LJ comes up trumps again with this very interesting interview with the Karmapa Lama taken from the Times of India.
Labelled the Hip Hop Lama over his fondness for gangsta rap and violent video games, (both of which are touched upon in the interview), Karmapa, aged 24 is the head of the Black Hat sect, and he is a much loved and well-respected young man. His popularity with young Tibetans both first and second generation is huge. His unique position as the only high lama recognised by both Tibetans and Chinese, encourage the view that he is the ideal “successor” to His Holiness Dalai Lama.
Karmapa also boasts a large number of Lama-ites, Western women groupies aged from 20 – 45 who regularly head to his open blessing held at nearby Sidphur every Wednesday and Saturday. They come back giggling and showing off their latest blessed bangle.
This might not seem so strange after all. Sarah McDonald in her book Holy Cow claims that there are about 40 Tibetan monks each year defrock to take up a relationship with Western women.
This quest for the unattainable, comes as no surprise to me. Rich, Nygate and I set up a Celibate Society at Bristol Polytechnic in 1990. Talk about flies to the jam-pot- it was shocking and sometimes very entertaining!
Karmapa Lama´s snapshot now outsells pictures of the Dalai Lama in McLeod Ganj´s photo kiosks.
Clearly very shrewd and eloquent, he is sure to play a major part in the continued struggle for a free Tibet.
I din't know about the gompa groupies! I should have guessed. II once asked a monk in Drepung (10 years ago) why he became a monk and he said, "I didn't know what else to do."
ReplyDeleteCurious about the 1990 "Celibate Society" at Bristol Polytechnic. Why was it formed? Why so attractive to the young women?
ReplyDeleteThree unusual and eccentric young men who adopted celibacy as a life choice - well at least for a time.
ReplyDeleteYoung women would flock to convert us! It´s the desire the unattainable. Thus, the Karmapa groupies.