TruthBook Religious News Blog

Fri, Jul. 18, 2008

By David O'Reilly
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The most famous Buddhist in the world insists he is "nothing special."

"I am just an ordinary human being," the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, said yesterday, one day after his daylong visit to Philadelphia.

Some people think of him "as a living Buddha," he said, and laughed. "Nonsense."

Others revere him as "a god-king."

"Nonsense," he said again, this time leaning his head back as he laughed.

"Then some describe me as a demon, or a wolf with a Buddhist robe. That also I think is nonsense.

"I am just one monk. That is all."

And that was how the 73-year-old Dalai Lama came across in an interview: spiritual, intelligent, extroverted, eager to make a personal connection, and, above all, happy.

He claps you on the shoulder to make a point. He leans forward to listen to a question, looking right into your eyes. He turns serious, then breaks out in a broad smile that just may explode into a belly laugh.

"Talking with people" and engaging with others as "human brothers and sisters" is what makes him happy, the Dalai Lama said, sitting in a chair in his room at the Four Seasons.

And when he hears that his teachings have changed a life and made a person happier, "I feel my life becomes something purposeful."

In person he seems not to have a care in the world.

Yet this man in a simple gold and red robe has carried the troubles of Tibet on his bare shoulders since he was a small boy.

In 1937, when he was just 2, a delegation of senior monks arrived at his parents' farm and pronounced him the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama: head of state for all Tibet and spiritual leader of all the millions of Buddhists in his country as well as Nepal, Mongolia, Bhutan, northern India, and the rest of the high Himalayas.

He might have lived a life of isolation, little known to the outside world, had not Communist China invaded the capital of his mountaintop nation in 1951.

The boy-king was just 16.

After eight years of fruitless accommodation with the Communists, whose troops demolished an estimated 6,000 monasteries in the hope of wiping out Buddhism, he fled on foot in the dead of winter to neighboring Nepal.

Later he moved to the northern India village of Dharamsala, where he and his followers built the monastery complex that serves as his home and headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile.

By force of his personality and spirituality, he as grown from a minor Cold War figure to someone akin to pope of the world's Buddhists, and the face of Eastern spirituality to many in the West.

In 1989 he won the Nobel Peace Prize, and still leads the struggle to regain Tibet's independence from China while circling the globe to lecture on tantric, or Tibetan, Buddhism.

He is "hopeful" and "optimistic" that the world will become a better place in the 21st century, he said, provided people promote the "inner values" of peace and compassion at the heart of Buddhism.

But he does not anticipate the West will turn Buddhist - a prospect that worried Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders.

"I don't think so," the Dalai Lama said. "A few hundred thousand, even a few million," might convert. "But the majority will remain Christian, as it should be."

Some Buddhist practices, such as meditation, "can be used according to your own faith. . . . Already some Christian monks and Christian ministers are practicing Buddhist methods or techniques without changing their religion."

The goal for any human is to "minimize such emotions as fear, hatred," he said, and "try to increase love, compassion with forgiveness."

"On that level, I don't think there's much difference between Eastern or Western religion," he said.

He has turned over much of the administration of the Tibetan government-in-exile over to others, he said, and so is "semiretired" from that duty.

But as for the other two duties of the Dalai Lama - "promotion of human values and promotion of religious harmony . . . till my death I am committed."

Labels: Buddhism, compassion, Dalai Lama, David O'Reilly, forgiveness, love, religion, Tibet

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Friday, July 11, 2008

Dalai Lama tells us to 'reprioritize, revalue'

By Lloyd Steffen
July 9, 2008

Why is the Dalai Lama thought to be important? Fair question.

There have been many spiritual leaders, many different heads of state, even other exiled heads of state, and quite a few Nobel Peace Prize winners -- so why is this man, who describes himself always as ''a simple monk,'' important? Let me suggest three reasons.

