Tibet House US (THUS) is a Tibetan cultural preservation and education 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 1987 in New York City by a group of Westerners after the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, expressed his wish to establish a cultural institution to build awareness of Tibetan culture.[1][2][3]
In 1959, soon after escaping the Chinese invasion of Tibet to India, the 14th Dalai Lama while addressing a group of fellow refugees stated "The great job ahead of us now is to preserve our religion and culture."[4] In 1987, "a group of Westerners sympathetic to the Tibetan cause," Columbia University professor and THUS President Robert Thurman, the first western Buddhist monk, actor and Chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet, Richard Gere, and classical composer and THUS Vice President Philip Glass, founded the organization to preserve, protect and present the cultural and religious heritage of Tibet, and give a contemporary understanding of the contributions this endangered culture offers, in the Flatiron district of New York City.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Frances Thargay, while working at the Office of Tibet in New York as Executive Assistant to the Dalai Lama's Representative to the US, Tenzin Tethong, wrote the first draft of Richard Gere's proposal for Tibet House.[14] Managing Director Nena Thurman initiated the annual benefit concert with Glass, and the annual benefit auction. She is also the Executive Chairwoman of the THUS project, Menla Retreat.[15][16]
THUS has collaborated with many different educational and cultural institutions. This includes sponsoring teachings in New York City by the Dalai Lama.[17][18][19][20]The Newark Peace Education Summit, a three-day conference in 2011, focused on the policies and methods used by communities to establish peace. Participants included the Dalai Lama and fellow Nobel Laureates, anti-landmine activist Jody Williams, and Iranian civil rights activist Shirin Ebadi; Cory Booker, Martin Luther King III, economist Jeffrey Sachs, Deepak Chopra, Rabbi Michael Lerner; anthropologist Wade Davis, who shared a stage with representatives of the Navajo, Dene, and Hopi nations; and many other international and local activists.[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] The Global Vision Summit was started in 2020. Twenty-one teachers, spiritual leaders, scholars, and students of the 14th Dalai Lama, including Richard Gere, Thupten Jinpa, Richard Davidson, and Daniel Goleman discussed his life and teachings with over 90,000 people worldwide.[29][30] In 2021 the 2nd Annual Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit, "The Power of Compassion", examined the Dalai Lama's vision and practice of compassion. Participants included Daniel Goleman, Marina Abramović, Jan Willis, Mark Hyman, and Tara Brach.[31] Participants in the 2023 Summit included Daniel Goleman, Thupten Jinpa, Jan Willis, Vandana Shiva, Philippe Goldin, Tenzin Geyche Tethong, Rev. Matthew Fox, Tenzin Priyadarshi and Venerable Thubten Chodron.[32]
Books published by THUS include A Shrine for Tibet: The Alice S. Kandell Collection, "a visual knockout of a book," the accompanying publication for the traveling exhibition In the Realm of the Buddha at the Smithsonian.[33][34][35][36][37] In collaboration with The American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, Robert Thurman founded and edited the Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences series which includes the complete translation of the "originally Indian Buddhist artistic, scientific, and religious works collected in the Tibetan Tengyur," and associated translations, studies and reference works, including the "Treasury of Buddhist Sciences: Associated Literature" and "Treasury of Indic Sciences" series.[38][39][40]
The Art of Freedom Award, honoring outstanding contributions reflecting THUS' mission, has been presented to author and human rights advocate Eliot Pattison,[41] director Martin Scorsese,[42] and artist Roy Lichtenstein, among others. THUS presented "Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends," with the Allen Ginsberg Estate and Jewel Heart International in 2021.[43][44] The gallery and online exhibition of never before seen images by Ginsberg of Gelek Rimpoche and great masters, Tibetologists, and students exemplified the transformational nature of this time in US history.[45]
