Remembering Robert Thurman (1941-2026)

All of us here at Shambhala Publications were all saddened to hear the news of Robert Thurman’s passing today, June 16, 2026. While we did not publish any of Bob’s books, he appears in many of our works and articles. In Secularizing Buddhism, Roger Jackson recounts the fiery debate between Bob and Stephen Batchelor on the centrality of belief in rebirth in being a Buddhist.   [My view: No contest, Bob won].   He appears in literally dozens of other works, as a blurber or when authors reference him.   In his foreword to As Long as Space Endures, a collection of scholarly essays on the Kalachakra Tantra, Bob wrote, "So here we are in these times of seemingly endless human violence, confusion, needless destruction of the environment, and even self-destruction of whole societies. We are caught in the poisonous ocean of unrealistic worldviews, especially those of nihilistic science that robs our breath of meaning and our steps of purpose. It is thousands of years past the most recent World Buddha’s manifest historical engagement with us, and everything seems to get worse and worse. But who shows up for us? Our Precious Teacher, our Ocean Guru. He constantly and tirelessly renews for us the pledge of Shakyamuni, his exquisite demonstration that he will never abandon any of us to our wretched fate…” Bob always brought the heart of practice into the ivory tower of academia.   He was a good friend to us here at Shambhala Publications.  Just a few weeks ago, he read through a new manuscript of a groundbreaking biography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama coming out in September and sent me a glowing, enthusiastic endorsement.   And a few years ago, we requested he kindly read several pages of the Flower Ornament Scripture, the Avatamsaka Sutra, clips of which we included in a tribute video to his long-time friend Thomas Cleary. We thought it would be nice to include his full reading of this section in this video, describing the Buddha at the scene of his enlightenment in his own vision.  We invite you to close your eyes and listen to this description of this sublime, cosmic scene. Our hands are joined together in appreciation to Bob for a live so very well lived.