Published by: World Tibet Network News Thursday - October - 2, 1997
by Nancy Griffin
Action star Steven Seagal has now been officially anointed an action lama
Esquire Magazine
October 1997
IN HIS 1996 FILM, The Glimmer Man, Steven Seagal pretty much plays himself a hilarious paradox, a devout Buddhist who kicks ass. "I'm not supposed to right it's against my religion." He proclaims as an undercover cop whose piety is signified by his Chinese shirts and brocade jackets. Behind his trademark scowl, Seagal appears to ponder his karma as he burns incense and fingers Tibetan prayer beads. When his partner inquires about the beads. Seagal says. "I use them to calm my mind and purify my thoughts." That is, until a goon taunts him about his "sissy" heads. And the Centered One sends the guy flying through a glass wall. "You tell your asshole boss that nobody. nobody threatens me. warns this Buddhist officer. "Now get your ugly white ass out of here!"
Seagal pushed his uniquely bizarre brand of spirituality close to the outer limits with The Glimmer Man, but now he's topped himself. This time, he is playing a ballistic mystic for real. A Tibetan holy man has "recognized" Seagal as a reincarnated lama, or tulku, a coveted title in Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetans revere tulkus as emanations of the Buddha who choose rebirth to help ease the suffering of others. The closest approximation we have to this in America would be the crotch-scratching seraph "Travolta played in Michael.
But Seagal's divine elevation is not a movie joke. and it has stunned Western Buddhists. many of whose leading figures view it as corrupt and an embarrassing sideshow to Tibet's political problems. Seagal. who one former intimate says is "the only person I know who can use the words motherfuker and Dalai Lama in the same sentence," is now empowered to wear a lama's robes, instruct others in Buddhist teachings, and even establish his own temple if he chooses. What will he do? The Dalai Lama himself is watching closely.
In Hollywood, Seagal's new status is seen as a career move, a stab at reviving his prestige and sagging box-office appeal. The star of Under Siege and On Deadly Ground used to command $15 million a picture as one of the world's top purveyors of screen mayhem. but his career peaked in 1992. A long the fellow action dinosaurs Schwarzenegger and Stallone, he now gets to watch a pumped-up Nicolas Cage ring the 5100 million bell. Seagal's popularity his not been helped by his arrogance and humorousness in interviews. Nor has his habit of displaying a handgun at business meetings endeared him to his Hollywood colleagues.
In short. Seagal does not arise in the dreams of many Americans as a radiant manifestation of the Buddha. And now that he's moonlighting as a tulku, he's put himself in a bind. Friends insist that his faith is sincere, Seagal, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has been telling acquaintances that he hopes to use his influence to promote nonviolence, But he has to keep wreaking carnage on screen or he'll lose what's left of his audience. After all. when you're an action hero and it's your job to punish terrorists, let's face it. sometimes it takes a bloodbath.
THE STAR OF Hard to Kill was relatively late in jumping on the Buddhism bandwagon. By the time Seagal began sidling up to the Dalai Lama at Hollywood fundraisers a few years ago, Richard Gere had already been friends with His Holiness for ten years. Having long been a student of Japanese Buddhism and martial arts. Seagal began to seek out Tibetan masters. In 1995. he chartered a plane in India and Hew around the subcontinent. visiting Buddhist monasteries. The lamas were wowed.
He became close with Penor Rinpoche. the supreme head of the Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist lineage. As it happened. Penor Rinpoche was starting to establish teaching centers in the United States. Seagal made generous donations to his organization, inviting him to Los Angeles to teach and sponsoring his visit there. Last year. Seagal told acquaintances that he believed he had been a holy man In a previous life. Friends say he told his guru of these feelings and asked to be recognized. Traditionally, the title tulku is conferred on those deemed to possess exceptional spiritual qualities. They are usually discovered as children. and only a dozen or so have been recognized in the Western world. Seagal was about to become one of them.
