Re-Enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West

Even those who already know the story will enjoy spending time between the pages of Jeffrey Paine's engaging narrative. Through profiles of four well-known teachers, plus a few lesser lights, he recounts Tibetan Buddhism's arrival in North America after being driven in mid-20th century from its native environment, a tale of cynical and world-weary westerners becoming re-enchanted with the world. A regular contributor to national publications, Paine knows how to keep a reader's attention. The book never lags and I would guess that most readers will be unwilling to put it down at the end of the evening. When the occasion warrants, Paine also lets his sense of humor shine, as in his discussion of actor Steven Segal, the world's most unlikely reincarnated lama and the only one, Paine observes, capable of uttering _Dalai Lama_ and _motherf......_ in the same sentence. The book's most interesting insights are found in the chapter on Hollywood, a place where many are infatuated with the Dalai Lama and where you can even find a few practicing Buddhists, most prominently Richard Gere. Paine argues that actors already share a world view consistent with Buddhism, that thoughts and actions create reality. This dovetails nicely with the American ethos of being able to reinvent oneself, to start a new life. Paine sees a correlation in the growth of Buddhism in a society raised on film. Where the Buddha declined to discuss the soul and instead focused on our moment-to-moment experience of life, so too does the cinema ignore the metaphysical in building reality from sound, motion, and feeling. The first of the book's five sections covers what little was known about Tibet in the west before the Chinese invasion of 1951 through the story of Alexander David-Neel (1868-1969), one of the first westerners (and the first western woman) to spend years in Tibet and to return home to write about it. This is followed by chapters on two lamas who had a lasting influence on North American Buddhism: Thubten Yeshe, whose teaching tours sprouted more than a hundred study and mediation centers across the United States and Canada; and Chogyam Trungpa, who started what is today the only accredited Buddhist university in North America. From the exiles Paine moves on to profile two homegrown lamas, the first generation of western teachers: Tenzin Palmo (Diane Perry), who spent 12 years in retreat and was only the second woman to be ordained in a Tibetan tradition; and Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo (Alyce Zeoli), the world's first female western-born reincarnated lama. The fourth section traces Hollywood's infatuation with Buddhism, and the last features sketches of three work-a-day North American converts. Except for those in the last section, the figures profiled here are quite well known and for many of those already familiar with Tibetan Buddhism in North America, Paine has little new to offer to the story. What he brings is a deft sense of narrative, as well

In the beginning, Westerners went East,with such Victorian voyagers as Alexandra David-Neel (who gets a brief bio in this book) and Sir Richard Francis Burton,who penned the first English translation of the Kama Sutra. "Re-enchantment" studies Westerners' fascination with Tibetan Buddhism in particular, and why Buddhism grows in the West. "Re-enchantment" is a series of portraits, from Lama Yeshe,one of the first Tibetan monks to teach Westerners to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the alcoholic and promiscuous founder of Shambhala Buddhism. Jeffery Paine doesn't gloss over the controversial aspects of people's lives. He sees it as essential to telling their stories. He interviews Richard Gere, and meditates on Tenzin Palmo,the English woman who lived as a hermit in the Himalayas in "The Land of Living Dakinis (Sky Goddesses)." He wrestles with whether or not Jetsunma Akhon Lhamo (nee Alyce Zolli) is a living reincarnation of a 17th century Tibetan female teacher,despite her living a lavish lifestyle and enjoining her former lovers-both male and female-to live celibate lives in her monastery. Paine understands Tibetan Buddhism's enchantment. It promises peace, compassion, a life free of illusions. He connects monotheism with the 9/11 attacks as well as the current war in Iraq. For Paine, Buddhism is about happiness-for one's self and others-without the disquieting aspects of God and dogma. It is no wonder,then,Buddhism continues to grow in the US, and even in Germany, the home of the current Pope, the Dalai Lama is the more favored spiritual leader.

If you want to travel the high himmalayas, find samadhic bliss in a freezing cave, and meet an unimaginable cast of characters rendered in their full-robed glory and unabashed humanity, read this book. If you want to follow the careful hand of a smiling scholar and come to understand the diaspora of Tibetan Buddhism to the west in the last century, likewise.

Jeffery Paine has told the story of the deepest spiritual migration of the 20th Century with the compassionate eye of a trained historian, a master storyteller and an experienced guide. Don't look to this lively recounting to judge who in this surprising diaspora has followed or represented the true path of the Buddha; the truth in all roads comes apparent in this marvelous survey. Look to it instead for an intimate glimpse into the main characters in the drama, from the indefatigable, pint-sized centenarian Alexandra David Neel to the freewheeling Chongyam Trongpa. A must read, for neo-buddhist and non.

We need good histories of Buddhism and Hinduism, and this work is another incremental bit added to the literature, worth reading. Tibetan Buddhists have reached Hollywood finally but have a nasty habit of getting chased out of one country only to invade another using their 'standard operating procedures', black magic and other nice tactics that leave their fans not knowing what hit them. You can almost spot the game if you study the Lobsang Rampa swindle in motion. It was the guru Rajneeesh who let loose the bombshell of the occult fascism of the Buddhist sangha back when and a lot of Buddhists I know are distinctly 'ex' and permanently paranoid.What is the status of this religion, then? Setting up the usual exoteric museum piece in the middle of American culture is an expensive use of devoted followers who might find liberation in a less devious spiritual path.