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Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Thurman
Publisher: Atria Books/Beyond Words
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 57099
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Atria Books/Beyond Words Hardcover Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 1582702209
Dewey Decimal Number: 294.3923092
EAN: 9781582702209
ASIN: 1582702209
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
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Product Description
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is an extraordinary example of a life dedicated to peace, communication, and unity. What he represents, and what he has accomplished, heals and transcends the current tensions between Tibet and China. Why the Dalai Lama Matters explores just why he has earned the world's love and respect, and how restoring Tibet's autonomy within China is not only possible, but highly reasonable, and absolutely necessary for all of us together to have a peaceful future as a global community.In the few decades since the illegal Chinese invasion of Tibet, Tibetans have seen their ecosystem destroyed, their religion, language, and culture repressed, and systematic oppression and violence against anyone who dares acknowledge Tibetan sovereignty. Yet, above it all, the Dalai Lama has been a consistent voice for peace, sharing a "Middle-Way" approach that has gathered accolades from the Nobel Peace Prize to the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal. Modeling this peaceful resistance shows the world that nobody is free unless everybody is free -- and that a solution exists that can benefi t all parties, not just one. And more than just his nation have taken notice. His inter-religious dialogues, honest, humble demeanor, and sense of compassionate justice sets him apart in a world at war with itself. When China changes policy and lets Tibetans be who they are, Tibet can, in turn, join with China in peaceful coexistence. Why the Dalai Lama Matters is not merely a book about Tibet or the Dalai Lama. It is a revealing, provocative solution for a world in confl ict, dealing with the very fundamentals of human rights and freedoms. By showing the work that the Dalai Lama has done on behalf of his people, Thurman illuminates a worldwide call to action, showing that power gained by might means nothing in the face of a determined act of truth.
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 With friends like this who needs enemies? September 21, 2008
Of course I am kidding, but not really. The Tibetan diaspora claims a higher moral approach politics. The Dalai Lama and his supporters say they are operating on the basis of compassion and nonviolence. It is one of the reasons why they feel they will achieve a restitution of the rights of the Tibetan peoples and religion. This is why the Dalai Lama matters. He aspires to change political reality, the changes coming about as a result of the application of Buddhist principles. Buddhism posits three root causes of suffering: they are greed, aversion and delusion. Delusion is not seeing the world as it is. If the diaspora's claim to Tibet honors these principles than the aspiration must not derive from desire for material gain or even possession of a land, nor hatred of the Chinese. Nor must its claim be based on anything other than the truth. And it is truth that is compromised in Thurman's book as in the propaganda of the diaspora.
Of course, the Dalai Lama matters. He articulates a wonderful vision of compassion. As Thurman points out, he has captivated the West with his own humanity and Gandhian ideas of political change. This is truly impressive but when it comes to truth both the diaspora and certain supporters like Thurman come up short. Robert Thurman represents what is known in both Zen and Tibetan Buddhism as "crazy wisdom." Years ago when I heard Thurman speak, that may have been an adequate characterization of his inspired presentation. But even then, the crazy might have outweighed the wisdom, but it was a toss up. Thurman is an ecstatic devotee. In his enthusiasm and belief he says things that are hardly wise. Several months ago in a book talk when this book had just come out, I was both shocked and ashamed of some of the things he said. He ranted about the Chinese in a way that smacked of racism. I walked out of the talk with a feeling that an ally of the diaspora such as
Thurman was a good screaming partner for the Chinese who so self-righteously call the Dalai Lama evil and a devil. One rant deserves the other, hardly the spirit of compassion.
Thurman's book has an air of condescension. He says that the Chinese are not physically fit to live on the Tibetan plateau and the illness they will inevitably get there will drive them out. The greed of the rest of the world, which the Chinese so cleverly manipulates, keeps nations from censuring the Chinese and not recognizing Tibetan independence. The Dalai Lama is really the Tibetan's god-king and living Buddha so his call for democracy is irrelevant. Tibet was some kind of Shangri-La out of which the Chinese cruelly drove the Dalai Lama.
