A central concept”, he sketched a
vision of the Buddhization of our planet, and of the establishment
of a worldwide “Buddhocracy”. Here he dared to go a number of steps
further than in his at that stage not yet published book, Inner Revolution. The
quintessence of his dedicated presentation was that the decadent,
materialistic West would soon go under and a global monastic system
along Tibetan lines would emerge in its stead. This could well be
based on traditional Tibet, which today at the end of the
materialistic age appears modern to many: “Three hundred years
before, this is the time, what I called modern Tibet, which is the
Buddhocratic, unmilitaristic, mass-monastic society …” (Thurman at
the conference in Bonn).
Such perspectives clearly much
irritated the conference organizers and immensely disturbed their
ostensible attempt to introduce a note of academic clarity. The
megalomaniac claims of Tibetan neo-Buddhism plainly and openly
forced their way into the limelight during Thurman’s speech. A
spectacular row with the officials resulted and Thurman left Bonn
early.
Irrespective of one’s opinion of
Thurman, his speech in Bonn was just plain honest; it called a spade
a spade and remains an eminently important record since it
introduced the term “Buddhocracy” into the discussion as something
desirable, indeed as the sole safety anchor amid the fall of the
Western world. Those who are familiar with the background to Lamaism
will recognize that Thurman has translated into easily understood
western terms the religious political global pretensions of the
Tibetan system codified in the Kalachakra Tantra. The
American “mouthpiece of the Dalai Lama” is the principal witness for
the fact that a worldwide “Buddhocracy” is aspired to not just in
the tantric rituals but also by the propagandists of Tibetan
Buddhism. Thurman probably revised and tamed down his final
manuscript for Inner
Revolution in light of events in Bonn. There, the emotive terms
Buddhocracy and Buddhocratic are no longer
so central as they were in his speech in Bonn. Nonetheless a careful
reading of his book reveals the Buddhocratic intentions are not
hidden in any way. In order to more clearly give prominence to these
intentions, however, we will review his book in connection with his
speech in Bonn.
The stolen
revolution
Anybody who summarizes the
elements of the political program running through Thurman’s book Inner Revolution from cover
to cover will soon recognize that they largely concern the demands
of the “revolutionary” grass roots movement of the 70s and 80s. Here
there is talk of equality of the sexes, individual freedom, personal
emancipation, critical thought, nonconformity, grass roots
democracy, human rights, a social ethos, a minimum income guaranteed
by the state, equality of access to education, health and social
services for all, ecological awareness, tolerance, pacifism, and
self-realization. In an era in which all these ideas no longer have
the same attraction as they did 20 years ago, such nostalgic demands
are like a balsam. The ideals of the recent past appear to have not
been in vain! The utopias of the 1960s will be realized after all,
indeed, according to Thurman, this time without any use of violence.
The era of “cool revolution” has just begun and we learn that all
these individual and social political goals have always been a part
of Buddhist cultural tradition, especially Tibetan-style
Lamaism.
With this move, Thurman
incorporates the entire set of ideas of a protest generation which
sought to change the world along human-political lines and harnesses
it to a Tibetan/Buddhist world view. In this he is a brilliant
student of his smiling master, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Tens of
thousands of people in Europe and America (including Petra Kelly and
the authors) became victims of this skillful manipulation and
believed that Lamaism could provide the example of a
human-politically committed religion. Thousands stood up for Tibet,
small and oppressed, because they revered in this country a treasure
trove of spiritual and ethical values which would be destroyed by
Chinese totalitarianism. Tibetan Buddhism as the final refuge of the
social revolutionary ideals of the 70s, as the inheritance of the
politically involved youth movement? This is — as we shall show —
how Lamaism presents itself in Thurman’s book, and the Fourteenth
Dalai Lama gives this interpretation his approval. “Thurman
explained to me how some Western thinkers have assumed that Buddhism
has no intention to change society ... Thurman’s book provides a
timely correction to any lingering notions about Buddhism as an
uncaring religion.” (Thurman1998, p. xiii)
But anyone who peeps behind the
curtains must unfortunately ascertain that with his catalog of
political demands Thurman holds a mirror up to the ideals of the
“revolutionary” generation of the West, and that he fails to inform
them about the reality of the Lamaist system in which used to and
still does function along completely contrary social political
lines.
