THE NEW MANDALA

Eastern Wisdom for Western Living

by Rev. John Lundin

with His Holiness the Dalai Lama

HelixPublishing.com

Copyright© 2001 by John W. Lundin All rights reserved. This manuscript, or parts thereof, may not

be reproduced in any form without permission.

THE NEW MANDALA

Eastern Wisdom for Western Living

by Rev. John Lundin

with His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The New Mandala , Eastern Wisdom for Western Living, is a journey toward spiritual awakening and rediscovery. On one level it is an engaging and entertaining journal of a Christian clergyman’s quest for enlightenment. On another level it is a road map for the reader’s own spiritual journey.

Written in collaboration with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The New Mandala is a guide for all who are on the journey of life, and who desire a movement away from the constructed boundaries in their lives toward the divine energy of their center. It is an invitation to the readers to explore the wisdom and practice of an ancient new tradition, while at the same time illuminating and reclaiming the inherited faith of their formation.

The author, an American Protestant minister, speaks to all who are walking the same path he is on - the path toward a deeper spirituality. With his feet firmly planted in the Christianity of his faith tradition, Rev. John Lundin enters into the world of Tibetan Buddhism in search of a new spirituality. The quest takes him - and the reader - on a journey to Dharamsala in north India, the home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet. In private dialogues with His Holiness, the author discovers the empowering affinity between Buddhism and Christianity. Reverend Lundin weaves the personal experiences of his own pilgrimage with the wisdom and teaching of the Dalai Lama himself.

This simple, easy-to-read glimpse at the heart of Buddhism offers seekers from the West a structure and a practical guide to meditation and spiritual practice that can become an integral part of their own faith. The Middle Way that the Buddha taught, and which Reverend Lundin and the Dalai Lama present to the reader in a clear and accessible manner, can become the way for anyone - Christian, Jew, even the non-believer - to grow spiritually.

The New Mandala is an opportunity for discovery and a valuable guide for everyone who wishes to travel from here to there, for anyone who wishes to make the ultimate pilgrimage toward becoming fully human.

The New Mandala has been written in twelve brief chapters that allow the reader

to explore each new topic and then to reflect upon it before moving to the next. Each chapter begins with an issue drawn from the author's spiritual questioning, then expands on the topic with illustrations drawn from his Dharamsala experiences, and ends with a challenge to the reader to relate the teaching to his or her own personal life experience. The entire book is intended to be experiential, and includes a practical guide to meditation and daily spiritual practice. The New Mandala is an engaging and entertaining sharing of the author’s journey of discovery that becomes, in the end, the reader’s journey - an invitation to enter into the metaphorical spiritual path of the Mandala.

Rev. John Lundin with His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Dharamsala, India – August 2000

The Author

Rev. John Lundin earned his Master of Divinity degree from Chicago Theological

Seminary at the University of Chicago and was ordained by the United Church of Christ.

(U.C.C.) He served as a parish minister, hospital chaplain and pastoral counselor on the

south side of Chicago before making his journey to Dharamsala. Rev. Lundin is retired

from the ministry and is now an environmental activist and clean energy advocate. He

also teaches classes and workshops and leads retreats focusing on world religions, cross-

cultural spirituality and meditation. He currently lives in the Lake Tahoe area of the

Sierra Nevada.

Acknowledgments A special thank you is offered to Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of

Tibet, without whose support this book would not have been possible, and to the Office

of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Tenzin Geyche Tethong, Secretary to Hs Holiness,

who facilitated the Dalai Lama’s participation. Additional thanks to the Library of

Tibetan Works and Archives for transcripts of His Holiness’ teachings, some of which

are included in this book and used with permission. The author also gratefully

acknowledges the assistance and support of the Dalai Lama’s sister, Ama Jetsun Pema

and the staff of the Tibetan Children’s Village, as well as the entire Central Tibetan

Administration, in particular Tempa Tsering, Secretary of the Department of Information

and International Relations and Tenzin Topgyal, Deputy Secretary of Religion and

Culture.

THE NEW MANDALA

Eastern Wisdom for Western Living

by Rev. John Lundin

with His Holiness the Dalai Lama

CONTENTS

1. The New Mandala 1

2. Who Are You and Where Are You Going? 12

3. Venturing Forth 30

4. The Four Noble Truths 46

5. The Middle Way 59

6. The Illusions of Emptiness 73

7. The Reality of God 88

8. Resurrection and Rebirth 109

9. Meditation and Contemplation 122

10. Taming Your Monkey Mind 144

11. Cultivating Compassion 163

12. Spiritual Exercises 179

1

Chapter 1

The New Mandala

I, an ordinary monk in the lineage of Buddha Shakyamuni, humbly urge you to make efforts in spiritual practice. Examine the nature of your mind and cultivate its development. Take into account your welfare in this and future existences, and develop competence in the methods that produce happiness here and hereafter. Our lives are impermanent and so are the holy teachings. We should cultivate our practice carefully.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama “This is the path to the domain of the Deity.”

The smiling monk speaks even as he concentrates on the Mandala, gently tapping

the narrow silver flute to add a few more grains of colored sand to the lotus-blossom

border that is taking shape around the geometric design.

“But the path exists only in the mind. Each time a new spiritual journey is

initiated the path must be constructed anew - one grain of sand at a time. And the path is

never the same as the last one - always new, always changing, always impermanent.”

Tap. Tap. Tap. Each grain of sand falls into its place, exactly as the monk’s

mind’s eye recalls the intricate pattern.

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“Once the journey is initiated, the path is dissolved, returned to the stream from

which it came, to flow back into the sea from which we all come. There it rests,

indistinguishable from all other sand that is the earth, until one day it is reborn again as a

new path, for a new journey about to be initiated.”

Tenzin shifts position and adjusts his burgundy robe. Cross-legged on his saffron

cushion he leans forward and peers intently into the Mandala. “It is like the kingdom of

the Deity - with chambers and hallways, places to discover, places to get lost - but it is

only represented in the sand. In reality, it is only ever discovered in the mind.”

I had often appreciated the sand Mandala as a beautiful and intriguing expression

of Tibetan art and culture, but now I was entering into it at a deeper level. The oddly

intersecting patterns constructed in the colored sand were beginning to resonate with the

seemingly coincidental intersections of events in my own life. Even as the various paths

and spaces in the Mandala all eventually lead to the center, so, too, were the various paths

and spaces in my life becoming more integrated and drawing me toward my own center.

Whether constructed as a path of sand within this Buddhist temple of the Dalai Lama, or

illuminated in the rose window of Chartres Cathedral in France, or inscribed as a

labyrinth on the floor of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, the Mandala circle has

historically been an archetype of wholeness, a sacred space and form that transcends

religion and touches the spirit in a manner that calls one into the calm depths of the soul.

Tenzin turned toward me and smiled. “John-la, this is your path. This particular

Mandala is a representation of the domain of Yamantaka, protector deity of wisdom who

personifies the triumph of wisdom over ignorance, suffering and death. But it also

represents the interconnectedness of all things, the entire universe, what you would call

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creation. And finally, John-la, it’s a way of understanding your journey, a map of your

self, a path leading inward, away from the borders you have imposed upon yourself and

toward the energy of your own center.”

He handed me the silver flute. “It’s your turn. Tap it gently and add your part to

the whole. Be careful not to disturb the rest of the sand. Go ahead, give it a try.”

The sand Mandala had been painstakingly constructed over ten days so far, and

was the most detailed I had ever seen. I was in awe and visibly nervous as I leaned over

the magnificent creation and ever so gently tapped a few grains of colored sand into a

small chocolate-chip shaped mound next to a hundred other mounds like it. The final

border was being completed, and now my small effort was a part of it. Tenzin was right,

I felt connected to the whole. I knew I had been blessed and honored with this

opportunity to participate, and I returned the flute of sand to Tenzin with a broad smile of

my own. Then I sat on the cushion and gazed silently into this path of life with wonder.

I pictured myself as any one of the solitary grains of colored sand in the pattern

before me. Where was I in my life’s journey? Was I in that bright orange high point

over there, or in the dark blue box of walls to the right? Was I on the twisting, turning

path that led toward the center, or was I wandering among the lotus blossoms at the

fringe? And I couldn’t help reflecting on the maze of twists and turns, peaks and valleys,

dead ends and new beginnings that had brought me to this unique place and time. Here I

am in Dharamsala, perched on a promontory of the Himalayas with all of India spread

below me, sitting crossed-legged before this new Mandala in the temple of the Dalai

Lama, a Christian minister entering into the meditation of the Buddhist monks and

contemplating my life’s journey.

