Bob Fitch
Join us for a conversation with The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi and Robert Thurman. This talk will be followed by a book signing of Professor Thurman’s latest book, Man of Peace.
All talks at the Media Lab, unless otherwise noted, are open to the public.
Robert A.F. “Bob” Thurman is an internationally recognized authority on religion and spirituality, Asian history, world philosophy, Buddhist science, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Currently, Bob is the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University. He’s also president of Tibet House US, a non-profit organization he co-founded with Richard Gere and Philip Glass, which is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Tibetan civilization. Above all, he is a proponent of peace.
Bob was a student at Harvard University, when he started his search for enlightenment. He left school to go on a spiritual quest throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. At the age of 24, Bob was the first American to be ordained a Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama, and their friendship has spanned more than 40 years. Bob has written many Buddhist Sutras, or teachings, and authored numerous books including his latest, Man of Peace (2017.) At the end of this event, Bob will be available to sign this graphic novel.
In 1967, Bob retired his robes as a monk when he “discovered he could be more effective in the American equivalent of the monastery: the university.” He then returned to Harvard to finish his PhD and teach.
Time magazine chose Bob as one of its 25 most influential Americans in 1997, calling him as a “larger than life scholar-activist.” The New York Times has written that he “is considered the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism.”