As Tibetans living in New York become increasingly Westernized and secularized, people like Lama Pema who work both within the Tibetan community and encourage the dissemination of Buddhism to Westerners are perhaps helping to transform Tibetan Buddhism in America. Many Tibetans' experience here has shown that exiles face different problems in the West, where they are guaranteed religious freedom but perhaps lack the impetus to fully invest in reconstructing their religious institutions here. Securing a solid monastic base, which has historically been the backbone of traditional Tibetan religious society, has proven difficult here in the West.

Exceptionally disciplined individuals like Lama Pema and Lama Lobsang, who work to teach about and preserve Tibetan culture in New York and around the United States, may have to do even more to keep the Tibetans as interested in their religion as the new Western followers of Tibetan Buddhism are.

Prof. Robert Thurman, Columbia University's Je Tsong Khapa Professor and a close affiliate of the Dalai Lama, said that Tibetan scholars must teach the laity the wisdom teachings on shunyata, or emptiness, in order to keep modern Tibetans engaged with their religious legacy. Traditionally, the emptiness teachings were deemed too radical for the general population and were taught only to monks.

"The faith that they want in their laity will go to modernity and Western science unless they counter outer science with inner science," Thurman said.

The transformation of Tibetan religion remains an extremely sensitive topic among Tibetans in exile. The Tibetan government in exile has tended to promote the view that it has maintained a pure version of Tibetan culture while the one in side Tibet has been corrupted by Communism, Barnett said. The emphasis on preserving r ather than developing Tibetan culture may make it difficult for Tibetans in the West to adapt their religious culture to life in America.

Meanwhile, inside Tibet itself, a debate about the utility of religion is raging among intellectuals and religious scholars.

"There's a huge debate going on about whether religion is good for society. Some think that religion is the reason that they lost their country, since religion stops secular institutions from developing and impedes nation building," Barnett said.

The merits of religion are not subjected to such scrutiny in exile, however, because exiled Tibetans believe that religion holds the community together, Barnett said.
Indeed, for most Tibetans in exile, religion continues to be one of the major forces binding them to their country and keeps some of them hoping to return someday.
"I would like to return to Tibet when His Holiness the Dalai Lama returns," Lama Lobsang said, looking down at his prayer beads.

Lama Pema Dorje offered a phrase often heard from Tibetans: "We Tibetans have the truth," he said. "Tibet has to be free. Even Russian, the greatest Communist empire in the world, fell. The British left India after 200 years. So the Chinese must leave Tibet eventually."