Thurman’s forged
history
In order to prevent this abuse of
power becoming obvious, the construction of a forged history is
necessary, as Thurman conscientiously and consistently demonstrates
in his book. He presents the Tibet of old as a type of gentle
“scholarly republic” of introspective monks, free of the turbulence
of European/imperialist politics of business and war. In their
seclusion these holy men performed over centuries a world mission,
which is only now becoming noticeable. Since the Renaissance,
Thurman explains, the West has effected the “outer modernity”, that
is the “outer enlightenment” through the scientific revolution. At
the same time (above all since the rule of the Fifth Dalai Lama in
the seventeenth century) an “inner revolution” has taken place in
the Himalayas, which the American boldly describes as “inner
modernity”: “So we must qualify what we have come to call
‘modernity’ in the West as ‘materialistic’ or ‘outer’ modernity, and
contrast it with a parallel but alternative Tibetan modernity
qualified as ‘spiritualistic’ or ‘inner’ modernity” (Thurman 1998,
p. 247). At the 1996 conference in Bonn he did in fact refer to the
“inner modernization of the Tibetan society”.
Committed Buddhism, according to
Thurman, is instigating a “cool revolution” (in the sense of
‘calm’).It is “cool” in contrast to the “hot” revolutions of the
Western dominated history of the world which demanded so many
casualties. The five fundamental principles of this “cool
revolution” are cleverly assigned anew to a Western (and not
Oriental) system of values: transcendental individualism, nonviolent
pacifism, educational evolutionism, ecosocial altruism, universal
democratism.
For Thurman, the Tibetan culture
of “sacralization”, “magic”, “enlightenment”, “spiritual progress”,
and “peaceful monasticism” stands in opposition to a Western
civilization of “secularization”, “disenchantment”,
“rationalization”, “profane belief in material progress”, and
“materialism, industrialism, and militarism” (Thurman 1998, p.
246).Even though the “inner revolution” is unambiguously valued more
highly, the achievements of the West ought not be totally abandoned
in the future. Thurman sees the world culture of the dawning
millennium in a hierarchical (East over West) union of both. Upon
closer inspection, however, this “cool revolution” reveals itself to
be a “cool restoration” in which the world is to be transformed into
a Tibetan-style Buddhist monastic state.
To substantiate Lamaism’s global
mission (the “cool revolution”) in his book, Thurman had to distort
Tibetan history, or the history of Buddhism in general. He needed to
construct a pure, faultless and ideal history which from the outset
pursued an exemplary, highly ethical task of instruction, aimed to
culminate eschatologically in the Buddhization of the entire planet.
The Tibetan monasteries had to be portrayed as bulwarks of peace and
spiritual development, altruistically at work in the social
interests of all. The image of Tibet of old needed to appear
appropriately noble-minded, “with”, Thurman says, “the cultivation
of scholarship and artistry; with the administration of the
political system by enlightened hierarchs; with ascetic charisma
diffused among the common people; and with the development of the
reincarnation institution. It was a process of the removal of deep
roots in instinct and cultural patterns” (Thurman 1998, p. 231). A
general misrepresentation in Thurman’s historical construction is
the depiction of Buddhist society and especially Lamaism as
fundamentally peaceful (to be played out in contrast to the deeply
militaristic West): “[T]he main direction of the society was
ecstatic and positive; intrigues, violence and persecution were
rarer than in any other civilization” (Thurman 1998, p.36). Although
appeals may be made to relevant sutras in support of such a pacifist
image of Tibetan Buddhism, as a social reality it is completely
fictive.
