The Dalai Lama's Talk

Photo from Herald Times

The Dalai Lama talked about compassion. Having affection for others is the seed of compassion, is kind-heartedness, which can lead to compassion for all. Kind-heartedness comes from self-confidence, which comes from honesty, and truthfulness, and justice. You don’t lie to people; you live your life openly and kind-heartedly. You can’t be self-confident if you lie; you’d always be worried about the lie instead of living openly. We have affection for those who have affection for us. Compassion is when you have compassion for all, without regard to how they feel toward you. Forgiveness is letting go of the negative feelings associated with an event, not forgetting what happened. If you forgot what happened when you forgave someone, it would be really easy to forgive – you wouldn’t remember. You remember and still let the negative feelings go. Compassion for others also does not mean that you don’t take action. You have compassion toward the person, and at the same time take action to correct injustice.

Affection comes from being loved as a child. That love provides a base for compassion to develop, and also provides the base for a better life. He talked about early childhood brain research, that those who have a connection with caregivers develop more quickly. All sentient beings are capable of affection. He talked about cats responding to affection and stroking, how animals respond and humans respond. It’s wired into us. We need it. We need that affection. Kind-heartedness does not seem to be taught now, though. Teaching is specialized, but it needs to be more holistic. Teachers need to teach kind-heartedness and affection to their students. They can do this by teaching from a place of affection and kind-heartedness, teaching the next generation kind-heartedness and affection, so they can develop this.

We need to do this because everything is interconnected. There needs to be a more holistic way of looking at things. An event that happens on the other side of the world isn’t something we can ignore; it affects us all. The environment is interconnected. Deforestation has affected the climate. We have to look at the world as one place, as a whole. There’s no way for war now to have a winner and loser; things are too interconnected. When we hurt others, we are hurting ourselves. Technology can be good and bad. It can be used to hurt people and help them. All people want the same things. We are all like each other.

The world is getting better. He gave examples of the Berlin wall – how he had visited East Germany and felt that there was fear there. After the wall fell, the fear was now gone. This is an improvement. All the people questioning their government’s policies on war – before people would have accepted this and gone off to war without question. People aren’t willing to just accept anymore. The fact that people question, and protest is a sign that humanity is improving. He said that his century, the 20th century, had gone, and that it would be known as a century of bloodshed. The 21st century, though, even though it had started out badly, could change this. It could be a century of dialogue, of compromise.

This is only a brief overview, of what I remember. I loved listening to his voice, to the sort of singsong cadence it developed at times. And his joking around and laughing. He came on stage, sort of fidgeted in the big chair placed there for him, and then said he would start by getting comfortable. So he took off his shoes, put his feet up, cross-legged in the chair, and then pulled out a visor and put it on. Everyone laughed. He said now he could see better. He looked around, at the people sitting all the way up in the seats at the top. He said it looked like heaven, and if you feel out of heaven, now that could be a disaster, and laughed. And we all laughed. When he talked about animals able to feel affection, he said he liked cats; they were clean. Then he said, dogs, well, dogs, and held his nose, they can smell. People cracked up.

He talked about how he was raised with such affection and honesty that he was cautioned later, by his friends, that he might be easily deceived because he expected people to tell the truth. He also told the story of a monk, a friend of his who did not leave Tibet when the Dalai Lama did. His friend, this monk, spent 18 years in a Chinese prison camp. He was able to leave the country later. The Dalai Lama was asking him about that time, and he said he had been in danger several times. The Dalai Lama asked him about the danger, and he said he had been in danger of losing compassion for his Chinese captors.

It was just an amazing experience, to be in the same room with someone who is wholly alive and open. He seems to just shine, but at the same time, to be such a normal, down-to-earth person. He answered some questions that had been submitted, that were read by the man on stage with him, helping interpret if necessary. He answered the different questions just so matter of factly and sometimes humorously. Someone asked what he thought about the disagreement over the next Dali Lama. He said the Tibetan people needed to decide, and if this was something that as outdated, then, well, he would be the last – not the best Dalai Lama, but not the worst, either. One person explained that he lived in a community where people were narrow-minded, and how could he get people to understand about the Dalai Lama and the situation in Tibet. The Dalai Lama said in they seemed interested, to talk to them, but wait until they were in a good mood. If they weren’t interested, then don’t do it. Some of the questions dealt with the state of the world today, and that’s when he talked about how he felt the world was getting better. At the end, he asked for the next question, and the guy with him said that had been the last one, so he said, oh. And said to the audience, Thank you, sort of waved, and then bent down to put on his shoes.

He gave the President of IU, who introduced him, a long white scarf. At the end, when he was finished and had put his shoes back on, he was motioning to someone to bring him something. He called the two interpreters, a man and a woman, who had been translating his speech to sign language, up on the stage and gave them the same scarves. He took each of their hands as he draped the scarf around their neck. He was still holding the woman’s hand when she turned to go back down the stairs, almost like she was pulling away. I’m not sure what that was about - maybe a bit freaked out about being on stage in front of all those people, clapping. I thought it was cool that these people got the same honor as the IU President.