2013-05-19T06:17:37-04:00 Robert Thurman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=robert-thurman Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Robert Thurman Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.506221 2010-03-19T14:42:47-04:00 2011-05-25T15:55:20-04:00

Robert Thurman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-thurman/
I, for one, was proud of His Holiness the Dalai Lama when he spoke strongly about the Chinese Communist Party's oppressive treatment of Tibetan Buddhist monks in Tibet [the whole of Tibet, being all the Tibet Autonomous Prefectures and Counties as well as the Tibet Autonomous Region]. Chinese Communist officials constantly revile His Holiness in the most scathing and inappropriate language, and while conducting talks with his representatives, simultaneously denying that they are doing so, speak of him insultingly, and accuse him of all sorts of preposterous things.

His Holiness has been so carefully mild in his speech about the Chinese, until the last year or two, that when he simply reports the fact that Chinese Communist policy and practice is to treat Tibetan Buddhism as seditious, the international press calls it "lashing out!" I was actually present in the crowd this year, and His Holiness' tone was measured and calm, reporting the deplorable facts without any invective.

Since 1993 when the Communist Party held its "Third Work Forum" on Tibet, the party boss of the time, Chen Kuiyuan, put forward the proposition that Tibetan Buddhism itself was "splittist" or "separatist," since Tibetan Buddhists considered the Dalai Lama to be an incarnation of Tibet's guardian angel, the celestial bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, and so their loyalty to him was unshakable. Hence, it simply became the established policy of the Chinese Communist Party - which is one and the same as the Chinese government - to destroy Tibetan Buddhism, in order to block the Tibetan peoples' love of the Dalai Lama and force them to identify themselves as loyal citizens of the Chinese "Motherland."

In setting such a policy, they were embarking on an impossible task, as the subsequent 17 years have shown. The first thing they did was renege on their initial back-channel request to the Dalai Lama to help with the discovery and recognition of the Panchen Lama, who had died suddenly in 1989. When the time came to seek his reincarnation, the Tashi Lhunpo committee was authorized to consult the Dalai Lama, since the former handlers of Tibetan symbolic matters wanted to use the new Panchen Lama as a new figurehead puppet, and they knew full well that the Tibetan people would never accept any Panchen Lama candidate who was not chosen by the Dalai Lama. However, when it came down to the final stages of the recognition process, the CCP proclaimed that it and it alone had authority to recognize the reincarnation, and they purposely denied the choice of the Dalai Lama (and arrested that young lad, Gendun Chokyi Nyima, and his family and tutors and have held them in disappearance ever since), and anointed a boy of their choosing.

Observers have not noticed that this policy change was a result of the plan to destroy Tibetan Buddhism. Why? Because they knew full well the Tibetan people and Tibetan monks would not accept their choice, so instead of a puppet Lama who would mouth their message to believing Tibetans, they erected a built-in, long-term litmus test to root out monks and nuns and lamas who were sincere Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, since when they were forced to pledge allegiance to the Communist choice of reincarnation, the sincere ones would refuse, and so could be kicked out of their monasteries, imprisoned, tortured, and branded for life as "splittists." In other words, this scheme, enacted from 1995 onward, was a clear change of direction by the CCP. Formerly, since the end of the cultural revolution, the policy was to accept the indestructibility of Tibetan Buddhism in the hearts of Tibetans and try to manipulate it to co-exist with the Communist Chinese state. From 1993 on, the policy became to decry Tibetan Buddhism as itself "splittist," demonize the Dalai Lama, drive sincere Buddhist practitioners out of their monasteries, and create a new generation of Communist, secularist, "Chinese," Tibetans. In a very clear sense, this policy has been a return to a more subtle form of "Great Cultural Revolution," for Tibet only, while the word down in lowland China was that the cultural revolution had been a disaster. In fact, certain lead cultural revolutionaries, such as the infamous Ragdi and others, who had been saved for just such an occasion, were "rehabilitated" and put back in charge of Tibet!