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And life is a journey. Allowing myself to enter into the Mandala, I am reminded

that the real journey of life - the real twists and turns, peaks and valleys, dead ends and

new beginnings - is an inward journey, or, in Tenzin’s words, “a path leading inward,

away from the borders you have imposed upon yourself and toward the energy of your

own center.” I recall the words of Thomas Merton, the Christian monk who wrote in his

journal while visiting this same holy ground some twenty-five years earlier: “Our real

journey in life is interior: it is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater

surrender to the action of love and grace in our hearts.” I am on that journey. Thomas

Merton was on that journey. You are on that journey.

As my mind’s eye wanders the colorful maze of the sand Mandala, I am

fascinated by the intersections that have colored my spiritual journey. I am reminded that

I am a pilgrim on a long and broad path, a path that has intersected that of Thomas

Merton, of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet, and even the path that you are on. You

and I are sharing this path with everyone who has ever questioned the meaning of life and

pondered his or her place in the great scheme of things. This new Mandala, this path to

the domain of the Deity, this collection of myriad grains of sand has become for me a

poignant meditation on connectedness. I am orienting myself in relation to all those who

have ever traveled the path before me, those who will travel the path after me, and

perhaps most importantly, those who are on the journey of life alongside me this day.

For me, spirituality has become a matter of relationships: my relationship with my

self, with others, with the Divine, and with the divine creation. To grow in one’s

spirituality is to grow and become more mature in each of these four relationships.

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Examining the myriad patterns in the Mandala, I am meditating upon my place in relation

to my center, my interconnectedness, and my boundaries.

This book is my meditation, and it has been written for you. You are my traveling

companion on the journey to the domain of the divine. I know you. You may be my son

or daughter, my mother or father, my wife or my ex-wife. You may be the checker in the

grocery store I shopped at yesterday, or you may be the parishioner I greeted in church on

Sunday. Perhaps I visited you in the hospital or in prison, or you may have visited me in

my office for counseling. You may have been a student in one of my classes. More

probably you are someone I have never encountered in person on my journey, but

nonetheless - I know you. We share the same long and broad path on the Mandala of life.

We have the same hopes and fears; we have shared many of the same joys and concerns.

And, most important, we are seeking answers to many of the same questions.

I rise from my cushion and bow with my palms together in a gesture of

thanksgiving toward my host and teacher, the venerable Tenzin. As I step out into the

morning light I face the Dalai Lama’s residence across the square and again recall a

journal entry of Thomas Merton. He noted that all of Dharamsala, with its stupas and

shrines, its residences of monks and rinpoches, its collection of monasteries and temples,

and its meandering paths reminded him of the Mandala itself, with the Dalai Lama in a

sort of center, a “central presence...a fully awake Buddha.” I share that feeling in this

moment.

The sun is just rising above the peaks of the Himalayas as I walk the path that

rings His Holiness’ compound, joining the faithful who daily circumambulate this living

shrine counting their mantras with their prayer beads. This has become my daily prayer

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walk as well. At the south end of the circuit is an elaborate stupa adorned with thousands

of brightly-colored prayer flags, offering their prayers of the people to the Buddhas with

every breath of the wind. As I look out over the vista of India far below from this finger

of land that is Dharamsala, I am approached by a young lady whose British accent

intones, “Excuse me...aren’t you the priest who’s also a Buddhist?”

I smile, having heard numerous variations of this introduction in Dharamsala

before. “I am a Protestant minister, and also sort of a Buddhist, yes.”

“Hi, I’m Christine...and I was raised Catholic...but I was sort of turned off by the

Church...but I think of myself as a very spiritual person...and I like what I’ve learned

about Buddhism. But my Mum would disown me if I ever became a Buddhist!” With a

smile she continues, “Do you suppose we could talk sometime?”

I have heard this same spirit of inquiry and incredulity often during the course of

conversations with seekers in Dharamsala and among students in my classes in

California. How can one be both a Christian and a Buddhist? Perhaps her thoughts are

your thoughts. Over lunches and dinners of noodles and rice, I have responded to similar

inquiries many times, and on each occasion I have moved deeper into my own Mandala,

examining the path that has brought me to this place and time. By articulating what I

have experienced and learned I have come to a greater personal awareness of the affinity

that exists between Buddhism and Christianity, between Buddhism and the Truth of all

the world’s great religions. I have discovered, as did Merton, that the real journey of life

is taking place in my soul, not under my feet. And I have experienced how the wisdom

and practice of the Buddha can actually provide a framework for personal growth within

the faith of my formation, my inherited Christianity.

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Out of my conversations with Christine and others has come this book, and I

intend it to be a sharing of my spiritual journey in a dialogue with you. We will be joined

by a wise teacher, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama of Tibet. I will share with you his

teachings and his private conversations with me as we look for ways that Eastern wisdom

can illuminate our Western living. We will look at the new Mandala each of us is

constructing as we embark on another stage of our respective spiritual journeys.

Together we are about to discover how the wisdom of the East - the enlightened teaching

of the Buddha - shares an affinity with the faith we have each inherited, and how it can be

borrowed by those of us in the West and made a valuable part of our spiritual quest and

our daily spiritual practice. We will have some of our questions answered by the Dalai

Lama, and still others by the historical Buddha, whose universal teachings are older than

those of the Christ. We are going to explore a discipline and a structure that can guide us

toward unlocking the wisdom of our own faith. We are going to walk the labyrinth. We

are going to create a new Mandala. And we are going to start with a journey to

Dharamsala.

Where exactly is this Dharamsala and why the journey there? As with the

Mandala, the answer is found on more than one level. Dharamsala is a real place. The

village of Dharamsala, in the region of Himachal Pradesh, at the base of the foothills of

the Himalayas in northern India, is a former “hill station” of the colonial British who

occupied India until 1947. The officers of the Royal Army would escape to the cool, dry

elevation of Dharamsala for rest and relaxation. Then came Partition and independence,

and Dharamsala returned to being a quiet, sleepy, largely forgotten dot on the map. In

1959, the religious and temporal leader of the nation of Tibet was forced to flee the

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mounting oppression, torture and killing of his people by the invading communist

Chinese government. The Dalai Lama, and several thousand of his followers, crossed the

rugged Himalayas to find sanctuary in neighboring India. Soon, residents of Dharamsala

invited the Tibetans to make their village the home of the government-in-exile.

Today, Dharamsala is still the seat of the Tibetan government which is continuing

its struggle for recognition by the world community and for the eventual return of the

Tibetan people to their rightful homeland. It is also the home of the recipient of the

Nobel Peace Prize, the fourteenth reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. This simple monk, as

he describes himself, has become a living saint. For many, his voice is now the spiritual

conscience of the world. Pilgrims and the curious alike journey here each year to be a

part of this unique community of monks, nuns and ordinary Tibetans, and perhaps to see

and hear the Dalai Lama. Surrounded by India and Indians, this Buddhist refugee

community coexists with Hindus, Sikhs and Moslems while also welcoming the Jews,

Christians and others who come here from all over the world seeking some form of

enlightenment.

I have made the journey to this Dharamsala. I was invited and encouraged by a

family friend, the Reverend Doctor Rafael Bastianni, a kindly, self-effacing French

Catholic priest and medical doctor who has given half of each of the past thirty years

providing rehabilitation services to orphaned refugees in a small dispensary in the

Tibetan Children’s Village. I have made my own pilgrimage of discovery to Dharamsala.

I have lived with the ever-smiling Tibetans. I have worked with them, shared tea with

them, shared my faith with them and learned from them. Buddhist monks have invited

me into their monasteries and the Dalai Lama has challenged me in dialogue. The gentle

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9

wisdom of the Buddha has been a gift, shared with me by fellow travelers on the Path.

Paradoxically, I have been strengthened in my Christian faith. Though I am an ordained

Protestant minister, I, like you, struggle with questions that my inherited faith does not

always seem complete enough to answer. My time in Dharamsala has been an inner

journey of spiritual growth. In the pages that follow, I hope to share that journey of

growth with you. I invite and encourage you to initiate the creation of your own new

Mandala by joining me in this journey to Dharamsala.

But this is not the only dharamsala we will visit. In fact, this tiny Tibetan village

is not our true destination, though much of what I will share with you on this journey has

been gleaned from my time there. In India a dharamsala is any simple, temporary shelter

that is made available to religious pilgrims for a brief stay while journeying. India was

home to the original Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha, though Buddhism migrated and

flourished outside of India. India is also home to several other religions, most notably

Hinduism. Each of these faith traditions honors its respective shrines and holy sites.

Pilgrims of all faiths traverse India to pay homage to the sacred people and places of their

faith. Along the way, they are welcomed into the hospitality of the local dharamsala, a

sort of hostel for the often weary sojourner.

