Professor Robert Thurman, Expressing the Inexpressible - a podcast by Daniel and Eric

In the second part of our interview with Professor Robert Thurman we ask him about enlightenment... What is it?  How can it be described?  His response covers a wide range of ideas and philosophies but he describes enlightenment as an evolutionary goal, the highest potential for the human platform, a culmination of all of the cultures who believe in it.  Ultimately, amongst other things its liberation with happiness as a freedom from suffering.  He then goes into a discussion on the 3 bodies of a Buddha (reality, enjoyment and emanation) and what that means theoretically and practically from his perspective.  Although this view is shared by many in the tradition, Professor Thurman states that its a theory.  A means to express the inexpressible and that the only sure thing, is freedom.  Professor Thurman concludes by saying that miracles are always possible and reality is totally comprehensible.   Bob Thurman,  known in the academic circles as Professor Robert A.F. Thurman, is a  talented popularizer of the Buddha’s teachings and the first Westerner  Tibetan Buddhist monk ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. A charismatic speaker and author of many books on Tibet, Buddhism,  art, politics and culture, Bob was named by The New York Times the  leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism, and was awarded the  prestigious Padma Shri Award in 2020, for his help in recovering India’s  ancient Buddhist heritage. Time Magazine chose him as one of the 25  most influential Americans in 1997, describing him as a “larger than  life scholar-activist destined to convey the Dharma, the precious  teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, from Asia to America.”Bob served as the Jey Tsong  Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of  Religion at Columbia University for 30 years, until 2020. A very popular  professor, students always felt his classes were “life-changing”.   Bob is the founder and active president of Tibet House US, a non-profit  organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Tibetan  culture, and of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, a non-profit  affiliated with the Center for Buddhist Studies at Columbia University  and dedicated to the publication of translations of important artistic  and scientific Tibetan treatises.  His own search for enlightenment began  while he was a university student at Harvard. After an accident in which  he lost the use of an eye, Bob left school on a spiritual quest  throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He found his way to India,  where he first saw His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1962.   After learning Tibetan and studying Buddhism, Bob became a Tibetan  Buddhist monk and the first Westerner to be ordained by the Dalai Lama.  Some years later, however, he offered up his robes when he realized he  could be more effective in the American equivalent of a monastery: the  university, returning to Harvard to finish his PhD.  As part of his long-term commitment to the Tibetan cause, at the  request of H.H. the Dalai Lama, Bob co-founded Tibet House US in 1987  with Tenzin Tethong, Richard Gere, and Philip Glass, a non profit  organization based in New York City and dedicated to the preservation  and renaissance of Tibetan culture.  Inspired by his longtime good friend  the Dalai Lama, Bob takes us along with him into an expanded vision of  the world through the prisma of Tibetan Buddhism. He shares with us the  sense of refuge in the Dharma, which unfailingly helps us clear away the  shrouds of fear and confusion, sustains us with the cheerfulness of an  enriched present, and opens a door to a path of realistic hope for a  peaceful, kind, and wise future.

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