Opening 2021's online, live stream 34th benefit, the Dalai Lama sent a video message of congratulation and thanks to Tibet House US, Bob and Nena Thurman, and those who started Tibet House in New York. He also thanked Sogpo (Mongolian) Wangyal, the late Geshe Wangyal, Thurman's teacher, for also contributing to advocating Tibetan Buddhism among Americans.[69][70]
After Keanu Reeves appeared in the virtual 35th year benefit concert reciting the Beat Poem "Pull My Daisy" in 2022, social media users in China suggested a boycott of his films.[71][72][73] "Despite his past close collaboration with its film authorities and decades of mega-stardom spanning the length of the country’s engagement with Hollywood," due to backlash from Chinese nationalists over his appearance in support of THUS, his films have "reportedly been scrubbed from China streaming platforms such as Tencent Video, Youku and Migu Video."[74][75][76]
Collections
THUS collects and displays diverse examples of Tibetan sacred, fine, and folk arts, with the hope to ultimately repatriate them to a National Museum in Tibet. Since the Chinese communist occupation of Tibet beginning in 1949, the majority of these artworks and Buddhist manuscripts were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and to a much lesser degree by the Younghusband Expedition, a temporary invasion of Tibet by the British, part of the ongoing "Great Game," and by archaeological looting.[77][78][79][80]
The Repatriation Collection and the Old Tibet Photographic Archive were founded in 1992. The Old Tibet Photographic Archive started with the gift of missionary Marion Grant Griebenow's over 3,000 images and journal writings from Tibet in 1928–1949, and contains work by photographers Hugh Richardson, Heinrich Harrer, Fosco Maraini, David McDonald, and Lt. J. R. Weir; photographs from the Tokan Tada collection from the Toyo Bunko Library in Tokyo, Japan, taken in Central Tibet, Amdo, and Sikkim in the 1920s, and images from the A.T. Steele Collection.[81][82] The Repatriation Collection consists of over 1500 thangkas, bronzes, ritual objects, and folk art. These archives document the destruction of over 6000 monasteries, temples, historic buildings, and the contents that were pillaged; "The monasteries, however, were not only centers of scholasticism (although that was certainly the hallmark of Drepung, Sera and Ganden). They were also centers for the study of painting, sculpture, embroidery, music, dance, chant and ritual. They were the repositories of the treasures of Tibetan art and the libraries of the vast Tibetan literature."[83][84][85]
Selected publications
Worlds of Transformation: Tibetan Art of Wisdom and Compassion, Marylin Rhie and Robert Thurman, essay by David Jackson, co-published with the Rubin Museum, Harry N. Abrams Co., 1991, ISBN9780810963870
Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet, Marylin Rhie and Robert Thurman, co-published with Harry N. Abrams Co., 1991 – 1998 in English, German, Spanish, Catalan, Japanese, and Chinese; 2000, ISBN0810939851
The Tibetan Wheel of Existence, Jacqueline Dunnington, 2000, ISBN978-0967011530
Visions of Tibet: Outer, Inner, Secret, photographs by Brian Kistler, introduction by Robert Thurman, ed. Thomas Yarnell, Overlook Duckworth, 2005, ISBN978-1585677412
Vanishing Tibet, Catherine Steinmann and Danny Conant, 2008, ISBN978-1590200957
A Shrine For Tibet: The Alice S. Kandell Collection, Marylin Rhie & Robert Thurman, Overlook Press, 2010, ISBN978-1590203101
Man of Peace: The Illustrated Life Story of the Dalai Lama of Tibet, graphic novel, William Meyers, Robert Thurman, Michael G. Burbank, initiated artistically by Rabkar Wangchuk, art a team effort of five artists coordinated by Steve Buccellato and Michael Burbank, ISBN978-1941312032
Translations and scholarly works
The Treasury of Buddhist Sciences, series, editors, Robert Thurman, Thomas Yarnall and The Treasury of Indic Sciences, series, editors Robert Thurman, Gary Tubb and Thomas Yarnall, co-published with the American Institute of Buddhist Studies and the Columbia University Center for Buddhist Studies; Columbia University Press:
Universal Vehicle Discourse Literature, Lozang Jamspal, et al., 2004, ISBN978-0-9753734-0-8
Kalacakra Tantra: Chapter on the Individual, Vesna Wallace, 2004, ISBN978-0-9753734-1-5
^Ginsberg, Allen; Kerouac, Jack; Cassady, Neal (13 February 2018). "Pull My Daisy (Collaborative Poem)". allenginsberg.org/. The Allen Ginsberg Project. Retrieved 4 November 2022.