So the dharamsala we will share is a stop along the way, a place of communion

for the one who is at the same time both faithful and seeking, both believing and

questioning. It is a place of shelter for the one who is reclaiming his or her past, while

also asking today’s questions of fellow travelers. It is a place to get one’s bearings, to

orient oneself, to reflect on where one has been and to seek direction for the next portion

of the journey. It is here that we will create a new map for ourselves, a new Mandala. It

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is to this refuge that we journey, and it is in its inviting shelter that we can encounter the

love and hospitality of fellow travelers and experience what Thomas Merton experienced:

that our real journey of life is interior, that it is a matter of growth, of deepening, and of

an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts.

Dharamsala will therefore be for us not so much a place as an experience.

But an experience must be experienced. I will share with you my experiences, my

search, my discoveries, but if this journey is to be your journey, then the pages that

follow must become an invitation to a path that we walk together. With the road map, the

new Mandala, that has been shared with me by my Tibetan friends I can lead the way, but

the sights and sounds, the trees and flowers, the birds and the monkeys that are constantly

to the left and the right of the path will have to be your sights and sounds, your trees and

flowers, your birds and monkeys. The memories evoked by the stories we hear will have

to be your memories. The responses to the wisdom we encounter will have to be your

responses. The answers we find will have to arise from your questions. In other words,

just as you can’t curl up in a corner easy chair and “read” a road map, you can’t simply

“read” this book if you want to allow it to spark that real journey - the inner journey.

For that you will have to put this book down every once in a while and just reflect

upon it. Let my stories resonate with your stories. Stop where you are and put the map

away, then just absorb the presence of where you are before continuing on. Remember,

life is a journey and we will spend a lifetime taking our place on the great Mandala as it

passes through our brief moment in time. Our destination is our center, and we can only

get there by turning inward. So let’s be open to just that. Let’s pause. Close this little

book and reflect on the Mandala. Consider your journey of life. Where are you? Where

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are you going? How are you going to get there? Then consider your deepest questions:

Does life make sense? Does it have meaning for you? Does your faith tradition help you

in your meaning-making?

If you ask yourself these questions, as I have done, and then, just as I also have

done, still find yourself asking more difficult questions, still searching for meaning, still

trying to make an historical faith relevant to your life today, then you have begun your

meditation. You have entered into your journey and are already applying the grains of

sand to your own new Mandala. You are ready to begin exercising your mind and

strengthening your spiritual foundation.

12

Chapter 2

Who Are You and Where Are You Going?

No matter how much faith we have, if we do not constantly maintain an inquisitive and critical attitude our practice will always remain somewhat foolish.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I am often asked how it is that this Protestant minister wound up in the company

of the Dalai Lama, and is now a Christian preacher and teacher of Buddhist wisdom and

practice. I generally respond by noting that I was never one to “color within the lines.”

So the story of my spiritual journey - my Mandala, if you will - has its own unique

pattern with a lot of fuzzy margins.

The bend in the road, the turning point in my spiritual journey occurred as a direct

result of an auspicious conjunction of anxiety, curiosity and opportunity.

In the classic story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is lost, disoriented,

confused, even frightened when she first encounters the Scarecrow who greets her with

the words, “Who are you and where are you going?” It’s a metaphysical question that

confronts us all at some point as we find ourselves stumbling along the yellow brick

paths of our lives. Her reply, “I’m Dorothy, and I’m going to Oz - to see if the Wizard

can help me get home,” is her way of responding for all of us: I am what I have named

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myself, and I’m exploring, seeking a wise guide who can help me return to my roots, the

ground of my being, my center.

In the summer of 1993 the Scarecrow’s questions were often being asked in the

silence of my mind. One particular evening that summer I found myself asking the

questions out loud: “Who are you? Where are you going? How are you going to get

there?” I was leading a discussion among the members of my parish, and my questions

were addressed to this suburban Chicago congregation of ordinary people who were

struggling with the direction of their church in a time of change. Their children were all

grown now and lived somewhere else, earning their living doing something other than

fabricating steel as their fathers had done, most likely some high-tech job their parents

didn’t really understand. Most of the old neighbors had left, too, either by choice or by

death, replaced by people whose culture they also didn’t really understand. A post-war

community of European immigrants seeking a better life was rapidly being replaced by a

community of immigrants from the ravaged inner city, also looking for a better life.

White was being replaced with yellow, with brown and with black. The churches that

had nurtured them, and which had once been filled every Sunday with the sounds of

families recalling Dutch and German hymns, were now filled only on weekdays, serving

as daycare centers nurturing the children of working mothers, children who now danced

to seemingly strange African and Mexican rhythms.

My parishioners knew who they had been, but they were less certain about who

they had become. And the reality was they didn’t want to “go” anywhere - not

physically, not emotionally. They wanted things to remain as they used to be. They

knew about change, all right, but they wanted their church to be their one sanctuary from

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it, the one unchanging monument to the way things once were, the anchor in a disquieting

sea of change.

I had been called as their interim pastor, one who would bridge the gap between

the old and the new and guide them during their “in-between” time. I was expected to be

a little like the Prophets whom I once heard described as “the ones who point the way,

but who never get there themselves.” I was not merely a caretaker minister, charged only

with keeping the pulpit warm until a real minister was chosen. No, in my denomination

an Interim Minister is a special calling, and is acknowledged as such by appointment and

training. An experienced saint of the faith once explained the interim time in the life of a

congregation with this image: the covered bridge. Those picturesque clapboard-sided

wooden bridges that colored the New England and Midwestern landscape provided more

than inspiration for painters and photographers. They were built in a time when the path

from this side of the stream to the other side needed to offer some degree of protection

for the journey or else the flock would balk, afraid to make the crossing. The shingled

roofs kept the rain and snow from accumulating along the span. The barn-red planks that

formed the sides of the bridge obscured any frightening view of the dizzying height and

the dangerous currents below. With the security of a protected pathway leading toward a

shining view at the end of the tunnel, even the most timid sheep would venture forth and

arrive safely on the other side.

We all have interim times in our lives - in our solitary lives and in our

congregational lives - when we need a covered bridge. For the tribes of Israel, the

wilderness experience of the desert required a Moses and even a parting of the waters.

For some of us a two-week vacation is that bridge, for others the safety of a

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psychologist’s guidance is the path from here to there. For the congregation in Chicago,

on this day and in this place, the interim was now and the shepherd guiding the anxious

flock across the bridge was me.

“Who are you? Where are you going? How are you going to get there?” These

were the questions I had been called to ask. These were the questions I was expected to

help them answer.

And, more and more frequently I was discovering, these were the same questions

that were troubling me.

Who are you, I was asking myself. This has been the question posed by the

Greeks and by the philosophers and by the psychologists, even by both the disciples and

the enemies of Christ. I had no simple answer for myself. Perhaps I knew better who I

wanted to be than who I was. I wanted to be more spiritual, I knew that. And I wanted to

be more religious, but in the authentic sense. I was already religious in the superficial

sense. I was, after all, a man of the cloth, a leader of the Church. But I longed to wrap

myself in the essential garments of a religion that would transform me, that would help

me answer the questions of my soul, that would give voice to my calling and put passion

into my response.

As I spoke to this meeting of the mothers and fathers, the widows and widowers,

the sons and the daughters of this anxious worshiping community of faith, I feared that I

might not be adequately equipped to lead them on their journey. Even as I challenged

this band of weary pilgrims to question what was right and good within their church, to

reclaim the faith of their formation, and to use that strength in the building of a bridge to

their church’s future, my troubled heart was silently challenging me with its own soul-

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searching questions. As I faced the next bridge in my own spiritual journey, I found

myself unsure that it was capable of carrying me safely toward my destination. Over and

over, I now more frequently felt the timbers under my feet creaking and the voice in my

heart asking, “What’s wrong with my religion?”

I have often noticed that it is the coincidence of simple events which marks the

turning points in life. I have come to view these not as coincidence at all, but rather as

significant “co-incidents.” As I was dealing with my anxiety and questioning the faith of

my formation within the sanctuary of my Midwestern church, I was invited to participate

in the global Parliament of the World’s Religions. Representatives of the world’s

religions had come together this summer, exactly one hundred years after the first

Parliament of the World’s Religions was held on the same ground as part of the Chicago

World’s Colombian Exposition in 1893. Today they had transformed the lawn of Grant

Park into a colorful bazaar of the dress and the music and the dance and the prayers of the

world’s peoples. Today I would again be confronted with the question of what’s wrong

with my religion. And today I would hear the teachings of the Dalai Lama for the first

time.

“No matter how much faith we have, if we do not constantly maintain an

inquisitive and critical attitude our practice will always remain somewhat foolish.” These

words of the Dalai Lama rang true since curiosity has always seemed a natural part of life

to me. Nonetheless, as a minister of the Christian Church, I have frequently encountered

some who openly wondered why I would be looking for Truth outside my own religion.

