Downtown Lama

While blogger Jesse Kornbluth ("Swami Uptown") is on book leave, Beliefnet is featuring a series of guest bloggers in his place. Earlier this month, Lama Surya Das, or "Downtown Lama," as he was known in this blog, contributed his prolific and timeless musings.

The founder and spiritual director of the Dzogchen Foundation in Massachusetts and California, Surya Das is a leading spokesman for Buddhism and contemporary spirituality, as well as a poet, translator, spiritual teacher, and a lama in the Tibetan Buddhist order. He is the author of several books, including the national best-seller "Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Modern World."

Heart to Heart Politics
February 11, 2005 | 12:00 p.m.

This century's politics leave me cold, failing to touch my heart. I was mad and saddened about the outcome of the Florida election four years ago, but I got over it. Like so many, I have been alarmed by our current regime's weapons of mass distraction and its unconscious, uncompassionate conservatism; however, I am trying to take a more long term view. The truth is I feel I can't trust these people, can't seem find much truth-telling amidst all the spin and media, and that our leaders fail to touch my heart.

Decades ago, RFK said that politics is a noble profession, and no one snickered. I doubt we could say the same today. I long for some serious and sincere statesman to step up and lead us, but fear our country is not ready to either recognize or produce such people. It hurt when Wellstone of Minnesota and Tsongas of Massachusetts both met untimely deaths; I truly liked them both. Where will the future leaders of our country come from? Who in their right mind would enter and persevere, surviving in the bitter swamp of our cynical partisan political system long enough to emerge as a real candidate for high office in this country? What if anything are we doing to inculcate wisdom, enlightened leadership and selfless service as a core value in the younger generations today?

Is America a real democracy, an oligarchy or a plutocracy?

On Inauguration Day in January, I know several people--intelligent friends of mine--who were in a state of what they called "active mourning". Getting together to bemoan the state of things, they wondered about what's next, what can be done, how to proceed in a positive way during the next four years, and so forth. I myself have been in a state of reflection during the last period, particularly since I find that introspective quality extraordinarily lacking in politics and world affairs--at least as we have to come to know it.

The State of the Union did nothing to assuage my Inner Depressive. I felt our president to be a genuine zealot in effort to convert the world to our American way of life and consumer democracy, hidden just beneath the oft repeated mantric buzz word freedom. I feel that I can love him as a soul but not as the rough-riding person he pretends to be.

During last year's presidential campaign I was initially interested in Dennis Kucinich and what he had to say. However, after seeing him close up, it was obvious that he was both extraordinary and unelectable. Governor Dean caught my attention--I particularly appreciated the way his team utilized the Internet to mobilize people and raise funds, but I was ultimately willing later to go along with the party and think that Kerry would do a good enough job of it. I still remained skeptical of his chances against the incumbent and all the fierce forces of true believers marshalled again him.

Now I sense a certain despair and feelings of hopelessness and helplessness among those who were disappointed with the election's eventual outcome. But I don't think this setback is a good excuse to give up or give in to the powers that (seem to) be. Thoreau said: "If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment."

These days I am calling for a Heartful Revolution, where we can meet people heart to heart and come together at a local grassroots level to face the challenges we have in our country and our world. I want to start the Heart to Heart Party, and speak heart to heart about what is bothering us, what ails us, and what we together as well as individually might be able to do about it. And not just here in this country, but in the greater world of which we are so much a part. I want to face the despair, hopelessness, and fear that is endemic to our society today. Let us grieve for what we have lost, and move on.

This must be far more than a call for social activism and political action, although that could and eventually should be part of it. Activism is fine, as far as it goes; but I think we need to raise our consciousness and be more aware of what we do and why, and how we do things, and their longtime outcomes and implications, before we haphazardly rush into actions we may deem helpful and even necessary. Many do-gooders throughout history have stirred up more trouble through unconscious actions and mixed motivation.

This is I think the challenge of the authentic activist today; to have the vision to know what to do and how and when to accomplish it, guided by wisdom and inner clarity, and to avoid stirring up more chaos and confusion thru shortsighted quick fix solutions to problems with long historical roots and complex multidimensional origins. Only then, with such wisdom at work, can we accomplish effective spiritual activism--working selflessly for the greatest good and highest purpose, in service of the highest power--however we may understand it.

Ram Dass and Aging
February 11, 2005 | 12:00 p.m.

The other day I was talking about aging and sage-ing with my old friend and mentor Ram Dass--formerly Richard Alkpert, spiritual pioneer, Harvard professor and consciousness explorer. Since his stroke, he's given up the mainland and wants to pursue what Hindus call "the fourth phase of life" here on the island of Maui. Hindu tradition teaches that after studentship, young adulthood, mature parenthood, and community member cum careership, there comes leaving this world and this life behind and giving oneself to God, to the afterlife or lives, eternity--the fourth stage--the age to cap and complete this life and prepare for what comes next.