If you look at the larger picture within the whole of China, the timing of this change in policy in Tibet and the return to the vain attempt to force Communist ideology on its spiritual people is quite in parallel with Jiang Zemin's paranoid crusade against the Fa Lun Gong within China proper. Of course, Fa Lun Gong has nothing to do with Tibetan Buddhism, being an eclectic mix of Buddhism, Taoism, and yoga, but it is similarly unacceptable to the Communist autocrats in that it is a broad based spiritual movement that holds spiritual values above allegiance to the party and the Communist state. In thrall to the corporate myth of the commercialization of China and its total conversion to capitalism, Western observers have forgotten the fact that Mao set up a quasi-religion of Communist state worship with himself as the presiding deity, to maintain which he had to eradicate by force: all pre-existing religious ideologies and institutions. After his death and the pragmatism campaign of Deng, this religion of the state lost its grip on the Chinese people, but oligarchic capitalism could not be advanced officially as its ideological and institutional replacement, since the Chinese people have a strong spiritual side, and the vast majority of them still remain the slaves of that oligarchy. So the Communist leadership is rather desperately using aggressive nationalism to excuse its embrace of capitalist institutions and lifestyles and deflect the resentment of the excluded masses. But, aware of the limits of this strategy, they feel they cannot allow spirituality, the religious richness of China that is burgeoning underground, to emerge in all its pluralistic glory, since then the deification of the state they relied on from the beginning of the revolution would no longer be possible. And as one may observe from their 60th year military parade celebrating the founding of the Communist state, the God Mao was once again very much in evidence amid all the goose-stepping and the show of hardware.

So there is nothing very controversial about the Dalai Lama's statement that the Communist Party of China continues to direct the party bosses of all Tibetan regions and prefectures to proceed with the destruction of Tibetan Buddhism. It is not a "lashing out," or an incendiary statement. It is a simple statement of fact, a noting of the CCP's formally stated policy and 17 year long practice. Fortunately, this policy and these practices will fail to accomplish their aim, just as the intense and violent Maoist campaign of "thought-reform" brainwashing and cultural destruction from 1959 to 1979 failed to eradicate the Buddha Dharma and the love of the Dalai Lama from the Tibetan heart. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.465496 2010-02-17T10:36:48-05:00 2011-05-25T15:35:18-04:00

Robert Thurman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-thurman/
Isn't it an amazing spectacle, the "rising power" China, largest population, surging economy [supposedly], big military, millions of talented people [just won gold and silver in elegant couples ice dancing], and so on, freaking out because a nice Buddhist monk with a shaved head and only a couple of maroon robes to his name, a stateless man without a country, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate [who they claim to be a "Tibetan Chinese"], who wants nothing more than friendly, cooperative, peaceful relations with everyone, including the Chinese overlords and occupants of his beloved Tibet, is going to have a cup of hot water [in lieu of tea] and a chat with President Barack Obama, and hopefully extend a hello to Michelle and the girls, if she's free from her excellent organic gardening and they're home from school in time!

What is their problem? Against the feelings and warnings of many of his countrymen, the Dalai Lama wants Tibet to be a fully contributing part of China, achieving economic success and enjoying the genuine autonomy promised to all "minority nationalities" under the Chinese constitution -- but the Chinese insist against all evidence to the contrary that he wants to split Tibet away from them! The Dalai Lama wants to use his legendary reconciliatory skills to help China achieve the "harmonious society" they yearn for -- and the Chinese Communist party officials call him a dangerous reactionary, even a wolf in monk's clothing! The Dalai Lama wants not only to preserve and restore Tibetans' spiritually satisfying Buddhist culture, he wants to help re-kindle the spiritual contentment of the hundreds of millions of traditionally Buddhist Chinese people, helping them to be more patient with the inevitable shortcomings of governments and bureaucracies, and giving them the inner peace that guarantees a better level of social peace. Yet the Chinese openly admit they fear his calming influence over the hearts of his own people and millions of religious Chinese people as well!

The Dalai Lama wants to see Tibet's environment restored, brought back from the brink of devastation due to extinguished wildlife, de-forested valleys, desertified grassland, overpopulated towns, and swiftly melting glaciers that 60 years of Chinese military occupation, extractive industrialization, and unregulated colonization have caused, according to China's own environmental scientists. And Chinese officials warn of terrible dangers if anyone talks to him! And, in case they don't want people to know that world leaders meet and like the Dalai Lama, the Chinese serve as unpaid PR activists, insuring that his every meeting gets world-wide publicity because of their immoderate threats and protests! It is miraculous!

