Canadian Christianiy.com
Comment: Buddhism's guru - part one
By James A. Beverley
HIS OFFICIAL TITLES are Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, meaning 'Holy Lord, Gentle Glory, Eloquent, Compassionate, Learned Defender of the Faith, Ocean of Wisdom.'
After Pope John Paul II and Billy Graham, he is probably the most recognized religious figure on our planet. He is the voice of Buddhism to the nations, and is often called the "god-king" of Tibet. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. His books, such as Ethics for a New Millennium and The Art of Happiness, have become best-sellers. He is treated with immense respect by secular media, and draws crowds up to 300,000 at his public talks.
These titles and accolades belong to Buddhism's leading apostle, the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan leader will be visiting Canada later this month. In Vancouver, he will receive two honourary university degrees, and participate in a roundtable discussion with fellow Nobel recipients Desmond Tutu and Shirin Ebadi; in late April, he will conduct a Buddhist ritual called the Kalachakra Ceremony, in Toronto.
Born as Lhamo Thondup in 1935 in northeast Tibet, he was chosen as the 14th Dalai Lama (Tibet's highest religious figure) at age two. He was enthroned in 1940 and became political leader of Tibet at age 15, just after Mao's armies began the Chinese takeover of Tibet. In exile since 1959, the Dalai Lama has become a world leader in ethics, politics and religion.
He has also become the de facto leader of millions of spiritual seekers in the West. Christians who want to evangelize our culture do well to understand the extent of his influence, especially in pop culture, as well as the nature of his beliefs.
Hollywood
Veteran journalist and Asia scholar Orville Schell explored the Dalai Lama's influence, and the romance of Tibet, in Hollywood and pop culture in his 2000 book Virtual Tibet. Schell notes that by the mid-1990s, Hollywood's "unparalleled engine of invention had alighted on Tibet as one of its chosen subjects." The Dalai Lama became the unseen star of two large-budget films, Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet and Martin Scorsese's Kundun.
Scorsese told one interviewer about his meeting with the Dalai Lama: "Something happened. I became totally aware of existing in the moment. It was like you could feel your heartbeat; and as I left, he looked at me. I don't know, but there was something about the look, something sweet . . . I just knew I had to make the movie."
Hollywood actor Richard Gere is probably his most famous devotee. After an initial foray into Zen, Gere was drawn to the Dalai Lama. He told Shambhala Sun magazine, "It completely changed my life the first time I was in the presence of His Holiness. No question about it." Gere introduced the Dalai Lama to New Yorkers in 1999, when the Buddhist leader spoke in Central Park. Gere also led a protest rally for a free Tibet when the Dalai Lama visited Washington in 2000.
The Dalai Lama is also a major spiritual influence on actress Sharon Stone, composer Philip Glass, Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, and martial-arts star Steven Seagal. "The Dalai Lama's been a great friend to me, and I don't want to use that for anything but my personal spiritual sustenance," Seagal told Schell. "He is the great mother of everything nurturing and loving. He accepts all who come without judgment. He has a very serious impact on the degenerate times in which we live and on bringing us back to a more pure realm."
The Dalai Lama's international image, in fact, is virtually shatterproof. There was a minor ripple about his credibility when explorer Heinrich Harrer's Nazi past was exposed just before the movie Seven Years in Tibet was released. On that, the Dalai Lama does not claim omniscience, and he says his friend Harrer simply kept the truth from him. Likewise, the Dalai Lama had endorsed Shoko Asahara, the guru of the Aum Shinryko movement in Japan, but withdrew his support after that movement's poison-gas attacks on Tokyo subways. Again, his sympathetic comment about Saddam Hussein in a New York Times interview drew only passing criticism. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, a famous Tibetan guru who now lives in England, led a brief international campaign against the Dalai Lama, accusing him of dictatorship and hypocrisy, but nothing has come of it.
One consequence of Hollywood attention is that Buddhism, especially the Tibetan strain, has entered mainstream America. Madison Avenue uses Buddhist lingo to sell goods, and Buddhist terminology crops up on The Simpsons and other high-profile television shows. Ads for Tibetan root beer proffer a "gently invigorating cardamom and coriander in a Tibetan adaptation of Ayurvedic herbs." Washington's Smithsonian Institution featured Tibetan culture in its folklife festival in 2000. On the National Mall, visitors could hear Buddhist monks chanting, watch a sand mandala being created, buy Tibetan medicines, and even join in prayer before an image of Avalokitesvara, the protector deity of Tibet.