Even as I sat with my thoughts among this diverse assembly, protesters surrounding the

park were proclaiming the position of the evangelical and fundamental Christian

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perspective that what was taking place at this ecumenical Parliament was a heresy.

Sadly, years of conditioning had quelled their sense of curiosity and taught them to be

suspicious of inquiry.

And it’s no wonder. History is rife with examples that have given us the message

that inquiry is always suspect and often dangerous. It is a sad commentary on the

religions of our world, not singling out Christianity alone, that most protests against

inquiry come from the faith traditions that portray themselves as the bearers of Truth,

while history reminds us that our religions have constantly endeavored to set up

roadblocks and detours on the path toward the discovery of any new revelation of that

Truth. Religious leaders in the past who have dared to suggest that inquiry, even when it

conflicted with the current and accepted teachings, might be the appropriate path to Truth

were typically silenced. Jesus was a devout Jew who called the faithful to move beyond

the confining legalism of his inherited religion toward a spirituality that would replace

tired old doctrine with love and compassion. He was neither the first nor the last to be

crucified for questioning the status quo, and no single religious tradition can be awarded

all the blame.

This suspicion of inquiry seems to be related to issues of vulnerability. When we

embark upon a journey we inevitably discover things, whether that journey is to the

Grand Canyon or an interior journey to the heart of what we believe. Journeys are never

passive; they always lead to discovery. Such discovery may open us to a new vision that

brings our old view into question. We may even find we have to abandon the old in favor

of the new. This is the vulnerability we fear. It’s hard to let go, and going forward

always involves letting go.

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No one feels more vulnerable than someone who is standing upon the weak

foundation of an unsupported idea. This was the vulnerability felt by the leaders of the

dominant religion of the Western world in the early sixteenth century. Ever since

Aristotle, three hundred years before Christ, the politically correct idea was that the

whole universe revolved around the Earth. This was a neat bit of thinking since it

complemented the more insidious notion of the day that Man was actually the center of

the universe, and it just so happened that Earth was Man’s home. This was a particularly

attractive arrangement of things for those men who were in positions of authority and

privilege in the Church.

Along comes Nicholas Copernicus who argues that his observations have

convinced him that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. The Earth is

not the center of the universe, nor, for that matter, is Man and his Church. Unfortunately

for Copernicus, his ideas predated the printing business, and his discovery was not widely

circulated, and even less widely accepted. By the year 1600 there were only about ten

known advocates of his ideas alive in the world. One of those was Galileo.

Galileo was a true seeker, a master of curious thinking. His curiosity led him to

develop the modern compass and the telescope. By simply keeping his eyes wide open,

by not limiting his vision to that of his predecessors, by using the tools he had, Galileo

journeyed into the heavens and discovered that the nearly forgotten Copernicus had been

right. The Earth did, in fact, revolve around the sun. However, following the publication

of what was quickly labeled heresy, Galileo was summoned to Rome by the Inquisition

and ordered to renounce his findings and was sentenced to life imprisonment. His

published discovery was ordered to be burned, and the sentence against him was read

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publicly in every university. This was not a promising step by Western religion toward

the advancement of the cause of curious thinking!

With respect to perhaps the greatest search for knowledge imaginable - the

inquiry into the origins of the universe and the mysteries of our own origin - curious

thinking is, today, fighting for its life with every new revelation. The poetic Jewish myth

that traditionally explained our human relationship to the divine creation has seemed by

many to be somehow threatened by curious thinking. The Genesis account of the

creation story is reduced by many in the West to mere details of archeological history,

when the reality is this beautiful myth seeks to display a cosmic wonder of relationships

that is much greater than mere facts. The amazing mysteries that science is daily

unfolding regarding the origins of the cosmos and the baffling adaptability of the human

and other species should be expanding our curiosity into the wonders of the Divine.

Instead, the scientific journey of inquiry is continually the object of religious scorn.

Roadblocks are constantly thrown up to thwart our curious thinking.

Charles Darwin had also been guilty of curious thinking. Traveling the world in a

little boat, he had wondered how animals were so wondrously adaptable, and he had

speculated on what implications this might have for us, the human animal. The rest of

the world had been conditioned to accept the old answers and attempted to suppress his

theories, afraid and unwilling to let go, feeling too vulnerable on their weak religious

foundation to accept the possibility that serious inquiry might result in the need to

assimilate new Truth.

I put forward this brief history lesson because these historical seekers remind me

of a consciousness that is alive within each of us, and which was a flame burning within

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me that day in Chicago. It is this flame of consciousness that fuels the natural spirit of

inquiry. Galileo, Copernicus and Darwin were each discovering the structure of the

universe and the place of their world within it; humankind has always been searching for

the origins of the universe and of itself. It is the mind’s calling to be about the unraveling

of the great cosmic Mandala. It is the need we have to resolve these questions of our

place in the great scheme of things that is basic to our every wandering. It is our thirst for

meaning in the seemingly chaotic that causes us to journey from the less-than-satisfying

here to the inviting but unknown there. Life is movement, from where we are now

toward somewhere new. To be alive is to be searching, to be inquiring. To be alive is to

be filled with curious thinking. The reverse implication, then, is that to be static, to be

content with where we are, to have ended the journey - this is to be dead.

But our religions and our Western culture have often failed to nurture our inborn

spirituality and our natural tendency to question, to seek the difficult answers. Not only

have Western cultures and religions unwittingly advanced the “God is dead” mentality,

they have managed to effectively dampen the human spirit of curious thinking.

Acceptance and conformity have become the hallmark of both religious and secular

education, hence, the hallmark of Western lives that have ceased exploring. You and I

are the products of Western religion, culture and education that have systematically

attempted to extinguish the burning inquisitiveness we were born with. You and I were

taught in public schools and in Sunday school to memorize and regurgitate without

question.

The true prophets of the world’s great religions would have had none of all this.

Curious thinking was their hallmark. The Jewish and Christian sages and saints, the

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historical forerunners of my inherited faith, were always questioning that which was

currently accepted. The prophets, from Moses to Isaiah to Jesus, all exhorted the faithful

to question the conventional wisdom and to discard the false, following only the revealed

Truth. On this day I was among the faithful in that Parliament of the world’s diversity

who believed that knowledge and practice which proves to be false should be discarded,

and that which is discovered to be in harmony with reason, inquiry and experience should

be appropriated as new Truth by the discoverer.

I continue to believe that. Seizing upon Galileo as an example, I don’t want to be

satisfied with answers I have so far been given regarding my place in the universe. Like

Darwin, I should continually be striving to know why I have evolved into the person I am

today. Like the child I used to be, I should be asking why, why, why. My growth toward

full human adulthood can only come with questioning the adolescence I find myself in at

any given moment. I will never be mentally and spiritually mature if I accept where I

have been as my final destination in life. Living and growing requires an ever-expanding

vision which comes from eyes that are inquisitive and curious. When I don’t understand

why life is handing me a raw deal, I should be asking why. When I am fortunate enough

to have all I ever thought I wanted, and then am not really satisfied, I should be asking

why. When I see others suffering due to political or economic injustice, I should be

asking why. When politicians offer simple answers to immensely complicated problems,

I should be asking why. When I am feeling depressed or when the relationships in my

life seem shallow and meaningless, I should be asking why. When I am laboring day

after day in endeavors that don’t challenge my talents and gifts, I should be asking why.

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When God seems absent in my day to day living, I should be asking why. When God

suddenly and mysteriously acts in my life, I should certainly be asking why.

And so it was that my curious nature and my insatiable spirit had brought me to

the historic Parliament of the World’s Religions. All the truths of the world’s religions

are contained in the stories they tell. So it was no surprise that this Parliament of the

World’s Religions became a time for sharing of each other’s stories. One of the stories I

heard was especially poignant as I explored the smorgasbord of religions that was shared

during this ecumenical event, while also struggling with questions about my own

inherited faith.

As we sat on the lawn, awaiting the arrival of the keynote speaker, His Holiness

the Dalai Lama, an American student of Buddhism shared the story of an earlier public

teaching offered by the Dalai Lama in the south of India. He described a huge open-air

arena where monks and nuns from throughout Asia, together with thousands of lay

Buddhists, had gathered on the lawn. To their side sat another crowd: a fairly large group

of Americans and Europeans who had converted to the Buddhist faith and who were now

monks and nuns themselves. Heads shaved and clothed in the saffron and crimson robes

of the Tibetan monastic, they too eagerly awaited the arrival of His Holiness, the most

venerated figure in all Buddhism.

When the Dalai Lama entered that Indian arena, an awesome silence swept over

the crowd. There was not a sound to be heard as his incense-carrying attendants led him

to the platform where his raised throne had been prepared. The air was filled with a

gentle, fragrant smoke and a deep spirit of reverence.

