http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tibet/interviews/schell.html
Frontline documentary, "Red Flag Over Tibet." Schell wrote, "Virtual
Tibet:Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood, about
Western perceptions of Tibet."
> ... q: What is it about Tibet and Tibetan culture that holds such an
> allure for the West?
schell: I think the West trapped as it is in its own post-industrial culture really misses the idea that there is some place apart from all the getting and the earning and the commerce where there's a different currency - a spiritual currency. And so I think Tibet has become the place, or one of the places on which we've projected the notion that there are enclaves sort of wilderness areas that are set apart, that we can imagine is sacred. This place is a spiritual destiny where other imperatives of life are at work and this is very important to us and the more we become enamored of our own materialist commercial culture the more we like to imagine that there are these other refuges still existing just in case we want to at some point in our life repair to them. <SNIP> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tibet/china/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tibet/understand/ Here are three selections from John Powers' lucid and illuminating book, Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/Tibetan.html PSYCHOLOGY IN TIBETAN BUDDHISM--A BRIEF SUMMARY NOTES ON WALTER TRUETT ANDERSON'S OPEN SECRETS: A WESTERN GUIDE TO TIBETAN BUDDHISM. New York: Viking Press.