Let's start with these large questions. One: Yes there are ethnic biological adaptations for extreme environments. Peruvians have physiologically evolved at high altitudes differently than Tibetans. Eskimos and Pima Indians have different special adaptations. But that is hardly a rationale for sending the Spanish of the Andes, the retirees of Tucson, the dark skinned residents of the Netherlands, the Hispanic illegales of the U.S. or the East Indian migrants of Assam back to where they came from. While the lowland Chinese may have troubles adapting, natural selection will work that out over time. It has elsewhere with sometimes serious medical repercussions. Despite how various people got where they are, the world is too mixed now to unravel. The Lamistic Buddhists were not the indigenous population of the Tibetan plateau. It might be nice to imagine solutions like the separation of Greeks and Turks after World War I, but the plight of the Kurds, Palestinis, Chechens, Darfurians, is not so simply solved. Personally I might send the Orangemen of Northern Ireland back to England, Wales and Scotland. It is the right wing (sometimes racist) who wants to send people back to where they came from. Is that a principle that either Thurman or the Dalai Lama wants to embrace? The Zionists scream that the Arab world has plenty of room for the people they ethnically cleansed. That is true of China too, but people who so advocate are lousy company to keep.
Two: Forty years before Americans, Europeans and East Indians were buying toys from China, hardly any nation recognized Tibetan independence. Despite central Tibet's freedom from Chinese control from 1911 until 1950, no country recognized a Tibetan passport. Britain, its surrogate India, and China hacked away at pieces of Tibet granting privileges of autonomy when it suited their interests and backing away for profit or when needing to make a deal with each other. The greed of Wal-Mart for Chinese junk was not an element in this all. On p. xvii Thurman says that the world befuddled by the cold war let China seize and dismember Tibet. Bad history. Much more complicated. Everyone acknowledged Tibet as part of China. See Goldstein A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State, A History of Modern Tibet, volume 2: The Calm before the Storm: 1951-1955 (Philip E. Lilienthal Books) and Shakya The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947.
Three: It is odd that as spiritual leaders, Dalai Lamas over time have had to cede to political pressure from aristocrats, the heads of great monasteries, fighting monks, ethnic minorities, and the rabble of Lhasa. They backed off of principled positions that they might liked to have taken if they truly ruled Tibet as incarnations of living Buddhas. The 13th Dalai Lama revoked his modernizations under pressure from the great monasteries fearing for their prerogatives and disliking the British uniforms his new army had adopted. The 14th could do nothing to control the rioting mobs who, acting on untrue rumors that the Chinese were about to seize him, murdered his representatives. He fled Lhasa leaving the country to the mercy of the Chinese occupiers who acted only after it was clear the Tibetan government couldn't or wouldn't reestablish order. No one has investigated the odd pattern of Dalai (and Panchen) Lamas strategy of flight. Mongolia, China, and India have received them.
Thurman disagrees with the Dalai Lama's attempts to make democracy more important than himself in Tibetan affairs. For Thurman he is a "shining, perfect Buddha who showed us a way to freedom, love and happiness." Who needs contentious representatives in a legislature with such a leader. Thurman thinks the Tibetan people feel the same, but as the above paragraph illustrates they have an odd way of showing it.
Four: Tibet as Shangri-La. Read Tibetan history. The above examples should suffice. I know probably twenty or thirty Americans who are dedicated practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. All hold their teacher/guru (most of whom are Tibetans) and the Dalai Lama in great reverence. Not one of these twenty or thirty knows anything about Tibetan history except the cliche's propagated by the Tibetan government in exile. Nor do they want to know.
It is hard for me to read Thurman's book (and I admit I skimmed much of it). I, oh so, agree with him that the Dalai Lama is one of the most extraordinary humans to live on this planet in this time. He is a true exemplar of compassion, and the dream toward which he leans is one I too wish would come to pass. In granting Tibet the kind of autonomy he envisions, China might indeed set an example for the rest of the world and begin an era of peace built on true nonharming rather than personal and national self-interest. Yes Bob many of us share that dream. But some of us also feel its should be based on a truthful understanding of history not more self-serving propaganda no matter how well intentioned. Remember the higher (Buddhist) moral standard toward which the Dalai Lama wants us to reach.
So let us look at some more specifics in Thurman's book. p. 14 The Dalai Lama's momma from eastern Tibet didn't know she was bearing a reincarnated Lama. Miracle of miracles, she had a dream of his coming (and the eventual Chinese threat). But then she also had other incarnated offspring, and when the family accompanied the young chosen one to Lhasa and were granted all sorts of estates, they promptly got themselves into much hot water with accusations of misuing their newly acquired status, especially the dad. Later a brother or two got in bed with defeated Chiang Kai-shek (one of the more corrupt world leaders) on Taiwan and the CIA whose aid to the Tibetans was a cynical response to the Cold War. Quoting Thurman about momma's dream: "The [DL] daily presents the potential of this alchemy to us all." I guess so if life is the stuff that dreams are made of. But there is more to it among us thoughtful unbelievers.