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His Holiness stood facing the throng of Buddhist faithful. He then surprised

everyone by walking over to the monks and nuns and greeting them, some with a

handshake, most with a smile or a disarming wink of his eye. Then he offered the same

informal greeting to the lay men and women who had crowded in. Finally he took a few

steps toward the Westerners.

The American and European monks and nuns, some of whom had traveled

thousands of miles to be in this place at this exact moment, each straightened his or her

spine, sitting perfectly erect, legs crossed and hands positioned in a prayerful gesture of

respect. Each was secretly hoping to be recognized by His Holiness as the epitome of

Buddhist correctness.

The Dalai Lama greeted them all right, but not in the manner they were expecting.

As their idol surveyed this collection of former Jews, Catholics, Protestants and atheists,

he began to speak.

“Why are you wearing those silly robes?”

There was not a sound from the crowd as he continued, “We Tibetan Buddhists

wear these robes only because of an accident of geography and birth. It’s our historical

custom. We inherited the tradition. We are supposed to dress like this, but you - you

look silly!” He chuckled with his inimitable childlike laugh.

Then he asked the most incredible question: “What’s wrong with your religion?”

Again his question was greeted with stunned silence. He continued, “Would you

all like to be good Buddhists? Yes? Then why don’t you do this: go back to your

country, get a job and practice being compassionate. Your own faith has plenty of

teachings that can help you with compassion. Do that, and you will be good Buddhists.”

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One can only imagine the interior reaction of that stunned group of westerners. A

once-in-a-lifetime encounter with the world’s foremost spiritual leader, and he pulls the

rug out from under them.

While I was not a part of that Indian crowd of western mendicants in the story,

His Holiness’ piercing question hit home that afternoon in Chicago. What is wrong with

my religion? It’s a rhetorical question, of course, and it implies that perhaps there is

nothing wrong with your and my Western religion. The Dalai Lama was in fact

suggesting that his listeners would do well to return to their faith, that their tradition

already held all the answers. Yet here in this little story, and on the lawn here at the

Parliament of the World’s Religions as well, were converts from some Western religion

which, for now at least, seemed to be wrong for them. Somehow their religious

inheritance had been insufficient, unable to answer the questions they were wrestling

with at the moment.

The Dalai Lama was not suggesting that westerners were not invited to become

Buddhists. Quite the contrary is the reality. Many truly spiritual westerners have found

in Buddhism the religious answers they were seeking, and have joined Tibetan

monasteries and nunneries. Some of the most helpful Buddhist teaching I would later

receive in Dharamsala would come from the compassionate western Buddhist monks and

nuns I came to know there.

The Dalai Lama was suggesting, however, that I don’t have to become a

Buddhist, or even a Christian, Jew, Hindu or Moslem. I don’t have to become a member

of any organized religious group; I don’t need any labels, new or old. What I do need to

become is fully human. What I need to become is liberated from all that is holding me

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back from being fully human. What I need is to live my life in accordance with the

wisdom of all the world’s great religions, Buddhism included. This was the Dalai

Lama’s argument that day in India. This had been the Buddha’s teaching two thousand

years earlier.

Has our religion failed us? As a minister of the Church, my response may

surprise you. Yes! Yes, institutional religion in the West has failed many of us. That’s

part of the reason some of us find ourselves on a quest for something more.

I am troubled by the institutions of religion that seem more concerned with their

self-preservation than with the spiritual needs of real people. Men and women have

burning questions about the purpose of life and death, about the pain and suffering that

are constant companions to them; they want to know why a loving God seems at times

too distant; in a troubled world they wonder if their life can make a difference. As an

ordained leader within the institutional Church, I struggle with the same concerns, and

then feel embarrassed when the Church responds by creating a new committee,

establishing another social service program, or remodeling the church kitchen and hosting

more potluck dinners.

Like many others I have encountered in my ministry, I want to grow in my

spirituality and humanity. We are asking heartfelt questions and all too often are being

told to attend worship on Sunday and serve on the church council - become involved. I

want to feel that I am part of a spiritual community that, like me, is asking questions of

itself, not merely reacting to a rapidly changing world with the litany, “We’ve always

done it this way.” As a vehicle for the transformation I seek, my religion has all too often

left me wanting.

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For many of us, the religion we received from our parents has been insufficient,

but has it been wrong? Is there something wrong with our religion? Ah, now that’s

another question, and here I offer a qualified “No.” If we mean by that question is there

something inherently wrong with the historical teaching of our faith, the answer is no.

The wisdom and Truth are there. But if, on the other hand, we are asking about the

priestly function of organized religions, which is to interpret the teachings and to pass

them on, then yes, organized religion has all too often been a failure in the West. There

is something wrong. Western religion is our culture’s repository of wisdom and Truth,

but all too often the gatekeepers of our traditions have kept their treasure hidden away

like a miser’s hoard. My discovery and my quandary has been that the religions of the

West have repeatedly been guilty of providing time-honored - but not timely - answers to

questions that today’s seekers were not, in fact, asking, then rebuking those who were

asking for more.

Those were among my concerns on this final afternoon of the Parliament, which

was to be a celebration of all that had happened during one whirlwind week of

interreligious and inter-cultural sharing. On this warm late summer’s day, the Parliament

was culminating with a joyous and prayerful celebration, with the Nobel Peace Prize

laureate, His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet, delivering the keynote homily. Blankets

and picnic baskets had been laid out on the lawn of Grant Park and thousands were

gathering in a sort of religious Woodstock to hear Arlo Guthrie sing songs of a bygone

era, and to bask in the warmth that had been created by the coming together of such a

vast collection of spiritual folk from every walk of life throughout the world. The

divisions between souls, which religion has often been guilty of creating, had somehow

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been suspended for one incredible week, and this was the time to mark that with prayer

and alleluias and a ritual of true communion.

Waiting in the summer sun for the ceremonies to begin, my wife and I had spread

out our blanket and enjoyed a picnic lunch. As the crowd grew, one couldn’t help

noticing the peace and joy that pervaded this makeshift holy place. Among those arriving

were a busload of Tibetan refugees, expatriates living in Madison, Wisconsin, under the

auspices of the Tibetan Resettlement Program. This initiative of the American

government had allowed one thousand Tibetan refugees to enter the United States as

immigrants and to live and work here. One day soon their families would be allowed to

join them as well. Each Tibetan was assisted by host sponsors in selected cities across

America. This particular group had journeyed from Madison with their sponsors to hear

their revered spiritual leader address the followers of all the world’s religions and to catch

a glimpse of the Dalai Lama himself.

A small group of these excited Tibetans spotted our only partially occupied

blanket and asked - mostly with gestures - if they might share our space. We were

pleased to have them join us. What better way to listen to His Holiness than in the

company of eager Tibetans.

That day I was struck by the smiles. The Tibetans never stopped smiling. These

righteous people, these people who for no reason had been stripped of their land and

possessions, forced to trek over the Himalayas to shelter and who now found themselves

displaced in America, these folks never stopped laughing or at least smiling. In an

instant, we felt as though we were among friends, our new Tibetan friends, our laughing,

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smiling, Tibetan friends. And when the Dalai Lama arrived at the pulpit, he was smiling,

he was laughing. There was joy on every wide-eyed, cherubic Tibetan face that day.

There was also a sacramental electricity in the air as His Holiness stepped to the

podium and began to speak with a gentle smile in his heart.

“Nowadays the world is becoming increasingly materialistic, driven by an

insatiable desire for power and possessions. Yet in this vain striving, we wander ever

farther from inward peace and mental happiness. Despite our pleasant material

surroundings many of us today experience mental dissatisfaction, fear, anxiety, and a

sense of insecurity. There is some kind of vacuum within the human mind. What I think

we lack is a proper sense of spirituality.”

I knew I wanted to cultivate a greater sense of spirituality. I listened with my new

Tibetan friends as he continued, “The purpose of religion is not merely to build beautiful

places of worship, but to cultivate positive human qualities of tolerance, generosity, and

love. Whenever we pursue noble goals, obstacles and difficulties are bound to occur. As

human beings, we may lose hope. But there is nothing to be gained from

discouragement; our determination must be very firm. According to my meager

experience, we can change. We can transform ourselves. Therefore, if we all were to

spend a few minutes every day, thinking about these things and trying to develop

compassion, eventually compassion will become part of our lives. Generally speaking,

religion in the real sense has to do with a positive mind. A positive mind is what

ultimately brings us benefit or happiness. The essence of religion is therefore the means

by which these things are generated.”