IT WAS LIKE A SCENE out of Little Buddha. Penor Rinpoche assembled fifteen hundred monks and nuns last February in the ornate main hall of the Namdroling monastery in Bylakuppe, India. The giant statue of the Buddha was lit with butter lamps. After offerings of chants and prayers, the lama told the faithful that he had had many dreams and signs that Steven Seagal was the reincarnation of a long-dead Tibetan lama, Chokden Dorjee, who was a terton, or revealer of treasures. Penor Rinpoche told Seagal that he had a great obligation to benefit other beings. Traditional long horns were blown, and the action star lowered his six-foot-four frame onto a large throne with ornamental silk cushions. Solemnly, the martial-arts master was reinstated on the seat he had occupied in his previous life. Buddhist Web sites soon buzzed with scuttlebutt that the "Tinseltown tulku" had bought his title like a feudal baron, allegations that Seagal's spokeswoman denied. insisting that the star had earned it "on his own merits." But
the presumption that this was a case of a lama license for sale quickly took hold among all but the most traditional practitioners. Several prominent Western Buddhist teachers regarded it as a disastrous attempt on the part of Penor Rinpoche to ensure the survival of his lineage in the States. "My suspicion. and I must admit it's a cynical one, is that this is a political-financial move," says Stephen Batchelor, a former monk and the author of Buddhism Without Beliefs. "The instance with Seagal is a case where the Tibetans have seriously misjudged."
Adds Jamyang Norbu, a writer and political commentator, "It's all so ridiculous,' it makes all Tibetans look like fools. This actor is clearly mad, and he lives with a houseful of guns. This is going to backfire on Tibetans."
The Dalai Lama has expressed concern about the proliferation of tulkus. And other abuses by lamas in the West. Perhaps because he does not wield spiritual authority over all the lineages, however, he has kept his feelings about specific tulku discoveries to himself, "He's in a delicate position," says Robert Thurman, a renowned Tibetan scholar. "He doesn't want to be rude to the lamas who do it. because his role is as a mediator."
Still the Dalai Lama has issued a strong admonition to Buddhists. "Make a thorough examination before accepting someone as a guru." he said, "and even then, follow that teacher within the conventions of reason.
THE ACTION STAR and now bone-crunching guru has taken every opportunity to bask in the Dalai Lama's saffron glow. Last summer, he raised 525,000 for an American Himalayan Foundation fundraiser in Beverly Hills 'It which the Dalai Lama was the featured speaker,' Seagal requested, and was granted, a front-and-center table. This past June. when the Dalai Lama gave extensive teachings in Los Angeles, Seagal was in the front row every day The fact that Gere sat two rows back was not lost on the Hollywood scorekeepers.
The Dalai Lama's inner circle of advisers, which has never included a marketing expert, was slow to grasp Seagal'sbrutish public image. Once it did. it began to fret that this particular movie star might not benefit His Holiness and Tibet at a time when pressure is being stepped up on the Chinese government to loosen its grip on the homeland. Seagal didn't help himself by being pushy in his efforts to get next to the Dalai Lama, and restraints were put into effect to keep him at a comfortable distance.
Seagal recently tried to join a conference in San Francisco called Peace-making: The Power of Nonviolence, at which the Dalai Lama and one other Nobel Peace laureate lectured. But local conference organizers who work in the inner city insisted that an icon of destruction did not belong on the same dais with the Dalai Lama. Frustrated by the rejection, Seagal protested, "Everyone loves me in the inner city! All the black kids love me!"
The action lama has said little, meanwhile, about how he plans to live his life as a tulku. "The biggest danger is that he will build a temple in his backyard, build a throne, and become a guru," says one longtime Buddhist. There is no evidence of that yet. He will travel to India and Katmandu in November to study and Seagal says be also intends to teach. Other Buddhist lecturers scoff at that. "He's a martial-arts master, not a Buddhist master," says Surya Das, a prominent Western lama.
As for his film career, Seagal, whose latest movie, Fire Down Below, opens in September, recently claimed that he would not make any more violent movies. Nevertheless, this fall he'll get 510 million to star in a new action thriller called The Patriot. The tulku will play a peaceable man, a holistic doctor. In the story, a rightwing Montana militia leader unleashes a deadly virus, killing half the state's population. The doctor must find a cure. Then he has to face down the deranged militiaman and a hero's gotta do what a hero's gotta do.
"His character is pushed to become violent when all else fails. He has to take action," explains Patriot producer Nile Niami. "He has to save the world."