Westerners can even be chosen as incarnations of high lamas, as has been claimed of Jewish-born Catharine Burroughs, Vancouver native Elijah Ary, and Seagal himself. Penor Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma lineage in Tibetan Buddhism, declared that Seagal was the current manifestation of Chungdrag Dorge, a renowned 17th-century teacher. Ary, born in 1972, now goes by Tenzin Sherab and is said to be the incarnation of Geshe Jatse, a sage who died in a Tibetan cave more than 30 years ago. Burroughs, titled as Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, heads a large Tibetan monastery in Poolesville, Maryland. Her story is told in Martha Sherrill's The Buddha from Brooklyn.
The allure of Tibet
The influence of the Dalai Lama comes in part because of Tibet's allure in the Western imagination for the last two centuries. Tibet has captured the hearts of figures as diverse as famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung, Theosophy founder Madame Blavatsky, and explorer extraordinaire Alexandra David-Neel. At age 55, David-Neel reached Lhasa, Tibet's capital, after a 2,000-mile trek from India. James Hilton's popular 1933 novel Lost Horizon located paradise in northern Tibet, in a hidden valley he called Shangri-La.
Hilton may have been borrowing on the Tibetan Buddhist belief that there is a pure kingdom known as Shambhala. Gere told a Frontline documentary that Tibet promises "Release. Light. Happiness. I would say that the West is very young; it's very corrupt. We're not very wise. And I think we're hopeful that there is a place that is ancient and wise and open and filled with light." That Tibet has been pillaged by Communist China has only added to Western longings for the paradise that has been lost.
The most extreme claims about Tibet as a kingdom of magic come from the writings of T. Lobsang Rampa. Claiming to be a Tibetan priest with supernatural powers, he recounted his phenomenal life story in his best-selling The Third Eye (1956), followed by Doctor from Lhasa (1959) and The Rampa Story (1960). The first volume was greeted with ridicule by Tibetan specialists, and their skepticism was confirmed when a private investigator revealed that Rampa was really Cyril Henry Hoskin, a native of Devonshire, England, who had never been to Asia. Despite the debunking, Rampa's first volume remains in print and is one of the most popular guides to Tibetan religion.
Myths about a Tibetan paradise extend to the sexual dimension as well. Western devotees and students of Asian thought have long been fascinated with aspects of Hindu and Buddhist tantra, which sometimes adds sexual practice to divine rituals. A few American religious groups trace their sexual libertarianism to what they call the sex magic of Tibet. Jeffrey Hopkins, a leading scholar of Buddhism, has even argued that Tibetan Buddhism is a great vehicle for gay liberation.
The Dalai Lama himself is one source to counter many of the utopian visions of Tibet. He routinely dismisses stories about flying monks and levitating lamas. He told his Central Park audience that he does not know how to do miracles and has never seen one. He suggested to one interviewer that the only way a Buddhist monk could fly is by jumping off a cliff, spreading his robes, and hoping for a soft landing. The Dalai Lama has also acknowledged that pre-Communist Tibet had the weaknesses -- corruption, illiteracy, and violence, for example -- one would expect from a semifeudal society.
Tenzin Taklha, former security chief for the Dalai Lama, is now one of his top aides. Taklha told CC.com that he holds the Dalai Lama in high esteem as a wonderful boss and a fabulous person -- but that people who believe he has magical powers are simply mistaken. He was equally direct about claims regarding tantra. He denied any idea that tantric sex is a common practice among Tibetan Buddhists.
Various scholars echo his view, though Taklha recognizes that some Tibetan masters have abused the tantric element. June Cambell, a native of Scotland, reported on being a secret sexual consort to one major Tibetan master in her controversial book Traveller in Space. Cambell, now a philosopher of religion, renounced Tibetan Buddhism and argues that it is intrinsically chauvinistic. Missionaries to the Tibetan Buddhist world told me of cases in which monks used their status to seduce young women in local villages in Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. Such incidents parallel cases of Christian pastors using their spiritual status to sexually abuse parishioners and counselees.
The mythology about Tibet has been explored in depth by Donald Lopez Jr. in his masterful Prisoners of Shangri-La. Lopez argues persuasively that "the continued idealization of Tibet -- its history and religion -- may ultimately harm the cause of Tibetan independence." Whatever the case, there is no doubt that naove understandings of Tibet, both past and present, shape public response to the Dalai Lama, just as he, by virtue of his connection with Tibet, seems larger than life to the thousands who flock to his teachings and buy his many books.