As we have demonstrated, the
opposite is the case. Lamaism was caught up in bloody struggles
between the various monastic factions from the outset. There was a
terrible “civil war” in which the country’s two main orders faced
one another as opponents. Political murder has always been par for
the course and even the Dalai Lamas have not been spared. Even in
the brief history of the exiled Tibetans it is a constant
occurrence. The concept of the enemy was deeply anchored in ancient
Tibetan culture, and persists to this day. Thus the destruction of
“enemies of the teaching” is one of the standard requirements of all
tantric ritual texts. The sexual magic practices which lie at the
center of this religion and which Thurman either conceals or
interprets as an expression of cooperation and sexual equality are
based upon a fundamental misogyny. The social misery of the masses
in old Tibet was shocking and repulsive, the authority of the
priestly state was absolute and extended over life and death. To
present Tibet’s traditional society as a political example for
modernity, in which the people had oriented themselves toward a
“broad social ethic” and in which anybody could achieve “freedom and
happiness” (Thurman 1998, p. 138) is farcical.
Thus one shudders at the thought
when Thurman opens up the following perspective for the world to
come: “In the sacred history of the transformation of the wild
frontier [pre-Buddhist] land of Tibet [into a Buddhocracy], we find
a blueprint for completing the taming of our own wild world”
(Thurman 1998, p. 220)
Thurman introduces the Buddhist
emperor Ashoka (regnant from 272 to 236 B.C.E.), who “saw the
practical superiority of moral and enlightened policy” (Thurman
1998, p. 115), as a political example for the times ahead. He
portrays this Indian emperor as a “prince of peace” who — although
originally a terrible hero of the battlefield — following a deep
inner conversion abjured all war, transformed hate and pugnacity
into compassion and nonviolence, and conducted a “spiritual
revolution” to the benefit of all suffering beings. In the chapter
entitled “A kingly revolution” (Thurman 1988, pp.109ff.), the author
suggests that the Ashoka kingdom’s form of government, oriented
along monastic lines, could today once again function as a model for
the establishment of a worldwide Buddhist state. Thurman says that
“[t]he politics of enlightenment since Ashoka proposes a
truth-conquest of the planet—a Dharma-conquest, meaning a cultural,
educational, and intellectual conquest” (Thurman 1998, p.
282).
Thurman wisely remains silent
about the fact that this Maurya dynasty ruler was responsible for
numerous un-Buddhist acts. For instance, under his reign the death
penalty for criminals was not abolished, among whom his own wife,
Tisyaraksita, must have been counted, as he had her executed. In a
Buddhist (!) description of his life, a Sanskrit work titled Ashokavandana, it states
that he at one stage had 18,000 non-Buddhists, presumably Jainas,
put to death, as one of them had insulted the “true teaching”,
albeit in a relatively mild manner. In another instance he is
alleged to have driven a Jaina and his entire family into their
house which he then ordered to be burnt to the
ground.
Nonetheless, Emperor Ashoka is a
“cool revolutionary” for Thurman. His politics proclaimed “a social
style of tolerance and admiration of nonviolence. They made the
community a secure establishment that became unquestioned in its
ubiquitous presence as school for gentleness, concentration, and
liberation of critical reason; asylum for nonconformity; egalitarian
democratic community, where decisions were made by consensual vote”
(Thurman 1998, p. 117). To depict the absolutist emperor Ashoka as a
guarantor and exemplar of an “egalitarian democratic community”, is
a brilliant feat of arbitrary historical
interpretation!
With equal emphasis Thurman
presents the Indian/Buddhist Maha Siddhas (‘Grand
Sorcerers’) as exemplary heroes of the ethos for whom there was no
greater wish than to make others happy. However, as we have
described in detail, these “ascetics who tamed the world” employed
extremely dubious methods to this end, namely, they cultivated pure
transgression in order to prove the vanity of all being. Their
tantric, i.e., sexual magic, practices, in which they deliberately
did evil (murder, rape, necrophagy) with the ostensible intention of
creating something good, should, according to Thurman, be counted
among the most significant acts of human civilization. Anyone who
casts a glance over the “hagiographies” of these Maha Siddhas will be amazed
at the barbaric consciousness possessed by these “heroes” of the
tantric path. Only very rarely can socially ethical behavior be
ascertained among these figures, who deliberately adopted asociality
as a lifestyle.