p. 29: "Whenever and wherever monasticism dominated, militarism was weakened." And the reverse. He says that this applies to Christianity also. Heaven save us from religious zealots. Professor Thurman, who I thought was a great scholar, hasn't read his history. Was it Stalin who said that the Pope has no armies. But Popes certainly did lots of damage using monasteries, armies and Catholic princes. Thurman says that the 5th DL demilitarized and defeudalized Tibet and instituted mass monasticism. The goal was "the evolutionary education of all citizens, more like university-state unity than church-state unity." Then how did Tibet get to be a country with virtual serfdom and fighting monks enforcing monastic power for centuries before the Chinese invaded? And how come the people of Kham and Amdo often perferred warlords allied with the Chinese to the rule of Lhasa. Thurman does tell us the 6th DL was abused as a youth by his regents and grew into a wastrel who may have been assassinated. I don't understand such behavior from an incarnated Lama. Somehow his Buddha lineage got overwhelmed or did those who discovered him make a mistake. The masses apparently loved him, despite his un-Buddha-like behavior. Sounds to me more like ordinary history than Shangri-La, but maybe he had crazy wisdom in a way that transcends ordinary understanding. p. 32: Thurman says that in the early 1930s the 13th DL claimed he was going to die 10 years before his time so his successor would be old enough to stave off the Chinese communists. He was mighty prescient because at that time they were an almost negligible force in China. And he should have kicked the bucket even earlier because the 19 year old 14th DL was no match for the complexities of his time. But then nothing is out of the question for a believer in incarnate buddhas.
p. 43ff.: "....mass monasticism is the only remedy against rampant militarism human societies have ever developed." I don't know what to say. What follows this sentence is a garbled set of claims about how 20% of supposed manpower nations put into the military when allocated to monasteries is somehow good for the society. One can't criticize this because it is unsubstantiated. The real economy of Tibetan monasticism is unknown. Whether is will ever be knowable in traditional Tibet depends on historical documentation, the availability of which is questionable. That most monks entered of their own free will or pursued higher spiritual goals in Tibetan monasteries is also questionable. It certainly was not the case in Buddhist monasteries elsewhere. They came around for food, took care of monastery business, performed rituals, sterilely studied texts, collected rents, avoided working in the fields, etc. It was a living, a vocation for younger sons.
p. 71: The DL advocates democratic autonomy within China. Thurman says that the Chinese must take the risk that the Tibetans won't vote for independence. But Thurman implies that because of Tibetan reverence for the DL and Tibetan pragmatism, the Chinese don't have to worry. Once given autonomy Tibetans won't opt for independence. There is good reason for worry. It was the Tibetans not going along with the Dalai Lama that led to the uprising in Eastern Tibet and rumor fed mobs seizing of Lhasa which led to a violent Chinese response. Before that, on Mao's instruction, the occupiers followed a go slow strategy in Central Tibetan. When the introduction of reforms into Eastern Tibet set off a rebellion, Mao criticized, "Han chauvinism," and promised no social changes for five or ten years. And the central Tibetans were not happy to see Kham refugees who they thought inferior and burdened their economy. So from the Chinese point of view it is naive to see autonomy as anything other than a cover. But the Tibetans are more than entitled to their freedom and land, as are the Chechens, the Puerto Ricans, Osetians, Basques, and the slave states prior to the civil war, the Palestinians, the Kurds, the Navajo, etc. etc. Where is the magic wand that would make it so and the ethnic group which will share their desired piece of the earth with others who also claim it. The Tibetan government has never stopped speaking of Tibetan areas of China which have long since been regarded as China proper.
p. 106: Thurman insensitively uses the English translation of the expression, "Lebensraum," or "living space" to hint that China seeks the resources of its neighbors and their territory for its growing billions. Them's fighting words and bad taste because of its allusion to Nazism.
