Last updated: 26
Aug
2022
Tibetan Buddhists in Germany – life & contributions
Buddhism in Germany looks back to a history of over 150 years. Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the earliest Germans who were influenced by Buddhism.
Schopenhauer got his knowledge of Buddhism from authors like Isaac Jacob Schmidt (1779-1847).
German Buddhists or Orientalists like Karl Eugen Neumann, Paul Dahlke, Georg Grimm, Friedrich Zimmermann (Subhadra Bhikschu) and the first German Buddhist monk Nyanatiloka Mahathera were also influenced by Schopenhauer and his understanding of Buddhism.
Furthermore, German Indologists like Hermann Oldenberg and his work ”Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde“ had an important influence on German Buddhism.
Table of Contents
Prominent Tibetan Buddhists from Germany
This is a selection of Tibetan Buddhists from Germany, their life and contributions.
Anagarika Govinda
Anagarika Govinda was the founder of the order of the Arya Maitreya Mandala and an expositor of Tibetan Buddhism, Abhidharma, and Buddhist meditation as well as other aspects of Buddhism. He was also a painter and poet.
Herbert V. Günther
Herbert Vighnāntaka Günther was a German Buddhist philosopher and Professor and Head of the Department of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. He held this position from the time he left India in 1964.
Carola Roloff
Carola Roloff is a German Buddhist nun. Her monastic name is Bhiksuni Jampa Tsedroen.
An active teacher, translator, author, and speaker, she is instrumental in campaigning for equal rights for Buddhist nuns.
Ordaining female nuns, or bhiksunis, in the Tibetan tradition has been met with resistance from many Tibetan monks.
Roloff is determined to change this reluctance to allow women into the tradition.
As well as campaigning for a change of opinion, she is instrumental in helping to determine how females can best be accommodated, both in the tradition itself and in sanghas (mutually supportive communities).
Fortunately for Roloff, this imposing challenge has been supported by the 14th Dalai Lama.
As well as lecturing and writing on the subject, Roloff conducts research with other monks and nuns to help strengthen their position.
The Vinaya scriptures, for example, show that the Buddha accepted the role of women as nuns in search of enlightenment, and Roloff therefore often quotes this text.
Sylvia Wetzel
Sylvia Wetzel is a Buddhist feminist. She has made a name for herself in the Buddhist community of Germany in the topics of meditation and spirituality among women. In doing so she has potentially also impacted men in relation to those topics as well.
