{"id":2684,"date":"2012-10-14T15:31:59","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T19:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/?p=2684"},"modified":"2012-10-14T15:31:59","modified_gmt":"2012-10-14T19:31:59","slug":"his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-answers-questions-from-prayer-to-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2012\/10\/his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-answers-questions-from-prayer-to-dying.html","title":{"rendered":"His Holiness the Dalai Lama Answers Questions from Prayer to Dying"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>On Saturday, 13 October, His Holiness (H. H.) gave a thirty minute talk at Middlebury College as part of his Cultivating Hope, Wisdom, and Compassion tour.<\/a>\u00a0His simple message, there is “one humanity.”<\/p>\n

He then sat down, put on his red visor and answered questions for an hour. These questions ranged over\u00a0prayer, ideology, hospice, spirituality in a material world, and tourism in Tibet.<\/p>\n

I was particularly intrigued by his response to the efficacy of prayer. He told the audience that prayer is something you do to make yourself feel good, not to achieve desired results. Only action can bring results he chided with his infectious laughter. He told a story of two Indian politicians who beseeched his prayers before an election. How absurd, H.H. mused. One of them was bound to feel disappointed and blame him.<\/p>\n

He told another story of a chief minister in Bodhgaya India, the place where the Buddha became awake and the most important of Buddhist pilgrimage sites. Bodhgaya is located in Bihar, the poorest state in India. They were dedicating a new temple and the minister was confident the Dalai Lama’s blessings would bring prosperity to Bihar. HH laughed again. “Really?” he thought. If Buddhist blessings brought prosperity, Bihar would have been prosperous since 2500 years ago. Only action brings prosperity. A refreshing perspective from a religious leader. One you won’t find duplicated by many others.<\/p>\n

Another uproarious anecdote came in response to the question of how to live a meaningful spiritual life in our materialistic culture. He was on tour and was the guest in someone’s home. Sounded more like a mansion of some kind. In the guest bathroom, he noticed the medicine cabinet ajar. He confessed, with an impish playfulness, that he peaked inside the cabinet to find sleeping pills and tranquilizers. To paraphrase, “these people were wealthy but they needed tranquilizers to sleep.” H. H. reported that he sleeps quite well without the aid of tranquilizers. He was telling us to do make our spiritual efforts in the context of the material world and to not look for the material world to bring happiness.<\/p>\n

As with his talk, laughter and self-effacing humor were the vehicles for communicating what was most important. If you’ve never seen The Dalai Lama and have a chance to catch him in his tour, it might be worth your while. You can see his tour schedule here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, 13 October, His Holiness (H. H.) gave a thirty minute talk at Middlebury College as part of his Cultivating Hope, Wisdom, and Compassion tour.\u00a0His simple message, there is “one humanity.” He then sat down, put on his red visor and answered questions for an hour. These questions ranged over\u00a0prayer, ideology, hospice, spirituality in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,4,15,14,10,11],"tags":[557,563,268,564,554,556],"class_list":["post-2684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddha-101","category-buddha-beat","category-media","category-recommended","category-spider-mind-world-of-interconnections","category-teachers-and-talks","tag-and-compassion","tag-cultivating","tag-his-holiness-the-dalai-lama","tag-hope","tag-middlebury-college","tag-wisdom"],"yoast_head":"\nHis Holiness the Dalai Lama Answers Questions from Prayer to Dying - Mindfulness Matters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2012\/10\/his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-answers-questions-from-prayer-to-dying.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"His Holiness the Dalai Lama Answers Questions from Prayer to Dying - Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Saturday, 13 October, His Holiness (H. H.) gave a thirty minute talk at Middlebury College as part of his Cultivating Hope, Wisdom, and Compassion tour.\u00a0His simple message, there is “one humanity.” He then sat down, put on his red visor and answered questions for an hour. 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Dr. Kozak's ability to translate ancient healing traditions into pragmatic applications suitable for modern lifestyles through the use of metaphors have made him a strong voice in healthcare and business. Beginning with a journey to India in the 80\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where he took the Bodhisattva vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arnie Dr. Kozak began his lifelong practice in mindfulness meditation. Intent on finding a way to bring the practical healing attributes of mindfulness he began incorporating these techniques in his private practice. In 2002 Dr. Kozak created Exquisite Mind in Burlington, Vermont as a vehicle that could expand his wisdom to larger audiences beyond individual psychotherapy to professionals and corporations, health care providers, public groups and, most recently with Exquisite Mind Golf, amateur and professional golfers. His award-winning new book, Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness (Wisdom Publications, 2009) is a thoughtful, funny, and inspiring translation of mindfulness practice through the inventive use of metaphor applicable to our daily lives. In addition to his work with Exquisite Mind, Arnie Kozak, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist\u00e2\u20ac\u201dDoctorate has been a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Vermont and is a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Medicine, University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has studied and practiced clinical psychology, meditation, and yoga for more than 25 years. He has studied with several meditation masters, including S. N. Goenka, Larry Rosenberg, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After receiving his bachelors degree with honors from Tufts University, he was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to get his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University at Buffalo. He completed his training as a Psychological Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. Prior to founding the Exquisite Mind in 2002, Arnie worked ten years in the private sector for the PKC Corporation consulting on mental health content for this revolutionary software company.","sameAs":["http:\/\/exquisitemind.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/author\/akozak"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2684"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2689,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684\/revisions\/2689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}