But for Thurman these Maha
Siddhas and their later Tibetan imitations are “radiant bodies of
energy” upon whom the fate of humanity depends. “It is said that the
hillsides and retreats of central Tibet were ablaze with the light
generated by profound concentration, penetrating insights, and
magnificent deeds of enthusiastic practitioners. The entire populace
was moved by the energy released by individuals breaking through
their age-old ignorance and prejudices and realizing enlightenment.”
(Thurman 1998, pp. 227-228) When one compares the horrors of Tibetan
history with the horrors in the tantric texts followed by the
“enthusiastic practitioners”, then Thurman may indeed be correct. It
is just that it was primarily dark energies which affected the
Tibetan population and kept them in ignorance and servitude. Serfdom
and slavery are attributes of old Tibetan society, just like an
inhumane penal code and a pervasive oppression of
women.
Padmasambhava, the supreme
ambivalent founding figure of Tibetan Buddhism, is also celebrated
by Thurman as an committed scholar of enlightenment. (Thurman 1998,
210). Nothing could be less typical of this sorcerer, who covered
the Land of Snows with his excommunications and introduced the
wrathful gods of pre-Buddhist Tibet in a horror army of aggressive
protective spirits, not so that their terrible character could be
transformed, but rather so that they could now protect with sword
and fright the “true teaching of Buddha” from its enemies. Great
scholars of the Gelugpa order have time and again pointed out the
ambivalence of this iridescent “cultural founder” (Padmasambhava),
among whose deeds are two brutal infanticides, and expressly
distanced themselves from his barbaric
lifestyle.
When the Indian scholar Atisha
began his work in Tibet in the 11th century, he
encountered a completely dissolute monastic caste in total chaos and
where one could no longer speak of morals. At least this is what the
historical records (the Blue
Annals) report. Thurman suppresses this Lamaist moral collapse
and simply maintains the opposite: “When Atisha arrived in Tibet,
monastic practitioners were limiting themselves to strict moral and
ritual observances” (Thurman 1998, p. 226). This is indeed a very
euphemistic representation of the whoring and secularized
monasteries against which Atisha took to the field with a new moral
codex.
For Thurman, the Great Prayer
Festival (Mönlam) institutionalized by Tsongkhapa and reactivated by
the Fifth Dalai Lama, a raw Lamaist carnival in which monks were
allowed absolutely everything and a truly horrible scapegoat ritual
was performed, was a sacred event where “the power of compassion is
manifest, the immediacy of grace is experienced” (Thurman 1998, p.
235). At another stage he says that, “[i]n Tibet, the Great Prayer
Festival guaranteed the best of possibilities for everyone. People’s
feelings of being in an apocalyptic time in a specially blessed and
chosen land—in their own form of a “New Jerusalem”, a Kingdom of
Heaven manifest on earth—had a powerful effect on the whole society”
(Thurman 1998, pp. 238-239). When we compare this apotheosis of the
said event with the already cited eyewitness report by Heinrich
Harrer, we see the lack of restraint with which Thurman reveres the
Tibet of old. Harrer, whose portrayal is confirmed by many other
travel accounts, regarded the scenario completely differently: “As
if emerging from hypnosis”, writes the mentor of the young Dalai
Lama, “at this moment the tens of thousands spring from order in to
chaos. The transition is so sudden, that one is speechless.
Shouting, wild gesticulation .. they trample over one another,
almost murder each other. The still-weeping prayers, ecstatically
absorbed, become ravers. The monastic soldiers begin their duty!