First of all, the Dalai is an extraordinary teacher and a gifted communicator. His fame derives from his efforts to stay in constant communication. He is a New York Times best selling author many times over, able to reach wide audiences; he is a lecturer to hundreds of thousands of people across the globe -- a true global citizen; and he is the subject of many films and documentaries, including Martin Scorsese's bio-pic, ''Kundun.'' The Dalai Lama has succeeded in translating central ideas from his Buddhist tradition to people in a way -- and through all kinds of media -- that speaks to their common spiritual needs and longings, regardless of whether they are Buddhist or even religious at all. But he has also taught Buddhism along the way. Much of what many people know about Buddhism comes from their encounter with the Dalai Lama, who has connected with people as only great teachers can, embodying in his life and words a message that speaks to the great questions about life and its meaning.

Second, the Dalai Lama is important because of the specifics of his message. The Dalai Lama reminds us that we are all in the same boat, that suffering is our common condition. He humbly suggests that we are responsible for one another, and that geographic boundaries should be no impediment to our sense of responsibility. We are all connected. And we all want the same thing out of life -- we want happiness. His teaching, then, is designed to illuminate the pathways that might get us to happiness. Learn patience. Show tolerance. Seek wisdom. Forgive. Make love your aim as well as your mode of operation. Offer compassion and help those who are in need. Calm yourselves and seek peace within -- meditate. Bring peace to the world through a life of care and empathy. Shun violence and hatred. Channel anger and overcome fear. Build your life around these values, rejecting the excesses of materialism and the temptations to resolve conflict by resorting to violence. Make kindness your ethic. You cannot be too kind.

These are messages that can be found many places, including the religion of Christianity. What is unusual about the Dalai Lama as teacher is that he has extracted these messages from theological trappings and offered them as wise counsel and living directives to those seeking spiritual enlightenment. This is radical business and the kind of teaching that many Christians find difficult, since in many versions of Christianity the message about what is required to do is subordinated to requirements about belief. The Dalai Lama dissociates the two-- he focuses on the doing, on the requirements of peaceful living and wisdom seeking. He does not force his Tibetan beliefs on those outside his tradition -- when people tell him they don't accept reincarnation he laughs and says, ''How could you? How is that a part of your life?''

And this leads to a third consideration. The Dalai Lama is important because the challenge of his message is this: ''Stop doing business as usual.'' The idea that we can find peace through force of arms or happiness through acquisition is illusory. He urges people to rethink what they want and how to get what they want, and with so much misery and unhappiness in the world, the way to happiness will not come from doing things as we are used to doing them. Reprioritize and revalue, he seems to be saying. Emphasize dialogue, not confrontation. Think about cooperation rather than competition. Think about advancing the interests of others as much as you do advancing your own. Make every encounter with another person the greeting of a new friend. And when you are told this is impractical, remind your skeptic that if we do not reshift to an alternative set of values and refocus our concern to include all others, even the well-being of the planet itself, we imperil our very existence.

The Dalai Lama relates this message from his Buddhist sources -- it is not an alien message for me as a Christian. What I celebrate is that the Dalai Lama has found a way to make this message heard today, even if it is through massive media exposure and paper doll cut out books. The message goes to the hope for human happiness. The message is that business as usual is a well doomed to run dry, and alternative values, an alternative spirituality, will be required to energize peaceful and meaningful life in the days ahead. The Dalai Lama offers an alternative path away form the present unhappiness; he emphasizes a way of living that challenges what most of us value and how most of us live-and that, for me, is why the Dalai Lama stands in a long line of great spiritual teachers; that for me is why the Dalai Lama is so important.

Lloyd Steffen is professor of religion studies and chaplain at Lehigh University.

Labels: Buddhism, China, compassion, Dalai Lama, kindness, Lloyd Steffen, love, Tenzin Gyatso, Tibet

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Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Western medicine meets the meditative tradition

By Paul Scott
Wednesday, May 7, 2008

ROCHESTER, MINN. — The press that followed a recent visit by the Dalai Lama to the Mayo Clinic focused primarily on the spiritual leader's comments about the Chinese crackdown on protest in Tibet. It isn't hard to imagine why. The meeting's contentious international backdrop — a conflict underscored by the sidewalk appearance of a strangely polished crew of 50 or so pro-Chinese demonstrators mounting a lonely crusade to tarnish the cause of Tibetan autonomy — was an easier tale to tell than the less easily digested topic of the daylong event itself.

