Tibetan Buddhism Inspires Move From Academia to Collecting and Giving Back

THE EPOCH TIMES

Moke Mokotoff in his temporary gallery on the Upper East Side, where he is currently exhibiting for Asia Week. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK --- If Indiana Jones had been a student of Tibetan Buddhism, he might have turned out to be Moke Moketoff. Moketoff lives in New York now, working as a private art dealer, like so many others in the city’s enterprising art community. But he has lived many lives—as a National Geographic photographer training scholars to preserve manuscripts on the Nepal–India border, as a fundraiser for a Tibetan lama’s dream school, and as a builder of the Rubin, one of the most respected Himalayan art museums in the country. “Most Westerners are attracted to Buddhism mostly through the art, and have an emotional reaction to the art,” he said, explaining that the art itself is integral to the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. “The thangkas (devotional wall hangings) are meditation objects. All the artistic renderings are all based on meditations and prayer.” [link]