The conclusion of this article, featuring an exclusive interview with the Dalai Lama, will appear in next week's CC.com update.
http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/na.cgi?nationalupdates/040408guru
**************************
I found interesting !! I don't know where is part two !!
in onenessss
Comment: Buddhism's guru - part one
By James A. Beverley
HIS OFFICIAL TITLES are Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, meaning 'Holy Lord, Gentle Glory, Eloquent, Compassionate, Learned Defender of the Faith, Ocean of Wisdom.'
After Pope John Paul II and Billy Graham, he is probably the most recognized religious figure on our planet. He is the voice of Buddhism to the nations, and is often called the "god-king" of Tibet. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. His books, such as Ethics for a New Millennium and The Art of Happiness, have become best-sellers. He is treated with immense respect by secular media, and draws crowds up to 300,000 at his public talks.
These titles and accolades belong to Buddhism's leading apostle, the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan leader will be visiting Canada later this month. In Vancouver, he will receive two honourary university degrees, and participate in a roundtable discussion with fellow Nobel recipients Desmond Tutu and Shirin Ebadi; in late April, he will conduct a Buddhist ritual called the Kalachakra Ceremony, in Toronto.
Born as Lhamo Thondup in 1935 in northeast Tibet, he was chosen as the 14th Dalai Lama (Tibet's highest religious figure) at age two. He was enthroned in 1940 and became political leader of Tibet at age 15, just after Mao's armies began the Chinese takeover of Tibet. In exile since 1959, the Dalai Lama has become a world leader in ethics, politics and religion.
He has also become the de facto leader of millions of spiritual seekers in the West. Christians who want to evangelize our culture do well to understand the extent of his influence, especially in pop culture, as well as the nature of his beliefs.
Hollywood
Veteran journalist and Asia scholar Orville Schell explored the Dalai Lama's influence, and the romance of Tibet, in Hollywood and pop culture in his 2000 book Virtual Tibet. Schell notes that by the mid-1990s, Hollywood's "unparalleled engine of invention had alighted on Tibet as one of its chosen subjects." The Dalai Lama became the unseen star of two large-budget films, Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet and Martin Scorsese's Kundun.
Scorsese told one interviewer about his meeting with the Dalai Lama: "Something happened. I became totally aware of existing in the moment. It was like you could feel your heartbeat; and as I left, he looked at me. I don't know, but there was something about the look, something sweet . . . I just knew I had to make the movie."
Hollywood actor Richard Gere is probably his most famous devotee. After an initial foray into Zen, Gere was drawn to the Dalai Lama. He told Shambhala Sun magazine, "It completely changed my life the first time I was in the presence of His Holiness. No question about it." Gere introduced the Dalai Lama to New Yorkers in 1999, when the Buddhist leader spoke in Central Park. Gere also led a protest rally for a free Tibet when the Dalai Lama visited Washington in 2000.
The Dalai Lama is also a major spiritual influence on actress Sharon Stone, composer Philip Glass, Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, and martial-arts star Steven Seagal. "The Dalai Lama's been a great friend to me, and I don't want to use that for anything but my personal spiritual sustenance," Seagal told Schell. "He is the great mother of everything nurturing and loving. He accepts all who come without judgment. He has a very serious impact on the degenerate times in which we live and on bringing us back to a more pure realm."
The Dalai Lama's international image, in fact, is virtually shatterproof. There was a minor ripple about his credibility when explorer Heinrich Harrer's Nazi past was exposed just before the movie Seven Years in Tibet was released. On that, the Dalai Lama does not claim omniscience, and he says his friend Harrer simply kept the truth from him. Likewise, the Dalai Lama had endorsed Shoko Asahara, the guru of the Aum Shinryko movement in Japan, but withdrew his support after that movement's poison-gas attacks on Tokyo subways. Again, his sympathetic comment about Saddam Hussein in a New York Times interview drew only passing criticism. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, a famous Tibetan guru who now lives in England, led a brief international campaign against the Dalai Lama, accusing him of dictatorship and hypocrisy, but nothing has come of it.
One consequence of Hollywood attention is that Buddhism, especially the Tibetan strain, has entered mainstream America. Madison Avenue uses Buddhist lingo to sell goods, and Buddhist terminology crops up on The Simpsons and other high-profile television shows. Ads for Tibetan root beer proffer a "gently invigorating cardamom and coriander in a Tibetan adaptation of Ayurvedic herbs." Washington's Smithsonian Institution featured Tibetan culture in its folklife festival in 2000. On the National Mall, visitors could hear Buddhist monks chanting, watch a sand mandala being created, buy Tibetan medicines, and even join in prayer before an image of Avalokitesvara, the protector deity of Tibet.