The oversight was unfortunate, because the case being made during the April 16 colloquium titled "Investigating the Mind-Body Connection: The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation," seems far more destabilizing than the political movement in Tibet.

It's one thing to ponder the irony of a professional-seeming protest in defense of a government that does not allow protest. It's quite another thing to witness the brain trust behind the brand more associated with Western medicine than any other giving forum to the emerging science of mindfulness training, acceptance, positive thinking and compassion. The first cause is about political change. The second is cosmological.

The Buddhist meditative tradition

The Dalai Lama's prescription is that of the Buddhist meditative tradition: selecting and focusing on positive mental states such as compassion, gratitude and joy, while challenging negative mental states such as anger, jealousy, anxiety and a distracted state of being. In practice this means daily meditative practice intent on clearing mental clutter and developing more clarity of attention and moment-by-moment awareness.

The Dalai Lama has long believed that so-called mindfulness meditation has beneficial effects on human health and well-being, and thanks to research conducted by Davidson and others, we now know that the brain and body do indeed change for the better as a result of such practice, and through measurable physiological pathways more complex than had previously been imagined.

Researchers have known for years, for example, that a bilateral brain region known as the prefrontal cortex, or PFC, is involved in developing responses to emotionally laden thoughts, and that the way we respond to the events and thoughts in our lives is often determined by whether the brain draws on the rights side of our PFC or its left. Operating below the level of awareness, the right side of the prefrontal cortex responds to problems with an eye toward punishments and avenues of withdrawal, while the left side processes thoughts which are generally positive and tuned to rewards. Damage the left prefrontal cortex and depression increases; those who tend to preferentially use the left side of their prefrontal cortex tend to get over problems faster than do those who process emotion-laden thoughts from the right. Significant for the discussion of physical health, those who preferentially use the left prefrontal cortex show lower baseline levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

The dangers of chronic frustration

A separate area of research has linked chronic frustration with disruption of your heart-rate variability, which, sustained over time, the body begins to recognize as its baseline state, bringing about an inhibition of the vital bodily calming mechanism that is your parasympathetic nervous system. Feel frustrated long enough and your body ceases to calm itself.

By wiring EEG sensors to the heads of Buddhist monks and those attempting to meditate for the first time, then examining brain activity as expressed on functional MRI images, Davidson and Kabat-Zinn have learned that meditation employs the left prefrontal cortex — some monks he has studied have greater left prefrontal orientation than ever previously observed — and that over time, meditative practice can change the orientation from the right to the left of those who take up the activity. Brain circuitry is not fixed, in other words. To the contrary, said Davidson during a research-based session at Mayo, "the brain is the organ that is built to change in response to training. Happiness, compassion, and clarity of attention are the product of skills, and these skills can be enhanced through mental training."

After hearing the case that meditative mental training can help people stay healthier and recover more quickly from illness, the Mayo audience of 350 or so faculty and staff entered more culturally problematic territory — subject matter that seemed to be talked around as much as it was examined. In short, while medicine is beginning to take seriously the notion that the cultivation of compassion and mindfulness is beneficial for physical health, medicine as practiced today is often antithetical to the very mindfulness and spiritual "present-ness" sought after in meditative practice.

An East-West paradox?

The clinic may have established a "mind-body" Department of Integrative Medicine and gathered with earnest enthusiasm to hear from the top names in mind-body research, but Mayo is nothing if not the face of Western medicine in all its dichotomous cleaving of the spirit from the biology, both in culture and practice. The medical embrace of meditative compassion would seem to face a paradox: The grueling rise to the highest levels of medical specialization does not appear conducive to regular breaks for contemplative meditative practice, nor does the culture of omnipotence, authority and spirit of conquest within medical training seem a smooth fit for the sense of acceptance embodied in Buddhism.

