TruthBook Religious News Blog

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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Saturday, January 19, 2008

The spiritual legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

January 19, 2008

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, mandated by federal law to fall on the third Monday in January, is the least celebrated federal holiday.

The King holiday was born in controversy and took 15 years to become law; it faced stiff opposition from national leaders. President Reagan opposed the measure and finally relented and signed the bill creating the holiday in 1986 after perceiving that his veto would be overridden.

One of the leaders of the opposition, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, continued to express outrage over the bill, declaring that King had been a racial agitator and Communist sympathizer.

The opposition to the holiday usually today is put in terms of cost, about 8 billion dollars in lost revenues.

But nonunionized businesses generally do not observe the holiday, and as commentator Earl Hutchinson has put the matter, the biggest reason for nonobservance of the holiday is ''the still widespread public perception that the King holiday is a holiday exclusively of, by, and for blacks.''

The King holiday provides us with a moment to reflect on the spiritual state of our nation, to recall the terrible legacy of slavery and racism, and to reflect on King's call for peace and justice.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister with a Boston University Ph.D. in systematic theology, is remembered as the undisputed leader of the American civil rights movement.

He pushed hard at the forces in American life that were oppressing the poor and marginalized -- racial discrimination, economic injustice and war.

Inspired by Thoreau, Gandhi and Jesus, he became an inspirational leader known for oratorical wizardry, and his commitment to nonviolence earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.

But King was mired in controversy and opposition all the time. Not only did he receive daily death threats for his civil rights work -- he was stabbed in Harlem at a book signing in 1958 -- but even fellow civil rights leaders objected to his outspoken opposition to what he called America's ''imperialist war'' in Vietnam. Many of King's supporters saw this opposition as a betrayal of Lyndon Johnson and his administration, which had done more for African Americans than any administration before or since.

I was recently in Atlanta and wanted very much to take some time to visit the King Center near the old Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King had preached, and where King's mother, some years after King's death, had been shot and killed while playing the organ one Sunday morning. A museum with continuous film loops and mementos of King's life are there, a souvenir-bookstore shop, and the tombs of King and his wife, Coretta Scott King.

As I contemplate the life and legacy of King this January, I recall that visit. I am remembering that at my hotel, when I asked how to get to the King Center, I was told, ''You don't want to walk in that neighborhood. Take a cab.'' When I went east on Auburn Avenue I noted that a huge highway overpass cut right through the center of the community there, something that reminded me of similar dislocations of communities I had seen in the old District 6 in Cape Town, and have even heard about in Allentown, where the Martin Luther King Drive is today.

Those who study environmental racism often make note of public works projects that cut through neighborhoods where people lack the power to oppose them. The office of the Southern Christian Leadership Office is on Auburn Avenue, but nearby are low-income housing projects and small businesses looking a bit run down.

Metal protection screens were on some windows. The reputation of this part of town I had received from my hotel concierge, and I am realizing how close this part of town was to the upscale hotel where I had been attending a Christian ethics conference -- a 20 minute walk.

King would have been 79 on Jan. 15. Were King alive today, I suspect he would be working on the same issues even in his old neighborhood. The problems of racism and discrimination are still with us.

Although the Voting Rights Act brought a major shift in American political and social life, and King worked for it tirelessly, he would no doubt be commenting on the million African American males in jails and prisons today, many of whom lose their voting privileges by conviction.

Would King be talking about the subtle disenfranchisement of blacks today, noting that the civil rights movement never got into our prisons? And would he be focusing attention on America's public schools, where the divide between rich and poor, black and white, is as pronounced today as it was in his lifetime?

And war? There is no question that King would stand in opposition to the Iraq war, having foreseen the tragic loss of life and a waste of treasure that cripples opportunity for many.

It is surprising that America chose to honor so critical a spiritual leader with a national holiday. That it did so, however, provides all of us with an occasion to reflect about who we are and what we value. For we do what we value; and among the painful things we must confront is our tendency to resort to violence to solve problems.

America today uses war as an instrument of foreign policy; incarceration and execution are responses to crime; and meantime we do not provide health coverage to 45 million citizens, and 36 million Americans live below the poverty line.

The true legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. is that he would not let us forget that what we value we do, and we have need to be reflective about the meaning of what we are doing.

The King holiday, born in controversy, should continue to be controversial if we are to do honor to the man it remembers. May this King holiday be a time for us to connect ourselves to King's call for racial, social and economic justice.

May we remember his life as it stands before all of us as a challenge to do better than we are doing.

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

Labels: African-Americans, contoversy, justice, legacy, Lloyd Steffen, Martin Luther King Jr., racism, slavery