There are 10,000 people expected to attend events with the Dalai Lama in Washington D.C. every day for the next ten days. If you were to ask each of them, "Who is the Dalai Lama?" you will likely receive different response from every individual. Most certainly deep respect and veneration would be expressed. The Dalai Lama describes himself as "a simple Buddhist monk," while in Beijing, the Chinese government regularly vilifies him to the international press as "a wolf in monk's robes." The Dalai Lama strikes many different cords.
The first time I encountered the Dalai Lama was in the mid 1990s when I traveled by road through Nepal and rail across northern India to arrive in the small town of Dharamsala. I was on a well-trodden path by Westerners, with the likes of Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg traveling there in the early 1960s, followed by philosophers and Christian mystics such as Thomas Merton, and today by politicians, neuroscientists, molecular geneticists, and movie stars. For more than forty years, beatnik poets, renowned scientists, world leaders, and global celebrities have journeyed to Dharamsala with the same motivation as mine was -- to see the XIV Dalai Lama.
When the Dalai Lama escaped a pursuing Chinese army and fled Tibet in 1959, India graciously accepted him as a guest of their country, providing him a home and a daily rupee stipend that they still honor today. Over 120,000 Tibetans journeyed on foot over the Himalayas to follow into exile their spiritual and political leader. With refugees scattered in colonies throughout the Indian subcontinent, including Nepal and Bhutan, the Dalai Lama eventually set up operations of a Tibetan government-in-exile near Dharamsala in the Himalayan foothills. More than half a century still on, the Dalai Lama continues to reside in India as a refugee, forbidden by China from returning to his homeland and to live with his six million brethren who devotedly pray to him daily.
The reason I went to the hill town of Dharamsala was to attend the Dalai Lama's teachings about compassion in action, that is, practical training to become a bodhisattva, a kind of spiritual warrior. Who better to receive such teachings from than Dalai Lama! Like so many Westerners, Chinese, and people from all around the globe, I wanted to learn from a most noble, honest, and wise individual -- a rarity in today's world.
On the morning on the first day of teachings, after the crowd of a few thousand Tibetan refugees and a couple hundred foreigners had squeezed into a large courtyard by Namgyal Monastery, a breeze of silence blew as we saw the Dalai Lama leave his residence a short distance away. Indian security guards with automatic rifles and monks carrying incense walked shoulder to shoulder clearing a path through the crowd as we were told to stay seated. Thousands of Tibetans' eyes spontaneously filled with tears upon seeing their leader, hands devotedly folded at their chests, placing the hope and aspiration of a nation onto his shoulders.
As the Dalai Lama approached, I found myself sitting at the edge of his walkway. This was the first time I had set eyes on the man whom Tibetans regard as a human manifestation of the Buddha's compassion. As he passed by, I heard two sounds that would later come to symbolize for me how the Dalai Lama works in both the political and spiritual worlds -- a soft, deeply wise chuckle, and the flapping of his ubiquitous rubber flip-flops en route to helping others.
After a week of teachings, the Dalai Lama was to give the bodhisattva vow. By taking the vow we were committing ourselves to work for the benefit of others. The Dalai Lama told us that undertaking this vow did not apply only to this life, but we were pledging ourselves to benefit others in all of our future lives, until we attained enlightenment. According to the Buddhist view, this might be a couple hundred thousand years of working for others, depending on how many lifetimes the vow took to accomplish -- for the completion of the bodhisattva's task means that everyone, every single being, is free from suffering.
"Whether we attain enlightenment today or ten lifetimes from now," the Dalai Lama said, "our job is still the same -- to work for others' happiness."
The crowd ritually repeated Buddhist verses three times. It was a brief ceremony, but the point was the deep commitment to attain enlightenment not just for ourselves, but for the benefit of all beings by diligently cultivating within ourselves qualities such as patience, generosity, and meditation. With a snap of the Dalai Lama's fingers the ceremony was complete.
Commotion began. Chanting broke over the loudspeaker. Teams of monks streamed into the monastery courtyard to serve tea to the masses. Tibetan grandmothers returned to thumbing their prayer beads. Kids from the Tibetan Children's Village were rounded up by their teachers to go back to their classrooms up the mountain. Monkeys began howling at the action below. I watched the Dalai Lama on his throne, quietly smiling. I concentrated on him as both the source and the benevolent witness to the vow I had just taken -- this is who the Dalai Lama is to me. In gratitude for his inspiring example and vast wisdom, I recited a verse he used in the ceremony and told us that he works every day to embody:
For as long as space exists
And sentient beings endure,
May I, too, remain,
To dispel the misery of the world.