The bad news came in large part from Roshi Joan Halifax, a Zen priest and medical anthropologist whose remarks suggested that embracing the Buddhist prescription will likely require more than stocking the patient information center with brochures on the value of meditation. For example, the Dalai Lama's thoughts on death are clear: "I think the most important thing," according to a Web collection of his sayings, "is to try and do our best to ensure that dying person may depart quietly, with serenity and in a peace." Caregivers of those at the end of life experience high rates of burnout, said Halifax, due to the "moral stress" brought on by the damage done to this peace by conflicting agendas of medicine in the face of death.

"A lot of clinicians feel reluctant to speak openly about the trajectory of an illness," she said, "with death being the end of the road." Halifax described the multipronged source of the physician's moral stress that leads him or her to avoid the dying: interventions which cause pain and suffering, lack of communication about the goals of care, and "the prolonging of dying through technology." While she acknowledged their role in transitory illness, flashing a picture of an iconic string of ICU life preserving tubes and machinery, she said simply, "This is our nightmare, to be put on a respirator."

Cultivating compassion, wisdom in the face of death

Halifax advocated helping physicians and caregivers in "cultivating compassion and wisdom in the presence of death." The ability to "presence pain and suffering without pitying, consoling or denying," said Halifax, requires "a quality of attention that is panoramic, perceptive and nonjudgmental." While meditative practice would seem to develop the skill in question, hanging over her argument was a question that went unasked: How likely are these skills to be developed in medical training, much less the culture and bureaucracy of large medical centers like Mayo? Research may support the benefits of meditative practice for patients, but if they are to care for the dying and gravely ill, physicians would appear to need an extra dose the same medicine. Is the Buddhist tradition even possible within the umbrella of Western medicine?

"Allow yourself to experience that futility," she said when a Mayo doctor from Brazil asked how he should handle his negative emotions that gave rise when watching patients in his homeland die unnecessarily due to a lack of resources. "To be with things as they are. There is still a resource that is there — your presence."

For the Mayo brothers, looking down from nearby oversize vintage photos upon the gathering, this could not have seemed a stranger request for the heirs to their legacy. Nor could the answer given to a similar question a few minutes later — and which had been put to Mattieu Ricard, a French-born monk from Katmandu and a subject of Davidson's EEG experiments on the brain activity of expert level meditation.

"Transform your attitude to the suffering person," said Ricard, who has spent more than 10,000 hours in contemplative meditation. "Let your heart become a mass of brilliant white light, and the suffering becomes dissolved in it."

The nature of compassion and suffering

After a lunch-hour break, the audience stood silently to greet the Dalai Lama, a sometimes impish figure who held forth bare-armed and robed from an armchair in the center of the stage. Answering questions put to him by Goleman and later the audience, the Dalai Lama alternated from English to long statements toward his interpreter, presumably in Tibetic, touching on the nature of compassion and suffering and its intersection with medical care. He rambled at times in a way that indicated no worries about social pressures like staying on message, making easily digestible bullet points, winning over his audience — and yet winning over his audience regardless.

He explained his position that the human dilemma is one whereby anger and attachment — while useful if a transitory emotion in species throughout the animal kingdom — are given undue extension by the human skill for imagination, with negative results.

"This is where the problems arise," he said. "Because of this, we need a special effort to increase our affection."

He called compassion "an immune system for the toxins of the mind." He also, early in his remarks, slipped in mention of the problem at hand, a statement that sparked no shortage of nervous laughter in the highly credentialed crowd.

"In Tibet we have a saying," he said. "The physician is a great scholar, but his medicine is not effective because his heart is not that good."

Paul Scott is a freelance writer based in Rochester.

Labels: Dalai Lama, Mayo Clinic, medicine, meditation, Mind and Life Institute, mind-body connection, Paul Scott, stress

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Dalai Lama: Lessons of Buddhism as applied to medicine

By JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY, Star Tribune

Last update: April 16, 2008

(Page 1 of 2. Click on external link for complete article)

He admits his mind is scattered by the events of the last month and he's worried. But despite the Dalai Lama's troubled feelings about turmoil between his native Tibet and China, he is sleeping well.