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In the company of strangers who had become friends, in the sanctuary of that time

and place, in the hearing of this simple monk’s teaching, I resolved to experience more of

this clear and gentle wisdom. And as fate would have it, the anxiety I was experiencing

over my inherited faith and my place in it, and the curiosity that led me to this hearing of

the words of the Dalai Lama, would soon be conjoined with a unique opportunity to enter

a rich new path on my spiritual journey.

30

Chapter 3

Venturing Forth

When we compare two ancient spiritual traditions like Buddhism and Christianity, what we see is a striking similarity between the narratives of the founding masters . . . In both the lives of Jesus Christ and the Buddha, it is only through hardship, dedication, and commitment and by standing firm on one’s principles that one can grow spiritually and attain liberation.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

At any given point in the Mandala that is our life’s story, we are where we have

been, and we are becoming where we are going. We are at once the I Am of our past and

the I Am of our future. There is little distinction between our good-byes and our hellos;

between our letting go and our venturing forth.

“You must go,” Father Bastianni was telling me now, “not to discover

Buddhism...but to discover your own spirituality.”

For a few years now, it had become my custom to escape the cold of the Chicago

winter and retreat to the south of France just after the Christmas holidays each year to

join my wife’s family for vacation. This year, one of my first destinations was a return

visit to the medieval church and parish home of the Reverend Doctor Raphael Sanzio

Bastianni. During each of my previous visits this aging Catholic priest and long-time

friend of my wife’s family had been gently but persuasively urging me to make a

pilgrimage to Dharamsala. It was in this same country church - with its ancient walls

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displaying figures of the Buddha alongside images of Christ, its stone fireplace hung with

garlic braids and dented copper skillets, and its windows open to a view of the golden

sunflower fields in the farming valley below - that I first heard the stories of Father

Bastianni’s “other ministry” with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan refugee community.

He had been a medical doctor many years ago, before following his call to the

priesthood. In the nineteen-sixties, he had traveled to Dharamsala, then the new home of

the Dalai Lama who had recently fled to north India to escape the onslaught of the

Chinese communist army into his native Tibet. Father Raphael had asked His Holiness if

he might conduct research among the monks into the long-term effects of meditation on

the hypothalamus of the brain. After a year of conducting his research among the Tibetan

monastics, Father Raphael spoke with His Holiness and asked what he might be able to

do for the Tibetan community to repay their warm hospitality during his stay. The Dalai

Lama did not hesitate, and suggested that the new Tibetan Children’s Village, a home and

school for orphaned Tibetan children, was in need of a medical clinic. Reverend Doctor

Bastianni returned to France, raised the funds and recruited the personnel, then returned

to Dharamsala the following year to establish the clinic. The kindly priest-doctor

continued to return to Dharamsala for a major portion of each year thereafter to staff the

clinic himself. Over the years this pious Catholic cleric had become enamored with the

wisdom and practice of his Buddhist hosts, and had discovered the empowering affinity

between Buddhism and Christianity. It was this discovery that he was encouraging me to

experience for myself.

I had been yearning to make this pilgrimage, particularly since that day in

Chicago when I first heard the Dalai Lama speak, but I felt somehow inadequate. I

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reminded the good doctor that I had no medical skills to offer the refugees, and that in

Hindu India these Tibetan Buddhists probably had no need of a Christian preacher! He

replied simply, “They will find ways for you to help...and they will share their homes and

their wisdom with you.” In the past, I had been able to claim other commitments and

responsibilities that kept me from responding to this ever-clearer call to embark on my

journey of discovery. This time, however, there were no excuses. My interim

responsibilities with my Chicago parish were concluding, and I had accepted no new

church assignment. Seemingly before I could make the decision myself, Father Raphael

had contacted the office of His Holiness and the abbots of the monasteries of

Dharamsala, and they were warmly indicating their readiness to welcome me.

Each new beginning starts with farewell. It was with a mix of sadness and

trepidation that I was bidding farewell to the comfort and security of the familiar to

venture forth toward the unknown. As pastor of a local church, my role provided a fairly

clear definition of identity and purpose. Even though I questioned the spiritual vigor of

the contemporary church and its capacity to lift me to another level in my spiritual

growth, the uncertainty of the change that lay ahead was disquieting

Nonetheless, it was with more anticipation than apprehension that I said my good-

byes and packed my bags.

The first stop was Paris, then non-stop to New Delhi. Our flight plan took us

toward Switzerland, then over the northern edge of Italy and past Sarajevo (where I

imagined someone was shooting at his neighbor down there), over Bulgaria to Turkey.

Most of the flight was above clouds, but at Istanbul we could clearly see the Bosporus

Straight, just as I had drawn on a map in some long-ago geography class. From there it

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was over Iraq and across Iran (where I was briefly wondering if someone might be

shooting at us), into Afghanistan and Pakistan toward north India. I had left Paris in the

early morning and would arrive in New Delhi in the dark of night.

Since clouds obscured most of the view out the window, I used the time to begin

my inquiry into Buddhism. I had made a conscious decision early on not to read too

much about Buddhism before arriving in Dharamsala, as I wanted to experience it, not

study it in the academic sense. But I was well aware that any understanding of Buddhism

must begin with an introduction to the life of the Buddha, and, since his life pre-dated

that of Christ, and I would only be able to experience him through second-hand sources

anyway, I opened the first of several books that would guide my exploration and

discovery of Buddhism. I will share with you that elementary introduction to Gautama

Siddhartha, since it colored my initial experience of India, even as I stepped off the jet-

way into the smells, the noise, the heat and humidity, and the people - all the people - of

this amazing land.

It was Joseph Campbell, in his Power of Myth, who had initially led me to

examine the life of the Buddha. He wrote, “Read myths. Read other people’s myths, not

those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of

facts - but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message. Myth helps you to

put your mind in touch with the experience of being alive.” He was saying, in effect, that

we don’t study Buddhism to learn about Buddhism, per se; we study Buddhism to learn

about ourselves. As my magic carpet winged its way toward India, I was beginning my

inner journey toward a deeper understanding of myself, and I was doing so by looking at

this person we call the Buddha in an effort to discover how his life might also be my life.

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I opened Thomas Merton’s Asian Journal, and read his entry, written years earlier

in the airplane that was taking him to the East, where he wrote, “I am going home, to the

home where I have never been in this body.” It was his Journal that had suggested I read

Christmas Humphrey’s Buddhism, among others, as an introduction to the life of the

Buddha.

Knowledge of the facts of the Buddha’s life are sketchy, at best, and like the

Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life or the scriptural record of Moses and others in the Jewish

texts, the legends have become larger than life. The received tradition of the lives of the

saints, of Jesus, Moses and the Buddha has entered the realm of myth. But the myths of

our world are the basis for our structuring of our lives, so they are of monumental

importance. Each of us has already incorporated guiding myths - stories from our culture

and stories from our own experience - into a framework by which we live. As I glanced

out the window toward Asia to the East, I knew intuitively there was room to add another

myth to my life’s mosaic: the myth that is the story of Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha.

His life is a story; a story with birth, happiness and pain, old age, and finally

death; a story like many that preceded and that have followed. Everyone has a story. In

fact, it is largely our stories that define who we are. When someone says, “Tell me about

yourself,” we can’t really describe our self, so we tell a part of our story, a part of who we

are. When we look at the wisdom of the world’s great thinkers, it is always best to start

with a look at their life story. The philosophers, the movers and shakers, the sages of our

culture have all pondered and written from the depths of their own personal stories. Who

they really are is revealed not only in their writings and thoughts, but in their stories.

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Among the stories contained in the traditions of the world’s great religions, that of

the Buddha is particularly intriguing. Gautama Siddhartha is perhaps the only founder of

a religion, if we can rightly call him a founder, who is not portrayed by his followers as a

God-figure. The Buddha was just an ordinary human being, like you and like me. In

Judaism, Moses and the prophets spoke on behalf of God. In Christianity, Jesus was God

incarnate. Buddha, on the other hand, was just an ordinary seeker, troubled with

questions and finally discovering some answers. His journey of birth, adolescence,

questioning, seeking and discovery is one that begins to look surprisingly similar to my

own.

When we were taught the story of Adam and Eve or of Noah and the Ark in

Sunday school or synagogue, it was not because these were merely fun stories that our

ancestors wanted to share with us. These stories of the faith were mytho-poetic

explanations of our relationship with the creator God and with everyone around us in that

creation. These stories, and all others in scripture, were templates for living, examples

that allowed us to participate alongside all who have come before us in the journey of

life. Moses’ story of being called, of hesitating, of journeying in the wilderness - this is

my story, your story. The disciples’ stories of simple lives being transformed by their

encounter with God incarnate - these are our stories. When Cain and Able live out their

sibling rivalry, we find their story in our own family history. When Job struggles with

the seeming unfairness of life’s troubles, we struggle with him, because his quandary is

our quandary. His story is our story. When Jesus is finally crucified for his beliefs, we

are hanging in there with him because we, too, have found ourselves being crucified for

our differences with others around us. And when Christ rises to new life, we are given

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hope that we, too, will have a new tomorrow following some of the deaths we face in life,

because we realize at some deep spiritual level that his story is our story.

