A tulku is a "reincarnated Tibetan master" such as Lubum Tulku, age 6 (tibetanfoundation.org)
Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me… About My Last Life
The NPR show Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, my favorite political comedy show (plug: even better, to my mind, than Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert) has for the second time chosen a story about a tulku (reincarnate Tibetan master) as the epitome of unbelievability.
It was during the segment of the show called Bluff the Listener, in which panelists tell three unbelieveable stories, one of which is actually true. On its June 6 show (you can listen to it free on iTunes or at the Wait Wait site), one of the panelists told the story of Lama Osel, which has been covered extensively here on SunSpace. The theme was adolescent rebellion, and the listener felt the reincarnation story was not even as believable as a tale about adolescent dung beetles who drug their elders with a psychedelic fungus so they can mate at will.
This is the second time Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me has fooled a listener with a tulku story. Previously, a listener was told three “facts” about Stephen Seagal. He didn’t believe that Seagal had been recognized as the reincarnation of a famous Tibetan lama. But who can blame him?
This entry was created by Melvin McLeod, posted on June 8, 2009 at 9:22 am and tagged Buddhist concepts, Pop Culture, Tibetan. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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