It would even be humorous, if it were not so tragic. All Tibet -- not only the Tibet Autonomous Region [TAR] but also the eleven Tibet Autonomous Prefectures [TAP] of other Chinese provinces that are twice as large and are home to twice as many Tibetans as the TAR -- is under military lock-down, with thousands of Tibetans dead in the last two years, imprisoned for peaceful protests and tortured to break their spirits. Some just "disappeared," and the Chinese cultural genocide program against Tibetan spirituality and even cultural lifestyle is in a terminally intensified mode. One of the worst programs is the forced migration of more than a million Tibetan nomads off their vast grasslands which they have kept green and beautiful for thousands of years [on the pretext that the Tibetans are causing the desertification, which is actually caused by Chinese commercial wool, meat and hide businesses], confiscation of their prosperous herds, and re-settlement in concrete slum housing in city suburbs and put on some sort of dole -- their children schooled in Chinese language and so on.

China has been a great nation during much of the last two millennia, and will undoubtedly be one again. When its leaders recover from their imitation of modern military-industrial dictatorship and re-awaken to the ancient Confucian principle of "the mandate of heaven," they will come to the recognition on Chinese terms to the fact that they are the absolute servants of the Chinese people, not their absolute masters as they currently consider themselves [ the rich dictatorship of the poor proletariat]. Totally false is the claim that Chinese people like autocracy and are happily obedient to dictatorial power, which is used as an excuse for denying them democratic freedoms. Confucius and his followers and generations of Chinese Buddhist leaders all taught respect for individuals, golden rule ethics and compassion in the treatment of people, the centrality of education in training a competent and honorable managerial class, And all the social skills that are required to make a democracy work. And today the world needs the Chinese people to find their own way to their own principled democracy, free of either nominally communist/socialist or overtly capitalist/fascist dictatorship propped up by multi-national corporations in search of cheap labor and docile consumers. If China continues on its present course of trying to outdo 19th century industrialist imperialism and 20th century military-industrial complex supported economic hegemony, it will inevitably clash violently with its biggest neighbors, Russia, Japan, and India, on its way to attempting to overwhelm its global competitor America.

We all need China to return to being itself, recover its own past glories of art and culture and spirituality. Just as the great Han dynasty awoke Chinese liberal individualism and popular creativity after the nightmare of the autocracy of the short-lived because intolerable Chin dynasty of "great wall" notoriety, the globally conscious locally responsible new free China can awaken from the nightmare of the short-lived because intolerable Mao dynasty and come up with a distinctively Chinese form of democratic modernity. If the current leadership wants to benefit from the inevitable transition and become globally popular like Gorbachev, they must act now. If they want to hang on with all their might and try to hold the volcano of the Chinese people's thirst for liberty, they will not get to enjoy the new society that is being born.

The Tibetan people are inveterate high-altitude, semi-nomadic, spiritually fortified individualists, who will always breathe the air of freedom, no matter what is done to them. They are the canaries in the mine shaft of Chinese neo-colonialism, and they are secretly admired by thoughtful Chinese who come to know them [not seduced by simplistic propaganda stereotypes] precisely for their inspiring the freedom-loving Chinese heart. The communist party oligarchy is afraid of them just because their determined insistence on their rights and freedoms is contagious for the Chinese individuals [remember the Beijing University student who cried out at Tiananmen square before the communist party ordered the massacre, "I am an individual!"] Therefore, the Tibetan people need to be supported with all we've got to help turn China's leaders away from unrealistic dreams of world-domination toward the more satisfying responsible creativity of allowing the unfoldment of their peoples' spiritual potential and cultural genius for the good life. Then mighty China will become just in time the friendly partner we need in the formation of our peaceful world community.