Stories don’t have to be from scripture in order to become guiding myths for us.

The stories of our grandparents, the ones who came to a new land in search of something

better, can be driving forces in our lives. Even a favorite sports figure or the hero in a

classic novel can become for us a pattern for life when we discover ourselves in their

story. C. S. Lewis, the Christian writer, is quoted as having said, “We read to know we

are not alone.” By reading he meant reading other’s stories, and he knew the importance

of discovering from our reading that we are not alone in our birth and life, in our pain and

joy, and in our old age and death. C. S. Lewis knew that the journey of life is both easier

and richer once we discover that we are on a road that has been traveled, and is being

traveled even today, by fellow pilgrims, companions on the way who share with us the

same questions and struggles, the same joys and concerns we have. When we are truly

fortunate we discover that some of our traveling companions have found answers,

answers to the same questions we are asking, answers that help us find direction in our

own journey. That was my hope as the 747 brought me closer to the footpaths of

Dharamsala.

The Buddha has walked these paths before us. If we look at his story in the same

way we might have first looked at Moses’ story, or hear it in the same way we first heard

our grandparent’s story, we may find a little of ourselves in it. If we do, then some of the

Buddha’s answers may become answers for our lives. As the proud monks and eager

teachers of Dharamsala would soon share with me their legends of the Buddha, I would

come to discover that my story was not at all unlike that of the young Siddhartha: an

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ordinary person who doesn’t have all the answers to questions about the meaning of life

and his place in the great scheme of things. I still don’t have all the answers, I’m still just

an ordinary seeker, but I can tell a story. Sit with me as I try to piece together the myth,

the legend, the story, if you will, that is both universal and at the same time specifically

that of the Buddha.

As we look at this story, keep in mind that the term “Buddha” is an honorary title

given to a real person, Gautama Siddhartha. The title was known to the people of India

long before Siddhartha was born. The term “Buddha” literally means “enlightened” or

“mentally awakened.” This title has come to be synonymous with Gautama Siddhartha,

the Buddha, so to speak, but actually anyone who achieves enlightenment becomes a

Buddha, and each of us can develop our own Buddha nature according to the Buddha’s

teaching. This honorary title is not unlike the title of Christ, which means “anointed” or

“sent by God,” and which was given to the person, Jesus of Nazareth. The same

honorary name changing occurs often in the Jewish scripture, for example when Jacob

was given the name “Israel.” When Simon Peter proclaims in the Gospel of Matthew,

“You are the Christ,” he is echoing the first of Gautama’s disciples who proclaimed

Siddhartha to be enlightened, to be the Buddha.

The term Buddha also points us toward our first understanding of this eastern

philosophy. In the teachings of the Buddha, enlightenment is of paramount importance.

The Buddha attains enlightenment as he passes from this life. Enlightenment is his

“liberation.” It is the Buddhist view of perfection, of liberating Truth, that one starts with

humanity in ignorance and progresses toward full humanity enlightened. That is

liberation. In the Jewish and Christian approaches, however, perfection starts with

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humanity and progresses toward God. Perfection, according to both the Jewish and

Christian traditions, comes with a right relationship with God. I would learn that the

humanity-centered approach of Buddhism is only the first of several ways in which the

philosophy of the Buddha differs from the teachings of the western faiths, and it is an

important difference which I shall examine on my journey.

A look at the life story of Gautama Siddhartha may help us to understand, from

the outset, the reason for this different approach to the ordering of things. In a country

that historically had worshiped myriad Gods, Buddha finds his answers in other sources.

The Gods of his forefathers and mothers no longer sufficed as his own Gods. Why?

What was there about Siddhartha’s family life, about his early attempts at living life

according to the norm, about his successes and failures, about his questioning that

ultimately led him to new answers? These are the questions I tried to keep in mind as I

looked at the life, at the story, of the Buddha. How is the Buddha nature in him? How is

the Buddha’s nature in you and in me?

The birth legends of the Buddha are filled with mythic embellishments, just as are

the birth narratives of Moses and Jesus. Gautama Siddhartha was born while his mother

was on a journey. She was traveling from Kapilavatsu to her parental home in Devadaha.

(I couldn’t fail to notice the parallel with each went to be registered, everyone to his own

city, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David.) In India it is common

for a woman to go to her mother’s home for the delivery of her first child. According to a

virgin-birth legend, Gautama came into the world from the side of his mother, without

causing her any pain, while she was holding a branch of the sal tree under which she lay.

This was in the park of Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, and which is today an important

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pilgrimage destination for the Buddhist faithful. Gautama’s mother, the princess

Mahamaya, died seven days later, and Siddhartha was raised by his mother’s sister.

His father was a chief, or king in some traditions, and Gautama was raised and

educated as a nobleman. He was Prince of the Shakyas, hence his reference in Tibetan

Buddhism as Buddha Shakyamuni. As is the custom in India, he entered into an arranged

marriage - to another princess - at the age of sixteen, and she bore a son.

Gautama’s father had lofty plans for his first-born son: he wanted the young

Siddhartha to have a glamorous political career, not unlike his dad’s. To encourage his

development on the right track, his father was what we would today label “over-

protective.” He tried to provide his son with all the luxuries of life and to take special

precautions to keep the miseries of life from his son’s inquiring eyes. But, as the Buddha

would later teach, reality can never escape the person who is mindful and alert.

The story tells us that, in spite of his father’s efforts to keep all knowledge of

worldly woes from his eyes, the young prince, venturing forth from the palace one day,

saw an old man, and then a sick man, and then a dead man being carried to his funeral

pyre. At the sight of each he asked his charioteer the meaning of what he saw. “This

comes to all men,” said the charioteer, and the Prince’s mind was troubled that such

would be the effect of birth. Then he saw a recluse, a monk with shaven head and a

tattered saffron robe. “What man is this?” he asked, and was told it was one who had

gone forth into the homeless life of an ascetic. Gautama was struck by the calm and

serene face of this mendicant holy man. For the Buddha, these visions were of three

facets of the sorrowfulness of humanity, and the other a vision of release from that

sorrow.

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This startling discovery of the impermanent nature of life, and the subsequent

folly of being attracted by transitory values, led Gautama to renounce the world and

become an ascetic himself. He was twenty-nine years of age when he left behind his wife

and son.

A western Christian or Jewish reader of twenty-nine might well be shocked at the

idea of a married person leaving his wife and child behind to enter the monastic life. I

could relate a little with this as I had entered seminary at the age of thirty-nine, and

coincidentally ended my first marriage shortly thereafter, but it still struck me as radical

for a prince to walk out on his family to join a monastery. I would soon learn, however,

that leaving home for the practice of asceticism, after a period of marriage, was an

approved form of behavior in Hindu society. According to the Hindu ideal, a person

aspiring to perfection had to organize his life in a certain gradation. He first had to be a

celibate student (a vanishing breed in the West!), then a married man, and finally either

an ascetic or a hermit. According to that commonly accepted tradition, Gautama’s

behavior was not at all abnormal.

Actually, Gautama did not at first join a monastery or become a Hindu ascetic.

He first placed himself under the guidance of two well-known yogi teachers of the time

and trained in yoga and meditation. While meditation would later become a very

important part of the Buddhist life, Gautama at this time was soon disillusioned with

meditative trances that seemed to be entered into only for the sake of meditation itself.

For Gautama, the right type of meditation had to lead an individual not just to an

ephemeral experience but to an insight into the deeper realities of life.

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So he abandoned yoga and joined an ashram as a true ascetic, practicing the

strictest forms of self-mortification and self-torture and fasting. It was not long before he

realized the utter futility of such mortification to achieve the liberation he was seeking.

He soon saw that what is required for self-liberation is not self-mortification but self-

discipline or self-mastery. As soon as he discovered that pure asceticism could not give

the deeper form of mental liberation he sought, he left the ashram and began to pursue

his search by himself.

Gautama’s rejection of rigorous asceticism led him to advocate a “middle path,”

somewhere in-between the harmful extremes of penitential torture and material self-

indulgence.

Well known in the legend is the story that Gautama then reflected in solitude

under the shade of the Bodhi tree and meditated on his past life and on the sorrowful state

of the lives of others. He sought in his mind the reasons that kept men and women in an

unliberated state and there he discovered the real nature of human suffering, the cause of

it, the possibility of escape from it, and the path for such an escape. It is this discovery -

or awakening - that is referred to as enlightenment, which for the Buddha meant seeing

the reality of human suffering and the possibility of human joy in a way that he had never

seen before. We Christians would express this experience in language familiar to us as

revelation, but for Gautama it was something that arose in him by itself as a direct result

of his own concentration.