Huge fellows with stuffed shoulders and blackened faces — so that
the deterrent effect becomes even stronger. Ruthlessly they lay into
the crowd with their batons ... one takes the blows wailing, but
even the beaten return again. As if they were possessed by demons”
(Heinrich Harrer, 1984, p. 142). — Thurman’s “New Jerusalem”,
possessed by demons on the roof of the world? —an interesting
scenario for a horror film!
We find a further pinnacle of
Thurman’s historical falsification in the portrait of the greatest
Lamaist potentate, the Fifth Dalai Lama. Of all people, this
“Priest-King” attuned to the accumulation of external power and pomp
is built up by the author in to a hero of the “inner revolution”. He
paints the picture of a prudent and farsighted fathers of his
country (“a gentle genius, scholar, and reincarnate saint” — Thurman
1998, p. 248), who is compelled — against his will and his
fundamentally Buddhist attitude — to conduct a n horrific “civil
war” (in which he lets great numbers of monks from other orders be
massacred by the Mongol warriors summoned to the country). Thurman
presents the conflict as a quarrel between various warlords in which
the “peaceful” monks become embroiled.
Here again, the opposite was the
case: the two chief Tibetan Buddhist orders of the time (Gelugpa and
Kagyupa) were pulling the strings, even if they let worldly armies
battle for them. Thurman misrepresents this monastic war as a battle
between cliques of nobles and ultimately “the final showdown in
Tibet between militarism and monasticism” (Thurman 1998, p. 249),
whereby the latter as the party of peace is victorious thanks to the
genius of the Fifth Dalai Lama and goes on to all but establish a
“Buddha paradise” on earth.
All this is a pious/impudent
invention of the American Tibetologist. The merciless warrior
mentality of the Fifth Dalai Lama spread fear and alarm among his
foes. His dark occult side, his fascination for the sexual magic of
the Nyingmapa (which he himself practiced), his unrestrained
rewriting of history and much more; these are all highly unpleasant
facts, which are deliberately concealed by Thurman, since an
historically accurate portrait of the “Great Fifth” could have
embarrassing
consequences, as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama constantly refers
to this predecessor of his and has announced him to be his greatest
example.
It would be wrong to deny the
Fifth Dalai Lama any political or administrative skill; he was, just
like his contemporary, Louis the Fourteenth, to whom he is often
compared, an “ingenious” statesman. But this made him no prince of
peace. His goal consisted of resolutely placing the fate of the
country in the hands of the clergy with himself as the undisputed
spiritual and secular leader. To this end (like the Fourteenth Dalai
Lama today) he played the various orders off against one another.
The Fifth Dalai Lama
formulated the political foundations of a “Buddhocracy” which
Robert Thurman would be glad to see as the model for a future worlds
community, and which we wish to examine more closely in the next
section.
A worldwide
Buddhocracy
At the conference on Tibet in
Bonn mentioned above (“Mythos Tibet”, 1996) Robert Thurman with
stirring pathos prophesied the “fall of the West” and left no doubt
that the future of our planet lies in a worldwide, as he stressed
literally, “Buddhocracy”. Europe has renounced its sacred past,
demystified its natural environment, established a secular realm,
and closed off access to the sacred “represented by monasticism and
its organized striving for perfection”. Materialism,
industrialization and militarization have taken the place of the
sacred (Thurman 1998, p. 246).
At the same time a reverse
process has taken place in Tibet. Society has become increasingly
sacralized and devoted itself to the creation of a “buddhaverse”.
(In the wake of the Tibetologists’ criticisms in Bonn, Thurman
appears to have opted for his own neologism “buddhaverse” in place
of the somewhat offensive “Buddhocracy”; the meaning intended
remains the same.) A re-enchantment of reality has taken place in
Tibet, and the system is dedicated to the perfection of the
individual. The warrior spirit has been dismantled. All these claims
are untrue, and can be disproved by countless counterexamples.