The Tibetan plateau is the water-tower of all Asia. The Yellow River, the Yangtse, the Mekong, the Salween, the Iriwaddy, the Brahmaputra, the Ganga and Yamuna, the Indus complex -- all these rivers rise in environmental Tibet, and the cleanness and fertility and glacial cool of the plateau are critical to the health of these nine alluvia thaty sustain the lives of over three billion people, in the most populated swathe of peoples on earth, from the Chinese, through the Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Thai, Burmese, Bangladeshis, Indians, up to the Pakistanis. The de-forestation, dessication, pollution, and overheating due to colonization of the headwater regions of all these rivers will be a global disaster of epic proportions.

So President Barack and Your Holiness, as you two Nobel Peace Prize Laureates meet tomorrow on the fifth day of the lunar New Year of the Iron Tiger, celebrated inTibetan culture as the fortnight of the Buddha miracles, may Jesus and Buddha both shower their blessings upon you both! May you share your visions of a world in harmony of peace and justice! May the POTUS, mythically the most powerful man on earth, and the Dalai Lama, the powerless true man of no rank, enjoy your natural heartfelt friendship quietly, for a moment without pressure of agendas! And from your meeting may the realistic and loving energy of determined freedom and universal responsibility radiate outward and finally inspire your friends in leadership of Great China to quiet down their rabid party functionaries who think their iron rice bowl depends on the strenuous feat of turning a potential best friend into a deadly enemy - and may those leaders themselves step up to the responsibility of changing their policy from stubborn domination to realistic cooperation!

After all, the leaders of China bear many of the horrendous pressures shouldered by the POTUS, and does, and they are probably the only "world leaders" who have never personally met the Dalai Lama and enjoyed his friendship and the kind of realistic reflection a powerful person can only get from the transcendentally powerless! May their curiosity and adventurousness get the better of their fearful caution and may they personally meet soon, for the sake of all life on this earth, unto at least the seventh generation of our great great great great great grandchildren!

Robert A. F. Thurman is Jay Tsong Khapa Professor of Buddhist Studies, Columbia University, President of Tibet House US, and author of Why the Dalai Lama Matters.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.201657 2009-05-11T14:03:51-04:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Robert Thurman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-thurman/
I am excited to begin my HuffPost blogging in the wake of Mother's Day, and a few days after hosting H. H. the Dalai Lama in New York. His Holiness, in radiant health and spirits, powerfully manifested his unwavering message of "world peace through inner peace." To all of us enrapt as ever, he taught us the quintessence of compassion. The next day he attended a packed benefit luncheon for Tibet House, US at the famous "power lunch" restaurant, The Four Seasons. (Alex von Bidder welcomed the guests to what he called "the ultimate power lunch," which I annotated by reminding everyone that the ultimate "power" is that of compassion.) His Holiness spoke from the heart and eloquently appealed to the hearts of all present to save the extremely precious and highly endangered Buddhist culture of beloved Tibet. We all left fully aglow, and inspired to do something for Tibet and for the world.

In these times, the doubt often arises as to whether the world is going to make it - at least the stressed out human beings. While there are so many wise and kind and beautiful people everywhere, it seems as if most of the leaders in actual power are charging ahead in flamboyantly self-destructive paths. Exceptional, of course, is the wonderful Barack Obama and perhaps the glorious Angela Merkel. And interestingly, both seem to like the Dalai Lama! Hmmmm. There must be some others at the top of the various heaps of humanity we call nations, but definitely not enough to really turn the Spaceship Earth onto the radically new course it needs to pass the unthinkable crisis we are facing.

Spaceship Earth is overheating, its seas are rising. It is overpopulated; its resources are dwindling. Its earth and water and air is poisoned. Its wild animals are perishing at an alarming rate, and its domesticated animals are being tormented and turned into toxic foodstuffs. And the humans, who are causing all this, are mainly in denial about their own responsibility, blaming various enemies instead, and so the majority of their machinery, money, and ingenuity is wasted in warfare and preparation for more, and for local, domestic, and internal violence.

So naturally we fear the end is nigh. People ask me all the time, "Can we make it? Do you think it's possible?" I feel the same way emotionally, but intellectually I am certain we will make it and the human drama on this planet will continue for many millennia, getting better and better.

Why? Because of Mother's Day, because the real Day of the Mothers is coming. Listen to Julia Ward Howe, a Mother who was a staunch activist against slavery and a pioneer of feminism. She came up with the vision of the international Mother's Day, and wrote the original Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870. Just listen!

"Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
"From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace."

(Thanks to Jonathan Klate for sending this text of the proclamation.)

Now where is this great "general congress of women?" It is to be "without limit of nationality," that is to say: global. Such a congress of women must arise and demand an end to war, an end to men's stubborn "staying the course" in inane campaigns of violence. Julia Ward Howe already outlined their mission, 139 years ago. How bad does it have to get for them to stand up and accomplish it?

Twelve years ago, the Dalai Lama was at a Tibet House US "Peacemaking" conference in San Francisco, and was encouraging the 1500 or so "youth at risk" present that we needed them to turn the world around, their energy was crucial. The youth were inspired and the thousands in the audience felt a wave of hope ripple through. At that moment, the notable author and psychotherapist, Jean Shinoda Bolen piped up from the panel on stage, "Your Holiness, there is another crucial source of energy we may also find of great assistance." "What might that be?" was the response. The smiling answer, "Menopausal zest!" brought the house thunderously down, and His Holiness was enormously impressed. Well, then, Mothers of the World, it is high time!

When the students and workers at Tiananmen Square held off the communist party bosses for months in 1989, it was because the troops sent in refused to run over the grandmothers out in the square protecting their grandchildren. When Yeltsin had to withdraw in the first Chechen war, it was because the grandmothers en masse went down to the front and took their grandsons out of the line. The grandmother house of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy held veto power over the decisions of the chiefs of the tribes. When the Mother's really recognize that they better leave what's "left of home," their power is undeniable. It is daunting. It is dangerous. But there must come a point where it is more dangerous not to arise and demand peace, demanding it peacefully. May the day soon be upon us! May all men stand together with the Mothers! Now is the time for all women to come to the aid of the planet!

Robert Thurman is the author of Inner Revolution, Infinite Life, Jewel Tree of Tibet, and Why the Dalai Lama Matters. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2008:/theblog//3.115812 2008-07-30T20:29:49-04:00 2011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00

Robert Thurman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-thurman/ Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colorado, with old friends and luminaries in the Tibet world. A sand mandala (sacred celestial mansion diagram) of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of universal compassion, was created and dissolved. Juniper incense offerings were made, Tibetan music was played, and lively discussions were conducted both about the current crisis in Tibet and about the long-term prospects for the survival of Tibetan culture and identity.

His Holiness was his usual jolly and insightful self, though at moments one could sense the deep stress he feels due to the covert "cultural revolution" still being waged by the Chinese government against the Tibetan identity, which is so deeply rooted in Tibetan Buddhist culture. Tibetans are still being beaten, arrested, tortured, and killed for having voiced their wish for freedom and unimpeded spiritual reunion with their Lama teachers.

In the midst of it all last Friday, Senator and candidate John McCain met with the Dalai Lama and expressed his sympathy for the Tibetan people and solidarity with the nonviolent and moderate offer the Dalai Lama continues to make to the Chinese government. Later in the day, a letter came from Senator Barack Obama, expressing regret that his travel schedule prevented him from meeting and honoring His Holiness and pledging his support for the Tibetan cause in terms of regaining their human rights and religious freedom.

These good will gestures are heartening to all who desire peace and justice for Tibetans. Why did both candidates want to meet with the Dalai Lama? I find myself wishing that the candidates would read my new book, Why the Dalai Lama Matters, so that they can better understand the incredibly high stakes in this Tibetan liberation struggle.  The China-West (especially US, EU, Russia, India, and Japan) relationship is the most important relationship for the entire 21rst century. China is one of the most ascendant nations of the coming era. We must all welcome its rightful importance. But the world will never tolerate another conquering superpower. The European and Japanese empires have declined. The Russian and American "superpower" hegemonies are demonstrating their un-viability. The UN is still crippled by the five WW II victors' wielding their vetoes. So China, India, Brazil, the Muslim world, and the main African powers will inevitably emerge. For global survival, they must not repeat the mistakes of previous empires and superpowers, but  turn to a new concept of power, the power of interconnectedness, peacefulness, dialogue, a global meshing of mutual enlightened self-interests.

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