Although I admire what the Dalai Lama is trying to do and think that Thurman is well intentioned. His has done a service in presenting the truly heroic behavior of the Dalai Lama. The pictures in the book are intriguing. Nonetheless, historical truth demands much more than Thurman has given. And the complexities of the current world asks more of us who would like realizable solutions. The Communist Chinese have behaved abominably toward Tibetans and their own people. Chinese history contains both great achievements and great tragedies. China is undergoing a transformation unlike any the world has seen before: an impoverished economically frozen command economy experiencing something akin to the industrial revolution in thirty years. The Communist rulers will hold on to power with whatever force they need, and they will act with the arrogance the Chinese have expressed for the last three thousand years. The US is little different, e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. etc.. I don't think the Dalai Lama is correct in thinking that peaceful transformation of Chinese control over Tibet will come like the nonviolent evaporation of the Soviet Union or South African apartheid. But in the vast scale of Chinese development, Tibet may not just be worth it, or as the economic improvements in China mature, the leadership won't feel the need to control religious life, and the Tibetans can go back to their monasteries and mysteries if they then so desire. We can pray and agitate as the Dalai Lama is doing. But lets keep to the facts. It will serve that cause better.
Charlie Fisher author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World
 The Dalai Lama's life is devoted to peace and non-violence August 14, 2008
The Dalai Lama's life is devoted to peace and non-violence - but few are aware of how he's achieved a worldwide reputation for such. WHY THE DALAI LAMA MATTERS blends a history of Tibet with a survey of political and social change, weaving in the Dalai Lama's biography in the process. Any library strong in human rights issues, Asian history or Eastern spirituality and religion needs WHY THE DALAI LAMA matters.
 Hollow book, mostly vague empty rhetoric. July 17, 2008
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
While I wasn't expecting anything groundbreaking in this book, neither was I expecting unmitigated dreck from professor Thurman. Unfortunately that what this book amounts to.
The history of 20th century Sino-Tibetan relations are given a relatively cursory and heavily biased accounting. This book will not serve as an introductory text to the issue. Most of the proposals issued by Thurman amount to little more than ill-conceived delusions completly detached from any sense of reality. The transformation of Tibet into a financial and banking center akin to an Asian Switzerland chief among them. I won't even insult the reader by having to explain why this is unrealistic. Neither is turning all of "Greater" Tibet into one giant nature preserve.
I particularly enjoyed how he was able to rationalize the ethnic cleansing of several million Chinese by depopulating all urban areas from his idealized Tibetan urheimat in under a paragraph. Most of the rest is in the same vein, one giant socio-economic system built upon monumental egotism and wishful thinking pretty much sums it up.
I wish I could say that it was at least readable, but it is lacking even there. The writing is simply atrocious and reads like it was written by an undergraduate with no proofreading whatsoever. Reading lines like "joyous Tibetans dancing from joy for joyous western tourists" is simply wince inducing.
Less a history lesson or feasible plan of action than a self-indulgent palliative for Free Tibet hippies in light of the recent Lhasa riots.
Noble But Naive July 11, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Followers of the Dharma believe in the interconnectedness of all life and consequently practice non-violence. Here the brilliant teacher and former Buddhist monk, Robert Thurman, in addressing China's occupation and oppression of Tibet advocates a non-violent plan to end China's Tibet 'problem '. His answer is for China to give Tibet internal autonomy while it remains in a kind of "United States of Asia" ie. remaining part of China. Thurman argues for a democratic Tibet with a constitution where the Dalai Lama would renounce political rule over Tibet and would not advocate total independence from China. Tibet would have free elections and the Dalai Lama would remain the spiritual and moral head of Tibet. These are all noble and worthwhile ideals. The problem is they are completely naive. Thurman says China can only win by giving Tibet autonomy, as China by doing this will gain esteem in the eyes of the world. However, Thurman fails to address the most important reason that China will never grant autonomy to a Tibetan autonomous and democratic entity. The crux is that word "democracy". Why would Tibet want an autonomous democracy in its midst? In the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party the results would be dire. Suddenly all of its people would be clamouring for the same thing. Thurman's arguement seems naive in the extreme. However, I never thought I would ever see the collapse of the Soviet Union or the fall of the Berlin Wall in my lifetime, so perhaps anything is possible. Dr. Thurman makes a noble argument.
Coaxing the dragon June 20, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
In the current crisis over Tibet, this book by Thurman is topical, to the point, with some practical suggestions as to the resolution of the conflict with China. The tremendous forbearance of the Dalai Lama receives here a spokesman for the peaceful resolution of the Tibetan tragedy in the form of the status of autonomy, and it is hard to see how the Chinese expect to simply ignore the realities of the situation that has emerged and that is so prejudicial to the Chinese self-image. Thurman reminds us that Tibetan Buddhism is an immense legacy whose destruction by any party could only backfire in ignominy.
The tensions of the Tiber/China conflict are tremendous, Thurman's calm is the context for a convincing plea, but will China have the presence of mind to listen?
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