Nevertheless, Thurman presumes to declare them expressions of
traditional Tibet’s “inner modernity”, which is ultimately superior
to Europe’s “outer modernity”: “As Europe was pushing away the Pope,
the Church, and the enchantment of everyday life, Tibet was turning
over the reins of its country to a new kind of government, which
cannot properly be called ‘theocratic’, since the Tibetans do not
believe in an omnipotent God, but which can be called
‘Buddhocratic’” (Thurman 1998, p. 248). This form of government is
supposed to guide our future. At the Tibet conference in Bonn,
Thurman made this clearer: “Yes, not theocratic, because that brings
[with it a] comparison to the Holy Roman Empire ... because it has
the conception of an authoritarian God controlling the universe”
(Thurman at the conference in Bonn). Thurman seems to think the
concept of an “authoritarian Buddha” does not exist, although this
is precisely what may be found at the basis of the Lamaist
system.
For the author, the
monasticization of Tibetan society was a lucky millennial event for
humanity which reached its preliminary peak in the era in which the
Gelugpa order was founded by Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) and the
institution of the Dalai Lama was established. In Bonn Thurman
praised this period as “the millennium of the fifteenth century of
the planetary unique form of modern Tibetan society ... [which] led
to the unfolding in the seventeenth century [of] what I call
post-millennial, inwardly modern, mass-monastic, or even
Buddhocratic [society]”. Tsongkhapa is presented as the founding
father of this “modern Tibet”: he “was a spiritual prodigy. ... He
perceived a cosmic shift from universe to buddhaverse” (Thurman
1998, pp. 232–233).
The Tibet of old was, according
to Thurman, just such a buddhaverse, an earthly “Buddha paradise”,
governed by nonviolence and wisdom, generosity, sensitivity, and
tolerance. An exemplary enlightened consciousness was cultivated in
the monastic Jewel Community. The monasteries provided the guarantee
that politics was conducted along ethical lines: “The monastic core
provides the cocoon for the free creativity of the lay Jewel
Community” (Thurman 1998, p. 294).
This “monastic form of
government”, pre-tested by Old Tibet, provides a vision for the
future for Thurman: “I am very interested in this. I feel a very
strong trend in this [direction]” (Thurman’s presentation in Bonn).
The “monasticization” which was then (i.e., in the fifteenth
century) spreading through Asia whilst the doors to the monasteries
of Europe were closing, has once again become significant on a
global political level. “And if you study Max Weber carefully... in
fact what secularization and industrial progress brought had a lot
to do with the slamming of
the monastery doors. ... So, a monastic form of government is
an unthinkable thing for Western society. We often say Tibet is
frozen in the Middle Ages because Tibet is not secularized in the
way the Western world is! It moved out of the balance between sacred
and secular and went into a sacralization process and enchanted the
universe. The concrete proof of that was that the monasteries
provided the government” (Thurman in Bonn).
Here, Thurman is paraphrasing
Weber’s thesis of the “disenchantment of the world” which
accompanied the rise of capitalism. The “re-enchantment of the
world” is a political program for him, which can only be carried out
by Lamaist monks. Monasticism “is the shelter and training ground
for the nonviolent ‘army’, the shock troops for the sustained social
revolution the Buddha initiated ...” (Thurman 1998, p. 294, § 15).
The monastic clergy would progressively assume control of political
matters via a three-stage plan. In the final phase of this plan,
“the society is able to enjoy the universe of enlightenment, and
Jewel Community institutions [the monasteries] openly take
responsibility for the society’s direction” (Thurman 1998, p. 296, §
24).
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 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 super-beings 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 Kalmyk lama Geshe Wangyal
(1901–1983). Lama Wangyal was Robert Thurman’s actual “line guru”,
and this line leads via Wangyal directly to the old master Agvan
Dorjiev (Lama Wangyal’s guru). Dorjiev the Buriat, Wangyal the
Kalmyk, and Thurman the American thus form a chain of initiation.
