I completely agree that Robert Thurman’s anti-Shugden stance is political. He is blatantly a Dalai Lama sycophant and clearly has no basis to support the ban. There can be no other reason because the ban has no basis. No intellectual or academician of note would be able to substantiate the reasons for the ban because there are no concrete reasons. As a result, those critical of Dorje Shugden, like Thurman, have to resort to childish behaviour such as name-calling. The Chinese spy allegations are really ridiculous and it is about time the anti-Shugden gang come up with new and original ideas.
Perhaps we are naïve to think that everyone who studies Buddhism, has immersed himself in some form of the practice, and is able to converse knowledgeably in more complex doctrines, is a true practicing Buddhist. Reading about Robert Thurman made me realize that for some, Buddhism is a not a faith nor a practice, but more a well paying career. For Thurman, for certain the knowledge is be there, but it would appear that Thurman’s interest lies more in being the American mouthpiece for the Dalai Lama, than a true advocate of the Buddha’s teachings.
Robert Thurman’s first encounter with serious Buddhism was through Geshe Nyawang Wangyal, and only after a brief time Thurman professed that he frantically wanted to be a monk and could think of nothing better than to spend his life in monastic seclusion. It was said that Geshe Nyawang strongly advised Thurman not to take that path. Perhaps Geshe Nyawang could already see what Dromo Rinpoche and Gelek Rinpoche saw in Thurman later – a lack of conviction, a lack of sincerity even, or an impetuous nature? We don’t know but even then, Thurman was not thought of as being a monk material.
Nevertheless, upon Thurman incessant pleas (don’t know if Thurman begged and crawled then) Geshe Nyawang took him to meet the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama was young (29 years old) and fresh from having lost Tibet to the Chinese and would have seen in Thurman a gateway to the West, since Thurman spoke fluent Tibetan. I think it was then that a convenient religious-political alliance was struck. The Dalai Lama was to be Thurman’s ticket to being the most authoritative Tibetanologist in the West and Thurman was to be the Dalai Lama’s way in, to win Western hearts.
For all Thurman’s zeal to live a monastic life, he left his first wife and child. But merely two years after being ordained, he was home sick and decided that he would better serve Buddhism by returning to secular life to teach. He married again and had more children. So much for his frantic desire for monastic seclusion. It should also be noted that prior to being obsessed with Lamaism, Thurman by his own account wanted to run away and join Fidel Castro but was turned away. So we get a picture of Robert Thurman. But it was fine with the Dalai Lama so long as Thurman was romanticizing Tibet to the West and glorifying the Dalai Lama.
We see in Thurman the present Dalai Lama’s definitive cheerleader often claiming the same belief as His Holiness. For example, Thurman hailed the ascendancy of the 5th Dalai Lama as the ultimate triumph of Buddhist monasticism, topped only by the “achievement” of the 14th Dalai Lama, of course the Great 5th being the role model for the 14th.
It was Robert Thurman who sensationalized the murder of the three monks in Dharamsala, the same unfortunate incident whose blame was pinned on Shugden supporters. Thurman said thus in his interview in Newsweek: “The three were stabbed repeatedly and cut up in a way that was like exorcism”. In that way Thurman heightened the image the Dalai Lama wanted to portray of Shugden followers as demon worshippers.
I cannot say for sure if Robert Thurman’s stance on Dorje Shugden is based on his being denied the initiation. It would appear to me that even if he had received the Dorje Shugden initiation he so desperately coveted, he would still have changed his tune. This is after all, what a mouthpiece is supposed to do. Echo the will of the master regardless of cost or conscience.
