Robert Thurman spoke in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia’s Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on Sunday, April 27, 2008. His talk was entitled Buddhism as a Civilization Matrix and the Current Global Crisis. The video is in 10 parts; click here to see them all.

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Rebecca Novick, executive producer of The Tibet Connection caught up with Robert Thurman in New Delhi recently and asked a few questions. Here’s an audio recording of their conversation.

A short version addressing “Why should we care about Tibet?” is also featured as an “audio postcard” at the end of the April 27, 2008 episode of The Tibet Connection radio show and podcast.

Audio and transcript available from On the Pursuit of Happiness: An Evening with Robert Thurman and Pico Iyer with Mark Gonnerman as moderator, at Stanford University Aurora Forum, April 24, 2008 .

Novelist and travel writer Pico Iyer joins Robert Thurman, Columbia University professor and founder of Tibet House in New York City, for a conversation on the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, education, life on the road, and things that contribute to happiness and human well-being.

Publishers Weekly Nonfiction Reviews: Week of 4/21/2008

Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World

Robert Thurman. Atria/Beyond Words, $23 (256p) ISBN 978-1-5827-0220-9

Tibetan scholar Thurman paints a splendid portrait of the Dalai Lama and masterfully elucidates the 50-year-old conflict between Tibet and China in this timely analysis. The author presents an eloquent introduction to Buddhism and the Tibetan concept of the Dalai Lama before focusing on the current “living embodiment of the Buddha”—a man born as Tenzin Gyatso—the 14th Dalai Lama. Thurman sympathetically renders his lifelong friend as a “simple Buddhist monk,” a teacher, philosopher, scientist and the political representative of the Tibetan people, who has achieved renown for holding together a large refugee community and preserving its culture. Promulgating a “common human religion of kindness,” the Nobel Peace laureate lobbies for a peaceful resolution to the question of Tibetan autonomy within China, while espousing love, altruism and spirituality as the forces that will lead mankind into a “kinder, happier twenty-first century.” The book concludes with a five-step plan to broker peace between Tibet and China—an agenda simultaneously pragmatic and idealistic, demonstrating truly the talent and power of faith. (June)

News Post India Monday 14th of April 2008
India has the ‘biggest’ moral counter force to the ‘militant adventurism’ advocated by China and US on the global stage, says Robert Thurman, leading scholar, writer and the first American to be ordained as a monk in Tibetan Buddhism during the 1960s.

‘They (Chinese) are still caught up in militant adventurism, of which the US has been and is also been guilty,’ the 66-year-old Thurman said Sunday evening while delivering a speech on ‘Tibet: Zone of Peace, Crucial for Humanity’.

‘The answer to that is in India, the biggest counter to that kind of adventurism,’ he said.

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“In this moment of crisis, with the world’s attention on Tibet and China, the huge significance of the Dalai Lama’s role can scarcely be exaggerated, since this revered figure is pointing the way to world peace and environmental sanity. In his keen analysis of China’s great chance to make history, Robert Thurman offers an urgent and very important book.”
Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard

“Dr. Thurman clearly describes how the 14th Dalai Lama can forge a path to a far better world in our time. As Albert Einstein urged, we must engage a different level of thinking to help solve the significant problems we face, problems often caused by our ordinary assumptions. The Dalai Lama is a unique exemplar of a different, vital, inclusive, and powerfully effective way of thinking. This wonderfully written, compelling book invites us to freedom.”
Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness

“I could not put this book down. I found it powerfully inspiriting to imagine a positive alternative to the sixty-yearlong tragedy wrought by China in Tibet. As Robert Thurman shows us, by reversing its colonialist cultural genocide in Tibet (and so inspiring a reversal of the murderous policies of the regimes in Myanmar and Sudan), China could truly emerge as a responsible world power and take its place within the moral community of nations.”
Mia Farrow, actor, activist, and humanitarian

“No one has worked harder to bring Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism, and the special power of the Dalai Lama to American audiences than Robert Thurman. Long may he write and, as in this latest work, bring learning and spirit, great vigor, and close knowledge together.”
Pico Iyer, author of The Open Road and Sun After Dark

“This book kindles hope for Tibet, for China, and for peace. It listens deeply to the Dalai Lama, making clear what he offers and can accomplish. It envisions the freedom the Tibetan people urgently need, the same freedom the Chinese people need. To see things from a radically positive yet highly reasonable angle, my dad’s book is a must read!”
Uma Karuna Thurman, actor, mother, and humanitarian

INSIGHT April 10, 2008
A New Path for China with the Dalai Lama

When Gandhi took his followers on the Salt March in 1930, and they were beaten by the police for collecting free salt from the beach, a U.S. journalist said, in effect: With these cruel blows on unarmed demonstrators, Britain has forfeited entirely the last shred of legitimacy for its rule over India.

Gandhi’s nonviolent mass movements would occasionally spill over into violence by his supporters, which he would unfailingly deplore and he would immediately call a halt to the otherwise principled nonviolent actions.

Today, with the brutal military crackdown on the peaceful protests of Tibetan monks and nuns—who are calling for their religious freedom, for their right to their devotion to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and for the release of the imprisoned youth they consider the rightful Panchen Lama—China has forfeited, on a global scale, any last tattered shred of its pretension to the legitimacy of its rule over Tibet. The basically unarmed response of lay Tibetans to Chinese suppression of the freedom of monks and nuns spilled over into recent violence, with long repressed emotions bursting forth in entirely regrettable destruction of property and some civilian lives. Click here to read the full article.

Beliefnet’s Buddhism editor, Valerie Reiss, asked Professor Robert Thurman, an American authority on Tibetan Buddhism (he was ordained as a monk in 1965 by the Dalai Lama), to discuss the basic issues underlying the current conflict in Tibet. He sent back these answers as he traveled by plane from Delhi to Bhutan. Click here to read the full interview.

“Why Beijing Needs Tibet’s Help” by Robert Thurman in April 7, 2008 issue of Newsweek.

Recent events in Tibet have underscored the fact that more than a Half Century of Chinese occupation—and forcible attempts to change Tibetans into Han Chinese—aren’t working and never will. Resistance to Beijing’s imperialism hasn’t come just from the “Dalai Lama clique,” as Chinese officials put it, but from all 6 million Tibetans.

Thus Beijing’s problems won’t simply go away when the 14th Dalai Lama dies; he’s now 72 and very durable. But that’s a good thing, for China’s leaders are going to need his help to peacefully resolve the crisis. The Dalai Lama remains committed to nonviolence and a solution that would benefit both sides. And he’s the only person capable of persuading his people to accept such a deal. Click here to read the full article.

Video by Some Day Fire Productions