Westerners can even be chosen as incarnations of high lamas, as has been claimed of Jewish-born Catharine Burroughs, Vancouver native Elijah Ary, and Seagal himself. Penor Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma lineage in Tibetan Buddhism, declared that Seagal was the current manifestation of Chungdrag Dorge, a renowned 17th-century teacher. Ary, born in 1972, now goes by Tenzin Sherab and is said to be the incarnation of Geshe Jatse, a sage who died in a Tibetan cave more than 30 years ago. Burroughs, titled as Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, heads a large Tibetan monastery in Poolesville, Maryland. Her story is told in Martha Sherrill's The Buddha from Brooklyn.
The allure of Tibet
The influence of the Dalai Lama comes in part because of Tibet's allure in the Western imagination for the last two centuries. Tibet has captured the hearts of figures as diverse as famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung, Theosophy founder Madame Blavatsky, and explorer extraordinaire Alexandra David-Neel. At age 55, David-Neel reached Lhasa, Tibet's capital, after a 2,000-mile trek from India. James Hilton's popular 1933 novel Lost Horizon located paradise in northern Tibet, in a hidden valley he called Shangri-La.
Hilton may have been borrowing on the Tibetan Buddhist belief that there is a pure kingdom known as Shambhala. Gere told a Frontline documentary that Tibet promises "Release. Light. Happiness. I would say that the West is very young; it's very corrupt. We're not very wise. And I think we're hopeful that there is a place that is ancient and wise and open and filled with light." That Tibet has been pillaged by Communist China has only added to Western longings for the paradise that has been lost.
The most extreme claims about Tibet as a kingdom of magic come from the writings of T. Lobsang Rampa. Claiming to be a Tibetan priest with supernatural powers, he recounted his phenomenal life story in his best-selling The Third Eye (1956), followed by Doctor from Lhasa (1959) and The Rampa Story (1960). The first volume was greeted with ridicule by Tibetan specialists, and their skepticism was confirmed when a private investigator revealed that Rampa was really Cyril Henry Hoskin, a native of Devonshire, England, who had never been to Asia. Despite the debunking, Rampa's first volume remains in print and is one of the most popular guides to Tibetan religion.
Myths about a Tibetan paradise extend to the sexual dimension as well. Western devotees and students of Asian thought have long been fascinated with aspects of Hindu and Buddhist tantra, which sometimes adds sexual practice to divine rituals. A few American religious groups trace their sexual libertarianism to what they call the sex magic of Tibet. Jeffrey Hopkins, a leading scholar of Buddhism, has even argued that Tibetan Buddhism is a great vehicle for gay liberation.
The Dalai Lama himself is one source to counter many of the utopian visions of Tibet. He routinely dismisses stories about flying monks and levitating lamas. He told his Central Park audience that he does not know how to do miracles and has never seen one. He suggested to one interviewer that the only way a Buddhist monk could fly is by jumping off a cliff, spreading his robes, and hoping for a soft landing. The Dalai Lama has also acknowledged that pre-Communist Tibet had the weaknesses -- corruption, illiteracy, and violence, for example -- one would expect from a semifeudal society.
Tenzin Taklha, former security chief for the Dalai Lama, is now one of his top aides. Taklha told CC.com that he holds the Dalai Lama in high esteem as a wonderful boss and a fabulous person -- but that people who believe he has magical powers are simply mistaken. He was equally direct about claims regarding tantra. He denied any idea that tantric sex is a common practice among Tibetan Buddhists.
Various scholars echo his view, though Taklha recognizes that some Tibetan masters have abused the tantric element. June Cambell, a native of Scotland, reported on being a secret sexual consort to one major Tibetan master in her controversial book Traveller in Space. Cambell, now a philosopher of religion, renounced Tibetan Buddhism and argues that it is intrinsically chauvinistic. Missionaries to the Tibetan Buddhist world told me of cases in which monks used their status to seduce young women in local villages in Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. Such incidents parallel cases of Christian pastors using their spiritual status to sexually abuse parishioners and counselees.
The mythology about Tibet has been explored in depth by Donald Lopez Jr. in his masterful Prisoners of Shangri-La. Lopez argues persuasively that "the continued idealization of Tibet -- its history and religion -- may ultimately harm the cause of Tibetan independence." Whatever the case, there is no doubt that naove understandings of Tibet, both past and present, shape public response to the Dalai Lama, just as he, by virtue of his connection with Tibet, seems larger than life to the thousands who flock to his teachings and buy his many books.
The conclusion of this article, featuring an exclusive interview with the Dalai Lama, will appear in next week's CC.com update.
http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/na.cgi?nationalupdates/040408guru
**************************
I found interesting !! I don't know where is part two !!
in onenessss
