THE DALAI LAMA’S MAN IN AMERICA. Columbia University professor Robert Thurman visited Portland recently. In town on his book tour, he made stops at the Northwest Tibetan Cultural Association, the Bagdad Theater, and Wieden + Kennedy.

From The Asian Reporter, V18, #25 (June 24, 2008), pages 16 & 17.

By Ronault L.S. Catalani

Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman is so many people, to so many people. He is, anyone will tell you, father of fashion model and film actor Uma Thurman and four more kids, three of them given Tibetan names. He is also Dr. Thurman, professor of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, an academic of extraordinary credentials; a scholarly translator of dense Tibetan Buddhist theological digests, and a popular interpreter of contemporary Tibet’s awful dilemma — as in: President Robert Thurman, co-founder with Richard Gere of New York’s Tibet House.

As in, that irresistible white guy who dove with his trademark abandon into Buddha’s Teachings 44 years ago, who became in due time the first Westerner ordained a Tibetan monk; that rigorous intellectual who they say has been the Dalai Lama’s scientific sparring partner since both were in their 20s; Dr. Thurman, that urgent gentleman referred to by The New York Times Magazine as His Holiness’ "man in America."

Those kinds of superlatives aside for a smaller moment, our concern as a community-based newspaper had to be what kind of person he would be with a humbler audience around. How does he measure up and who does he come down to in a raucous gathering of regular stiffs. Working Tibetans. And families.

Our chance to size up Professor Thurman, by these more pedestrian metrics, came by coincidence. Or maybe not.

According to media notes, Robert Thurman’s publicist had him speaking on his new work, Why the Dalai Lama Matters to a Saturday night Bagdad Theater audience, a hip McMenamins venue sure to pack in, well — a crowd of the usual hip Portlanders. He would discuss China’s 50-year military occupation of Tibet and set out his new book’s five-point plan for restoring decency and democracy to the plateau while reviving the humanity of Tibet’s brutal occupiers, their complicit enablers, and of course us negligent bystanders. An agenda as muscular and tender as His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

The following Monday afternoon, his strategically fine-tuned scheduler had professor Thurman set for a little talk in front of Wieden + Kennedy. No cooler crew of ad men (and women) have ever walked our earth, or run in Nikes. W+K is this planet’s biggest promoter of Oregon’s hottest brand name, sneakers stitched together in history’s scariest just-rousing dragon. Ask anyone. Coincidentally again: China.

Neither Saturday’s Columbia Sportswear crowd or Monday’s Banana Republic boys promised anything surprising. Probably a lot of knowing nodding from polite Portlanders.

But then we heard word that the professor would be at Sunday Tibetan prayer, that he’d be with local Tibetans at their humble northeast Sandy temple. The Northwest Tibetan Cultural Association. So that’s where we went.

We arrived only a little late. Fashionably Asian. Uncharacteristically, the spiritual community had arrived real early and already packed the place. We tip-toed through an expanse of abandoned shoes, like a low-tide riverside of yawning crocodiles. We wormed between warm bodies. The professor was already busy up front.

Dr. Thurman’s crowd of elder uncles and grand aunties, of awed dads and hushed teen girls and Buddha-belly baby boys listened with rapt attention. He weaved seamlessly in English and Tibetan, sacred Sanskrit and Pali, leaving no one outside. "What’re the Four Noble Truths, Chimé?," he asked a bright-eyed boy sitting cross-legged not far away. "Can you tell me?" He could, and he did.

Two dignified grandpas, Mr. Lobsang Thardon and Mr. Tsundu Kunga, discussed complex existential karmic issues, the kind learned gentlemen do. Professor answered animated and long, in Tibetan, struggling to sort out meaning, both men nodding along.

Dr. Thurman made in-jokes in both languages and got laughs in both. Every time. "We (Tibet) can be a part of China — if occupation troops go home; if we can be one country/two systems; if the Tibetan Plateau, source of all of Asia’s rivers, can be a Green Zone.

"His Holiness, you know, is like Barack — he says, ‘Yes we can be part of China. YES WE CAN.’"

Robert Thurman riffed on Buddha Dhamma metaphysics and on practical Middle Kingdom politics, returning then digressing then returning to His Holiness’ Teachings on the utter futility of anger: "Those Chinese soldiers are unhappy. They’re afraid all the time. Happiness does not come from being the police."

Then back to the simple engineering of Love. Of Compassion. "Happiness comes from being alive. Feeling love in your heart." Long pause.

"You have to love your enemy." Longer pause. Utterly sincere. No breathing in our little church, pews crammed, floors filled, walls lined.

"I’m not impressed if you Love your wife," he broke our silence, punctuating his point with a holy man’s cackle. "It’s not hard to love your own family." More laughter.

"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."

"It’s so warming that the professor came here," Mr. Tsering-la said, looking over at Dr. Thurman yucking it up with squirrelly kids on their temple floor. Parents’ cameras capturing them all. "We really appreciate it. We’re so lucky Barbara added us to professor’s busy schedule."

Columbia University professor Robert Thurman is also editor in chief of the editorial board of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies. Among his many scholarly and bookstore-shelf works are: Tsong Khapa’s Speech of Gold: Reason and Enlightenment in the Central Philosophy of Tibet; The Tibetan Book of the Dead in English; Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness; and his 2008 release, the subject of this suddenly scheduled book tour stop — Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World.