It seems to us that the AARP model of retirement--cheerful and helpful as it is--errs too much on the side of fighting and resisting aging forever, and pursuing an active leisure retirement career of skiing, travel, and incessant activity. Isn't there anywhere in modern life, even after retirement and on into old age, where we can respectfully and meaningfully consider life's greatest questions and give ourselves to a higher purpose and to the eternal?

Rest is sacred--or so the ancient Indian saying goes. "Lounge and invite the soul", said Whitman.

Although he has been an international peace activist since the Sixties, the community symbol of the Venerable Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village in France is the hammock. This paradox is hard for activists and western intellectuals to comprehend.

We are the elders now; must gather what wisdom we can muster and pass it on to the next generations. We can do that in innumerable ways, great and small, through teaching, parenting, mentoring, volunteering, and being of service wherever and whenever we can--being a benefactor to the young'uns, a beacon in this benighted world, and exemplifying a wiser and kinder way of life.

As for higher education, I say: Treat each child as a prodigy, and they will be.

Buddhist Decision-Making
February 11, 2005 | 12:00 p.m.

I am often asked to make decisions for people, or to advise them. It is much too easy to tell people what to do, but too dumb and useless for me to fall into doing it much. There's no shortage of those around who seem glad to do so, though, thus disempowering others and going out on a limb oneself.

Of course if one is a professional being paid for expert advise, such as a lawyer or accountant, that could be another matter. It is far trickier in the humanistic realm-- spiritual direction, therapy, life skills management counselor, etc. Each of us has to own our own experience, make and live with our choices, and try to do the best we can. The rest is mere commentary.

I prefer to ask people questions, and see if together we can't get to the bottom of things, consider root causes and their consequences--and future implications of different possible decisions and directions--and develop the discernment that can bring wiser, more informed choices, action and understanding. All this is part of the development of wisdom (prajna), one of the most important of the transformative virtues of the Bodhisattva, the awakening spiritual warrior.

One definition of prajna--transcendental wisdom--is "the best knowledge" or "highest wisdom". This is something that we can learn to cultivate & develop--through learning, reflection, meditation and experience-integration. It includes keen discrimination and clarity of purpose. We have to know what we want and where we are trying to go if we have any real hope of achieving anything. Knowing who we are is also most helpful.

Otherwise we are constantly, as the song goes, "Looking for love in all the wrong places." This helps no one and leads nowhere.

Looking into what we want, wish for, and desire is an important part of any decision-making process. We must consider our motivation; "everything depends on motivation" the Dalai Lama often says, echoing ancient Mahayana Buddhist texts on the Bodhisattva's way of life and way of benefitting the world. What we need is also relevant--to be able to honestly know, acknowledge and consider. Then we have some chance of living creatively and proactively, rather than simply reacting semi-consciously (if not entirely unconsciously) to circumstances and conditions. Through cultivating conscious awareness we can choose how and if to respond to what life brings us, not just living in the animal realm of blind instinct and knee-jerk reactions.

One thing we most need to know, when making significant choices and distinguishing between different paths, is what to undertake and adopt and what to abandon. This is often the essential question around choice-making. Being mindful, attentive, and reflective before leaping into action is helpful at most critical junctures. Being decisive has its own power and magnetism, even when we are off the mark. The Buddhist scriptures and some of my own lamas' magnificence and skillful means have taught me that a genuine Bodhisattva should have great plans, elevated vision and vast aspirations. Boldness has its own power and magic, as Goethe famously said.

Enlightened leadership manuals always recommend considering what is the best for the greatest good, and to consider what will be of temporal and ultimate benefit to others and secondarily to oneself. This means being compassionate in one's dealing and decision-making in order to be a virtuous leader or even just a good parent or citizen. It means changing from an orientation of ME to one of WE, as in Mohammed Ali's great short poem, extemporaneously declaimed on request a a Harvard commencement: "You / me/ we." Few have said it better, tauter, or shorter than that.

When the Dalai Lama met privately with President Clinton in Wash. DC in the early Nineties, the lama told the leader:" You are the most powerful man in the world. Every decision you make should be motivated by compassion."

"One cannot exist today as a person--one cannot exist in full consciousness--without having to have a showdown with one's self, without having to define what it is that one lives by, without being clear in one's own mind what matters and what does not matter."

Taking Ourselves Too Seriously
February 11, 2005 | 12:00 p.m.