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I wont.
Read "God and His Demons" by Michael Parenti. He devotes a chapter demystifying the Dalai Lama.
Not that it matters, but, just another middle-age white american male...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImNcIDlXfsU
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He replied that he would instruct the people that they should stop believing in it.
Then, being interested in science and inquiry in a way not often seen in men of religion, he asked Sagan, "how would scientists go about proving this?" He has a genuine curiosity about life and the universe, and does not let his spiritual beliefs get in the way of being open to learn about the reality of the universe.
http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/vol_xxx/337_343.html
The cost of the Tibetan Program for FY 1964 can be summarized in approximate figures as follows:
a. Support of 2100 Tibetan guerrillas based in Nepal--$ 500,000
b. Subsidy to the Dalai Lama--$ 180,000
c. [1 line of source text not declassified] (equipment, transportation, installation, and operator training costs)--$ 225,000
d. Expenses of covert training site in Colorado--$ 400,000
e. Tibet Houses in New York, Geneva, and [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] ( 1/2 year )--$ 75,000
f. Black air transportation of Tibetan trainees from Colorado to India--$ 185,000
g. Miscellaneous (operating expenses of [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] equipment and supplies to reconnaissance teams, caching program, air resupply--not overflights, preparation stages for agent network in Tibet, agent salaries, etc.)--$ 125,000
h. Educational program for 20 selected junior Tibetan officers-- $ 45,000
Total--$ 1,735,000
4. Coordination--This Tibetan operational program has been coordinated with the Department of State for a number of years. Specific operational activity has been coordinated with the Department of Defense and the [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] as necessary.
What comes out of the DL's mouth is State Department speak.
Richard Gere, Sharon Stone and other Hollywood devotees may be surprised at their idol's current positions. The Dalai Lama condemns abortion and homosexuality while accepting prostitution. For decades the Dalai Lama secured millions of dollars from the CIA and runs his government in exile like a monarch.
Please detail what is incorrect in the characterization of the Tibetan theocracy that was given.
As for the Dalai Lama, he has said that abortion is killing, which is something the Pope might say about it.
And as for his views on sex: ""Buddhist sexual proscriptions ban homosexual activity and heterosexual sex through orifices other than the vagina, including masturbation or other sexual activity with the hand... From a Buddhist point of view, lesbian and gay sex is generally considered sexual misconduct"
That's a pretty stunted view of sexuality. Again, it reads like something the Pope would write.
He also sells indulgences, just like the Pope.
However, he does condone prostitution, which is finally where he and the Pope part company.
If any of us "understood" anything about Buddhism we'd be enlightened by now. Whatever that means, if it means anything at all.
Yet again, the Dalai Lama is considered the human embodiment of compassion by SOME Buddhists....(and a fan base who DO seem to worship him). I don't see any mention in the above comment that the Dalai Lama approves this worship or embraces it, but it is still being done.
I understand nothing about Buddhism, as there is nothing to understand, but I have been practicing it for 27 years.
"you would understand that the Dalai Lama is considered the human embodiment of compassion."
I know of no Zen Buddhists or Theravada practitioners who would go along with that. Remember, Tibetan Buddhism is not all there is.
"he is not in it for the glory."
Never said he was.
Richard Dawkins?
Now, as for needing to be repeated as often as possible....parrots do that. I'll share another quote, this one from Dogen's Shobogenzo
"Foolishly using your mouth to
repeatedly chant something thousands upon thousands of times in an attempt to
arrive at the Way of Buddhas is like believing you can reach the south by driving
your cart northward."
Now that has more to do with chanting in the context it's written...but it also applies here. Just repeating the message does nothing whatsoever. In fact, his message is simply a diving board to people afraid of the water. Being nice to each other isn't the point. It's an invitation to develop (along the Tibetan tradition's lines, but that's another story).
:) I'm afraid you've misunderstood "nothing special". There's a way of reading that phrase in a Buddhist context that offers a great deal more than what you see there. I'll leave it up to you if you want to pursue that (gotta do it on your own!). I'll start you off with a quote from Alan Watts who is quoting a poem that I like to use (maybe too much and I'm attached to it hehe).
"On mount Lu there is misty rain and the river Zhe is at high tide. When you have not been there, your heart is filled with longing. But when you have been there and come back, it was nothing special. Misty rain on a mountain. A river at high tide".
I'm not trying to appear inscrutable here with that poem, but I'm looking at your mini-bio and "see" you as a person who likes to look for light on your own.
Who IS Navin Johnson...?
Personally, I think having religious beliefs works against having "peace in the heart".