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Western tulku

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Western tulku Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, born Alyce Louise Zeoli, during her enthronement as a Dakini

A Western tulku is the recognized successor to a lama or dharma master born in the West, commonly of non-Tibetan ethnic heritage.[1][2][3][4][5][6]


History

Foreign tulkus have been identified since at least the sixteenth century, when the grandson of the Mongol Altan Khan was recognized as the 4th Dalai Lama.[7]

Analysis and criticism

Tulku Bino Naksang has described the phenomena of Western tulkus as a "failed experiment" which did not account for the contradictions between traditional Tibetan culture and modern Western culture.[8]

The academic Abraham Zablocki uses the term "tulku envy" to describe a Western desire to "be[come] Tibetan" or inhabit a Tibetan body through the tulku system.[9] Zablocki analyzes The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes, by the Tibetan activist and author Jamyang Norbu, as a satire of this tulku envy, in an act of "counter-appropriation".[10]

List of Western tulkus

References

  1. ^ John-Paul Flintoff (13 April 2012). "Did I know you in a past life?". the Guardian. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  2. ^ Ary 2012, pp. 398–427.
  3. ^ Atay & D'Silva 2019, p. 222.
  4. ^ Moran 2004.
  5. ^ Bhushan, Garfield & Zablocki 2009.
  6. ^ "THE UNEXPECTED INCARNATION". Washington Post. Retrieved 31 October 2023.
  7. ^ Bhushan, Garfield & Zablocki 2009, p. 45.
  8. ^ Miller, Andrea (12 March 2021). "Magical Emanations: The Unexpected Lives of Western Tulkus". Lion's Roar. Retrieved 30 October 2023.
  9. ^ Bhushan, Garfield & Zablocki 2009, p. 43.
  10. ^ Bhushan, Garfield & Zablocki 2009, pp. 51–52.

Bibliography