Seeing the Light interview by Deborah Solomon in the New York Times Magazine, Sunday June 29, 2008. The Buddhist scholar talks about what the Dalai Lama needs from China’s president, how Quentin Tarantino really feels about violence and learning to love Dick Cheney. More…

Watch this special report on “the plight and paradox of Tibetan Buddhists. They teach nonviolence, but their demonstrations against the Chinese have sometimes become violent. How can they persuade the Chinese that they and the Dalai Lama are not a threat?” Lucky Severson interviews Lhadon Tethong, Robert Thurman and Tu Weiming on Religion & Ethics for PBS.

Part 1 of Bob Thurman speaking on Why the Dalai Lama Matters at Tibet House U.S. in New York City on June 17, 2008. Video by Some Day Fire Productions.

Professor Robert A.F. Thurman at the Northwest Tibetan Cultural Association. Image from The Asian Reporter.

“Look, Dalai Lama says no one can be free until everyone’s free,” Professor Thurman repeated. Meaning, China’s not free until Tibet is. Meaning, of course, civic and religious freedom; China can only be as democratic as Tibet is allowed to be. But meaning at a more profound yet even more practical matter that so long as Chinese soldiers are filled with fear so are Tibetan civilians. So long as Tibetan kids on their way to school and mothers on their way home from market are angry, so too will Chinese occupiers.

And herein lies the Dalai Lama’s revolutionary theory and His Holiness’ ethical directive. Why the Dalai Lama Matters furthers that message, setting out a plan that obviously resonated with Northwest Tibetans, like an old relative returning from far away. Professor Thurman was taken in as family. Easy to love.

“Most important for us,” said Tsering Choephel, president of the Northwest Tibetan Cultural Association, “was for our younger generation seeing and hearing a believer and friend of His Holiness; a gray-hair Westerner who wrote so many books and knows so much about Tibet history and culture.”

Read the full article at The Asian Reporter.

Watch the lively conversation between Robert Thurman and Mike Schneider on “Night Talk”, broadcast on Bloomberg TV June 19, 2008, available here in 3 parts.

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At a time when the world has been particularly focused on Tibet since the territory erupted in mass protests this spring, Thurman has come out with a new book, “Why the Dalai Lama Matters,” to present his view on how the conflict can be resolved. In the book, he argues that establishing Tibetan cultural and religious autonomy — while keeping Tibet as a part of China — is a benefit to Tibet, China and the world at large. I caught up with Thurman last week while he was visiting the Bay Area on a book tour. Read the full interview with Robert Thurman by David Ian Miller at SFGate.com, originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Monday June 16, 2008.

Tenzin Robert A.F. Thurman delivers the 2008 baccalaureate address at Lehigh University to a standing room only crowd in Packer Church. (photo gallery)

At Sunday’s baccalaureate service, Tenzin Robert A.F. Thurman, the man whom The New York Times hailed as the “leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism,” told Lehigh University’s Class of 2008 that learning is a life-long process.

“You are graduating tomorrow, but do not think that you are getting away from education,” said Thurman, the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University. “For the Buddhist, education is the purpose of life. [Read more]

Click here to listen to a discussion about Tibet with Robert Thurman, author of Why the Dalai Lama Matters, on Your Call, the daily call-in show of KALW public radio in San Francisco. Recorded June 5, 2008.