Abiding by Buddhism's teachings has helped him maintain peace and compassion in the face of life's trials, the Dalai Lama told 400 doctors and nurses Wednesday at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

"If there is no solution, why worry?" he replied when asked how he maintains his good cheer and optimism in the midst of life's trials. "If there is a solution, why worry?"

The Dalai Lama was in Rochester for his annual check-up at the Mayo Clinic. But in the afternoon, he spoke with the clinic's doctors and nurses about compassion, and his concern that health care workers can be emotionally exhausted by dealing with the pain of others day after day.

The crowd stood in respectful silence as he entered a conference room at the world-renowned clinic and made his way to the stage. He and a group of monks stood out in their brilliant red and yellow robes, like birds of paradise amidst a Minnesota crowd wearing dark suits and sensible pants. In a nearby hotel, 300 Tibetans gathered to watch by video link.

The crowd at the clinic listened intently as he began a philosophical discussion about compassion and trust, and how to apply the lessons of Buddhism to modern western medicine.

To many in the room, he represented two worlds. The Dalai Lama is believed by Tibetans to be a manifestation of the Buddha of Compassion, who chose to be reincarnated to serve human beings. In that role, he is a spokesman for the compassionate and peaceful resolution of human conflict.

But he is also a great student of science and has supported western researchers studying the power of the mind in relation to illness and healing.

"This is part of the future of medicine," said Dr. Doris Taylor, a stem cell researcher specializing in cardiac medicine at the University of Minnesota. "We are beginning to have a scientific understanding of this. I couldn't not be here."

"We see so many patients that we can only get to a certain point in healing," said Dr. Tim Johnson, director of Mayo's Austin clinic. "That mind-body spiritual connection is often something that is missing in our patients and ourselves. But it's important in their health and well-being."

Tough compassion

"What do you see as the role of compassion in medicine?" asked Daniel Goleman, a psychologist who writes about the brain and emotion, and who led the discussion.

The Dalai Lama scratched his nose for a minute while pondering the question.

"One time in Japan, a doctor asked me about trust between patients and doctors," he said. "Trust is very important. Then he asked me how to develop trust. I don't know. But the key thing is the doctor's sense of concern. His sense of commitment, his sense of responsibility with affection. Genuine affection for the patient. That is the basis of trust." Trust, he noted, needs to be mixed with compassion.

But he also urged what Goleman said might best be described by the phrase "tough love." Compassion, the Dalai Lama said, doesn't mean pity or pure empathy. Sometimes, nurses just have to be stern with difficult patients, he added.

Goleman asked how Buddhist practices could reduce emotional stress for health care workers.

"Joy," replied the Dalai Lama -- joy in the pursuit of work is very important, particularly in health care. "You are directly involved in relieving the suffering of the person in front of you," he said. "Recognizing the value of that will sustain your joy in your work."

But equally important, he said, is that each of us aspire to our own happiness, that on a fundamental level we care for ourselves.

Labels: compassion, Dalai Lama, Josephine Marcotty, medicine, Richard Tsong-Taatarii

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Monday, April 07, 2008

The Dalai Lama's Appeal Transcends Religion, Politics

April 5, 2008

Star Power

By JANET I. TU
The Seattle Times

SEATTLE | On his first visit to Seattle 30 years ago, the Dalai Lama drew a couple of thousand people. On his second, the crowds totaled more than 10,000.

The Dalai Lama's popularity - here and worldwide - reflects his rise during the past half century from a relatively obscure spiritual and political leader to a prominent global figure with transcendent star power.

SPREADING FAME

The Dalai Lama's increased prominence in recent decades can be attributed to several factors - including the spread of Buddhism worldwide, his Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the many books written by or about him, movies and stories on Tibet, and his own charisma.

