#86 – Keen on Yoga Podcast with Bob Thurman

The Dalai Lama befriended Bob in 1964, ordained him as a Buddhist
monk, then later forgave him for returning to lay life.


Bob Thurman is known in the academic circles as Professor Robert
A.F. Thurman. He is a talented popularizer of the Buddha’s
teachings.  In addition, Bob is the first Westerner Tibetan
Buddhist monk ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama,


He is a charismatic speaker and author of many books on Tibet,
Buddhism, art, politics and culture. Bob was named by The New
York Times as the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism. In
2020 he was awarded the prestigious Padma Shri Award for his help
in recovering India’s ancient Buddhist heritage.


Time Magazine chose him as one of the 25 most influential
Americans in 1997. They  describe 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”.


Tibet House


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.


Long-term Commitment


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 long-time 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.  He sustains us with the
cheerfulness of an enriched gift, and opens a door to a path of
realistic hope for a peaceful, kind, and wise future.


Bob has a prolific podcast of 287 episodes to date, which you can
find on his website


Instagram @bob__thurman   @tibethouse.us 
@menlaretreat