One day The Dalai Lama was invited to Yale University. That evening, the formal hosts- all -came to get him. After knocking on the Nobel Laureate's door, they were greeted by a man in maroon lama robes wearing a Groucho Marx mask: eyeglasses, nose and moustache. It was His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet himself, having a bit of fun. A jolly lama, indeed.

This is a true story.

I think we often take religion, and ourselves, far too seriously. Life ain't much fun if we take ourselves too seriously, is it? The sacred realm is not meant to be a grim affair full of restriction and brimstone, guilt and penance. Spirit is actually light, lively, luminous, yet uplifting, and joyous-for the most part. Love is the happiest, most ever-youthful, immortal thing there is. The profound incandescence and inner harmony of genuine spirituality is uncorruptibly intact, radiant, subtle, yet vividly present-- ecstatic rather than static. Everything flows, all evolves; nothing remains long.

My mother Joyce Miller in Long Island, who claims to have had once long ago not only Eleanor Roosevelt but also Sam Levinson---the Catskills comic---for schoolteachers, has a great sense of humor, which she must have foisted upon me along with Hebrew School as part of the family religion. For years, Mom has been calling me "my son, the lama", "the Deli Lama", not to mention other kinds of epithets. Of late she has taken to calling herself the Mama Lama. "Where do you think he gets his stuff?" she has been overheard asking her friends. "He was only with those Tibetan gurus for twenty five years, he's been my disciple for fifty." I rest my case.

Get a Transfer

If you are on the Gloomy Line,
Get a transfer.
If you're inclined to fret and pine,
Get a transfer.
Get off the track of doubt and gloom,
Get on the Sunshine Train, -there's room-
Get a transfer.
If you're on the Worry Train,
Get a transfer.
The Cheerful Cars are passing through,
And there's lots of room for you-
Get a transfer.
--Best Loved Poems of the American People

Nelson Mandela, Bodhisattva?
February 10, 2005 | 11:40 a.m.

In these days of bitter partisan politics and a war on terror, which is itself a bit terrifying; I feel greatly inspired by spiritual activists such as Aung San Su Kyii of Burma, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and recent Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya, whom I had the privilege of joining on a September 11 panel at a church in Harvard Square a few years back. These are individuals we could do well to learn more about and hear more from.

Like Nelson Mandela said in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, I think it is incumbent upon all of us today to grapple with and find just solutions for the great issues of our day, which Mandela had to face and fight in his own country of South Africa: the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and depression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want.

Moreover, he affirmed: "We undertake that we too will do what we can to contribute to the renewal of our world so that none should, in future, be described as the wretched of the earth. Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of humanism which the Nobel Peace Prize encapsulates. Let the strivings of us all, prove Martin Luther King Jr to have been correct, when he said that humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war. Let the efforts of us all, prove that he was not a mere dreamer when he spoke of the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace being more precious than diamonds or silver or gold. Let a new age dawn!" (Oslo, December 10, 1993)

More recently, Mandela gave a speech in London's Trafalgar Square:

"I am privileged to be here today at the invitation of The Campaign to Make Poverty History. As you know, I recently formally announced my retirement from public life and should really not be here. However, as long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest."

I think we all must look and see that as long as one quarter of the world goes to bed hungry at night and millions of children die each year from hunger, diarrhea and so on, that we have an obligation not just to kick back and retire to our own peace and comfort here in the Gold Mountain while the world tears itself to pieces in order to survive. (Gold Mountain is what Chinese immigrants of one hundred years ago used to call America, when they came over to build the railroad and find a better life.) Even in our rich country today, poverty-- like illiteracy--continues to plague us, and is the source of a great deal of the violence and crime in our society.

Mandela's ongoing mission to serve the greater welfare and the higher good reminds me of the Bodhisattva ideal of Buddhism, the highest spiritual ideal I know. A Bodhisattva--or awakening spiritual warrior--vows never to give up striving for the betterment of all, on every level--material and spiritual, visible and invisible, in this life and in all future lives. And the inclusive word "all" includes all beings, human, animal and otherwise.

As the Dalai Lama of Tibet, an exemplary selfless Bodhisattva, always prays:
"Only when the limits of space are reached;
Only when the limits oif all sentient beings is reached;
Only when all are free from conflict and negativity
Will my vow have been fulfilled."

That is called the Bodhisattva Vow: to dedicate this life and all possible livs to the betterment and ultimate liberation and enlightenment of all--without leaving even one single being behind.

From the Japanese:
"Sentient beings are numberless; we vow to liberate them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; we vow to transcend them.
Dharma teachings are boundless; vow to master them.
The Wisdom Way of Enlightenment is supreme; we vow to embody it."

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