He draws people as an ethical leader, rather than strictly as a religious leader, said Paul Ingram, professor emeritus of the history of religion at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. "They see him as a very gentle spirit whose values don't contradict their own."

The current - 14th - Dalai Lama, named Tenzin Gyatso, was born in Tibet in 1935 and, according to Tibetan tradition, was recognized at age 2 as the reincarnation of his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama.

'ENLIGHTENED BEING'

He is considered to be a manifestation of the bodhisattva of compassion. A bodhisattva is an enlightened being who chooses to remain in this world to serve others.

For centuries, Tibet and China have had a complex relationship. Many times in history, Tibetans have acknowledged the Chinese emperor as a kind of overlord, while administering their own affairs with almost no interference, said Stevan Harrell, a University of Washington anthropology professor specializing in China and ethnic relations.

Their language, culture, religion and political systems were completely separate from those of China, Harrell said.

In 1950, Chinese Communist troops invaded Tibet and established direct control, but allowed the Dalai Lama to remain as spiritual leader.

In 1959, after an unsuccessful Tibetan revolt and subsequent crackdown by the Chinese government, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet with about 85,000 followers. They eventually established the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India.

While the Chinese government has improved schooling, health care and infrastructure in Tibet, Harrell said, it has also placed enormous restrictions on the practice of religion, which is immensely important to most Tibetans.

CURRENT UPROAR

Perhaps causing the most resentment over the past decade, he said, is the Chinese government's requirement that monks undergo "political education," which includes renouncing the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama has characterized what is happening in Tibet as cultural genocide. But he did not call for the protests, Thurman said, and he remains open to talking with Chinese leaders.

Tenzin Wangyal, a lab assistant in Seattle who is Tibetan, says he disapproves of violent protests, and that the Dalai Lama's approach is noble. But "we're also tired of not seeing any results from this" - especially from the Chinese side, he said.

Labels: Buddhism, China, Dalai Lama, ethics, Janet I. Tu, Tibet

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Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Dalai Lama: Feeling Of Peace

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 20:47
By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor

The Honolulu Advertiser WAILUKU, Maui —

Even before the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso appeared on stage yesterday at War Memorial Stadium, his message of peace and compassion permeated through the crowd, estimated at more than 10,000."You get that vibe that everyone's together," said Mike Serro, 27, of Brooklyn, N.Y., as he wandered around the booths selling food and Tibetan crafts with Jen Bino, 25, of Toronto.

"I'm just thinking how lucky I am that he's here right now. It's amazing," Bino said about the Dalai Lama's first visit to Maui.

Wailuku resident Tina Del Dotto said she's not a Buddhist and never studied Buddhism, but felt a need to experience the occasion. "If there was going to be an opportunity to be with people of Maui who have a heart of peace and kindness in this world of turmoil, I want to feel that Maui energy and the peace," said Del Dotto, 55.

The 71-year-old spiritual leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of the best-selling "The Art of Happiness" fled into exile in India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese communist rule in Tibet. He continues to negotiate with the Chinese government over maintaining some degree of self-rule and cultural autonomy for Tibet.

A group of kumu hula from four islands yesterday welcomed the Dalai Lama with a series of oli and lei offerings, followed by a performance by Halau Hula Wehiwehi O Leilehua. The guest of honor noted with a chuckle that the women's Hawaiian garb resembled the robes worn by Buddhist nuns.

He was quick to laugh throughout his hour-plus talk, titled "The Human Approach to World Peace," enchanting the crowd with his humor and humble demeanor.

The Dalai Lama said religion may not be essential to a happy life, but that respect for basic human values is.

Many people consider love and compassion as a religious matter and not important in daily life, the Tibetan leader said. "That's totally wrong, he said." In fact, in a busy world, love and compassion are even more critical than ever, he said.

Just as we choose the right foods that are good for our bodies, we should make proper choices from our "supermarket of emotions" for the good of our mental health, he said, avoiding hatred, jealousy, envy and anger.

Labels: Buddhism, Christie Wilson, compassion, Dalai Lama, love, values