From a tantric point of view the spirit of the master lives on in
the form of the pupil. One can thus assume that Thurman as Dorjiev’s
successor represents an emanation of the extremely aggressive
protective divinity Vajrabhairava who is supposed to have become
incarnate in the Buriat. At any rate the American must be drawn into
the context of the global Shambhala utopia, which was
the principal concern of Dorjiev’s
metapolitics.
What Thurman understands by this
can be most clearly illustrated by a vision which was bestowed upon
him in a dream in September 1979, before he saw the Dalai Lama again
for the first time in eight years: “The night before he landed in
New York, I dreamed he was manifesting the pure land mandala palace
of the Kalachakra Buddha right on top of the Waldorf Astoria
building. The entire collection of dignitaries of the city, mayors
and senators, corporate presidents and kings, sheikhs and sultans
,celebrities and stars—all of them were swept up into the dance of
722 deities of the three buildings of the diamond palace like
pinstriped bees swarming on a giant honeycomb. The amazing thing
about the Dalai Lama’s flood of power and beauty was that it
appeared totally effortless. I could feel the space of His
Holiness’s heart, whence all this arose. It was relaxed, cool, an
amazing well of infinity” (Thurman 1998, p.
18).
The magic projection of the
Tibetan “god-king” as ADI BUDDHA and world ruler cannot be
illustrated more vividly. He reigns as some kind of queen bee in the
middle of New York, and lets the world’s greatest , whom he has
bewitched with sweet honey, dance to his tune. It is typical that
there is no mention of grass roots democracy here, and that it is
just the political, business, and show business Establishment which
performs the sweet dance of the bees. Anyone who is aware how much
significance is granted to such dreams in the world of Tibetan
initiation will without further ado recognize a metapolitical
program in Thurman’s vision. [1]
His devoted commitment as Lamaist
initiand, his absolute loyalty to the Dalai Lama, his consistent
vision of an earthly “Buddha paradise”, his uncompromising
affirmation of a Buddhocratic state, his involvement with the world
of the Tibetan gods which reaches even into his own dreams, his
systematic training by the highest Tibetan lamas over many years—all
these certify Thurman to be a “Shambhala warrior”, a Buddhist hero,
who according to legend prepares for the establishment of the
kingdom of Shambhala over our globe. This is the goal of the
Kalachakra ritual (the “Wheel of Time” ritual) performed all over
the world by the Dalai Lama. Thurman has, he reports, seen the Dalai
Lama in a vision as the supreme time god above the Waldorf Astoria.
But even here he conceals that the Shambhala myth is not peaceful,
and can only be realized after a world war in which all nonbelievers
(non-Buddhists) are destroyed.
Perhaps such a perspective
frightens some Western intellectuals? No worries, Thurman reassumes
them, “who is afraid of the Dalai Lama? Who is afraid of
Avalokiteshvara? No Tibetans are afraid” (Thurman in Bonn). How
could one be afraid of the supreme enlightened being currently on
earth? He, in whom all three levels are compressed, “that of the
selfless monk, the king, and the great adept” (Thurman), who is (as
great adept) preparing the creation of “a buddhaversal human
society” (Thurman 1998, p. 39), even if he (as king and statesman)
is still concentrating chiefly on the concerns of Tibet. Then,
“Tibet’s unique focus on enlightenment civilization makes the nation
crucial to the world’s development of spiritual and social balance”
(Thurman 1998, p. 39).
Thurman is convinced that the
Dalai Lama represents a projection of the ADI BUDDHA, who can
liberate the world from its valley of sorrows. He describes very
precisely the micro- and macrocosmic dimensions of such a redemptive
being in the form of the Fifth Dalai Lama. If humanity were to
recognize the divine presence behind the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, it
could calmly place its political matters in his hands, just as the
Tibetan populace did in the time of the “Great Fifth”: “Small
wonder”, Thurman tells his readers. “Suppose the people of a
catholic country were to share a perception of a particular
spiritual figure as not simply a representative of God, as in the
Pope being the vicar of Christ, but as an actual incarnation of the
Savior—or, say an incarnation of the Archangel Gabriel. In such a
situation it would not be strange for the nation to reach a point
where the divine would actually take responsibility for the
government. In Tibet, this moment was the culmination of centuries
of grass-roots millennial consciousness, the political ratification
of the millennial direction that had been intensifying since the
Great Prayer Festival tradition had begun in 1409. The sense of the
presence of an enlightened being was widespread enough for the
people to join together after the last conflict and entrust to him
their land and their fate” (Thurman 1998, pp.
250–251).
There is no need to read between
the lines, simply paying close attention to the text of his book is
enough to be able to recognize that, for Thurman, the Fourteenth
Dalai Lama represents the quintessence of political wisdom and
decisive power for the coming millennium. The author draws attention
to the five principles of his planetary political program:
“nonviolence, individualism, education, and altruistic
correctedness. The fifth [principle], global democratism, is
exemplified in His Holiness the Great Fourteenth Dalai Lama himself”
(Thurman 1998, p. 279). The Tibetan “god-king” as the incarnation of
universal democracy—a true piece of bravura in Thurman’s “political
theology”. No wonder the “god-king” applauds him so roundly in his
foreword: “I commend him for his careful study and clear
explanations, and I recommend his insights for your own reflections”
(Thurman 1998, p. xiv).
According to Thurman, the USA is
the first western country in which the lamas’ Buddhocratic vision
will prevail: “Most of the teachers from the various enlightenment
movements seem to agree on one thing: If there is to be a
renaissance of enlightenment sciences in our times, it will have to
begin in America. America is the land of extreme dichotomies: the
great materialism and the greatest disillusionment with materialism;
great self-indulgence and great self-transcendence” (Thurman 1998,
p. 280). The Dalai Lama (“the fifth [principle of] global
democratism”) as the next American president? —But if he dies?—No
worries, thanks to the system of incarnation he may remain among us
as priest and king for ever.
Thurman’s methods, adapting
himself to the point of self-deception to the consciousness and the
customs of his environment (in this case the western democratic
environment), but without losing sight of the actual grand
metapolitical goal, has a long tradition in Tibet. Padmasambhava,
for instance, Buddhized the Land of Snows by integrating with aplomb
the various tribal cultures which he encountered on his missionary
travels into his tantric system, together with their particular
ideas and cultic practices. In doing so he was so skillful that the
pre-Buddhist inhabitants of Tibet believed Buddhism to be no more
than the realization of their own traditional expectations of
salvation. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama is masterfully repeating this
heuristic principle from his eighth-century incarnation on the world
stage. In the meantime he knows all the variations and rules of the
game of Western civilization and has managed to generate a public
image as a great reformer and democrat who brilliantly combines
modern political fundamentals with old Eastern teachings of wisdom.
There are countless sermons from him in which he strongly advises
his audience to stay true to their own religious tradition, since in
the end they all come to the same thing. Such superior invitations
have as we shall see a double-bind effect. People
are so enthused by the ostensible tolerance of Tibetan Buddhism and
its supreme representative that they become converts to the Dharma and ensnared in the
tantric web.
Footnotes:
[1] During
the UN-organized Millennium Festival of Religions at the end of
August 2000, at which over a thousand religious representatives were
present., the Dalai Lama was supposed to stay in the Waldorf
Astoria. Without doubt, thanks to his charisma and pretended precept
of tolerance, the Kundun would have become the center of the entire
occasion. But after great pressure was applied by the Chinese he was
not invited. At this, a segment of the organizers resolved to
encourage him to take part in a kind of private rally at the end of
the assembly in the Waldorf Astoria hotel. But the Kundun declined.
Robert Thurman’s vision of the Kalachakra Buddha at the
summit of the Waldorf Astoria did not eventuate.
Next
Chapter:
16. TACTICS,
STRATEGIES, FORGERIES, ILLUSIONS
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