I was awakened from my own concentration by an announcement from the cabin

speakers that we were beginning our approach into New Delhi, and a glance out the

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window revealed the snow-capped Himalayan range bathed in the light of the nearly full

moon. My journey toward some form of enlightenment was nearly at hand.

As soon as I stepped off the plane and into the terminal it was clear I was in

another world. As I alluded to earlier, the faces and clothing of the crowds of people, the

intense smells, the babble of a hundred languages, the heat and the thick humidity strike

you as soon as you leave the modern jet-way and immediately plunge into ancient India.

As my senses were bombarded by the sights and sounds and colors and smells and heat, I

thought to myself, “This is the land and the culture that has given birth to the Buddha,

that has seen the change brought about by Gandhi, and that is now going to give birth to

change in me.”

Outside the airport I was mobbed by cabbies and negotiated with the most

aggressive one for a ride to the central bus station, then squeezed my over-weight bags

into the little taxi. It was about two in the morning, yet even in the darkness the sights of

crowded Delhi were amazing as the driver weaved his way through left-hand traffic like a

madman, avoiding bicycles, mopeds, and cattle along the route.

In the bus station I had my first taste of the real India: lepers hobbling alongside

me on their stumps of limbs, begging for a few rupees; all manner of food cooking in

open-air stalls; sacred cows walking freely in and out, and every vendor and bus

conductor yelling over the other. I still don’t know exactly how I found the right bus

after waiting for several hours in this amazing bazaar. At 6:00 a.m. I boarded a bus that

looked like something straight out of a National Geographic photo, and watched in fear

as a porter loaded my bags onto the roof of the bus, carrying them on his head! I died a

thousand deaths as my computer and other worldly possessions tottered precariously up

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the ladder to the top of the rickety “Greyhound.” The bus ride lasted fourteen hours,

from before sunrise ‘til after sunset. I saw a lifetime of sights in just that one journey

alone. Birds of every description: egrets, herons, turkey vultures, hawks and eagles, even

flocks of green and red parrots. There were water buffalo and oxen; carts filled with

cargo larger than seemed possible pulled by horses, mules and oxen, all vying for the

same space on the narrow road as our bouncing bus. Taxis, rickshaws, livestock, wildly

decorated busses and cargo trucks all managed to turn a two-lane road into a ballet of one

passing the other, every moment punctuated with the sounds of horns honking.

The flat expanse of India seems to extend forever. We passed by rice paddies and

tea plantations and through small cities and villages with cow dung drying in front of

huts. Garbage and flowering crops were seemingly strewn together along the roadside.

The smell of India is nearly overpowering for the newly arrived. Sewage and jasmine,

incense and perfume, rotting garbage and decaying bodies, exhaust and curry - all of

these at one time takes some getting used to.

And then there are the people - everywhere, people. People in the streets, people

on top of buildings, people sleeping along the road, people working in the fields. You

can’t look for a moment in any direction without seeing people in the picture, people in

places where my western eyes said they didn’t belong. Suddenly I felt a little like the

young Siddhartha, away from my overly protective home for the first time. While I knew

of disease, old age and death, of course, and I had traveled outside the U. S. before, I was

struck with the poverty and the sprawling humanity that spread out before my eyes. As I

gazed out the dusty window of my dilapidated chariot, I watched an elderly weather-worn

Indian woman struggling with a wooden plow as it turned over the parched soil behind a

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weak old ox whose ribs were clearly visible through his meager flesh. I silently heard

Gautama’s charioteer whisper in my ear, “This comes to all men,” and I realized that

what I was seeing before me was the norm in the world. With more than half the world’s

humanity living in China, India, Africa, this is what comes to most men and women, and

today I was venturing out of the sugar-coated protection provided by the princes of

America with whom I had been living as one of the privileged few in the industrial West.

As I pondered the suffering in the world that I was seeing illustrated on those dry,

flat river beds of India, the landscape and foliage began to change rapidly as we climbed

gently from the plains to the lower plateau, and even more dramatically as we approached

the foothills of the Himalayas. Soon we were surrounded by forests of evergreen and

rhododendron trees as the winding road up the hills caused some in the crowded bus to

suffer the discomfort of motion sickness. Not I, fortunately, even in spite of the spicy,

intriguing food I ate during lunch stops at amazingly primitive roadside eateries along the

way: rice, dal, curry and masala, and the ubiquitous flat bread chapatti.

It was dark when I arrived in Dharamsala at about eight, and again Sherpa porters

toted my bags on their heads, this time up a steep hill to the first cheap hotel I could find.

Collapsing onto the hard bed, I quickly fell asleep.

The brilliant sun awakened me early the next morning, and I stepped out onto a

small balcony overlooking the already bustling marketplace. I was immediately

confronted by a magnificent view of the Himalayas, a sheer wall of the most incredible

snow-covered mountains I have ever seen, appearing to be thrusting themselves still

higher into the deep blue sky. It was breathtaking. Then I was startled by the chatter of

some company on the terrace. Monkeys! They were apparently hoping to share a little

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breakfast with me. From my hillside perch I surveyed this exotic village that would

become my new home, vaguely aware of the deep throbbing of temple horns across the

valley calling the monks to prayer. I had left behind the walls of my isolated kingdom,

and I silently wondered what I would discover as I explored the colorful sands of the new

Mandala I had entered.

Perhaps you, too, find yourself looking out over the landscape that is your future

and pondering which questions and whose answers may ultimately chart the turning

points of your own Mandala journey. In the pages that follow, I will share with you my

discoveries of the affinity between Buddhist wisdom and the truths of my inherited faith

tradition, and how a new Eastern understanding has illuminated my Western spiritual

path. With the help of the words of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the grains of sand

which form the collage of Buddhist teachings will be gently placed alongside each other

until a new and possibly liberating Mandala begins to take form.

46

Chapter 4

The Four Noble Truths

The teachings on the Four Noble Truths clearly distinguish two sets of causes and effects: those causes which produce suffering, and those which produce happiness. By showing us how to distinguish these in our own lives, the teachings aim at nothing less than to enable us to fulfill our deepest aspiration - to be happy and to overcome suffering.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“Emptiness. Learn all you can about emptiness.”

I had asked the Dalai Lama a simple question: As a Christian, seeking to

understand Buddhist wisdom and practice, where should I start? What would be the most

important concepts to grasp in order to comprehend Buddhism? His answer had been

equally simple: Emptiness. Learn all you can about emptiness.

Father Bastianni had graciously arranged for me to have the honor of an audience

with His Holiness shortly after my arrival in Dharamsala. I was led into his office by

Tenzin Geyche Tethong, his personal Secretary, and was immediately overwhelmed as I

was greeted with a radiant, gentle smile by this living saint. My initial nervousness at

meeting such a renowned spiritual leader was quickly assuaged by his self-effacing,

almost casual manner, and by the genuine interest with which he approached our wide-

ranging conversation. Little did I know then that this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

would, in fact, be the beginning of a lasting friendship, and that I would be blessed with

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several wonderful opportunities to share intriguing conversation with His Holiness again.

And I would have more than one occasion to remind him of his challenge to pursue an

understanding of emptiness, a challenge I accepted that spring day in a meeting which

often seems so long ago, but which has had such a lasting impact on my life that it is

fondly remembered as though it were yesterday.

During the intervening years, I have attempted to follow His Holiness’ advice,

and have discovered the depth of the ironic humor of this fourteenth reincarnation of the

Dalai Lama. In suggesting I learn everything I could about emptiness, His Holiness knew

all along that in so doing I would have to plumb the depth and breadth of Buddhist

wisdom and practice itself. His answer had been more like a trick question than any real

answer at all. It was similar to many Buddhist stories that are told of a student asking the

master a weighty question only to receive a puzzling challenge in response. The

knowledge of emptiness, I would discover, is not the starting point for the journey, but in

fact the destination. In seeking this center of Buddhist understanding, one must enter the

maze of the Mandala from the gates at the perimeter. One must begin by grasping the

outer petals of the lotus before they can be peeled away to expose the bare core that is the

life-giving heart of the flower.

I will share with you my journey of discovery, beginning with the beginning.

The path to the heart of the Buddha’s teaching has as its road map the Four Noble

Truths. Just as one can get to the heart of Christ’s message by examining his first public

teaching – Jesus’ beautiful Sermon on the Mount - one can find the framework of all

Buddhist wisdom and teaching in Siddhartha’s first public discourse, his First Sermon.

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I have read the First Sermon, and I have heard it taught by monks and high lamas,

and I have even taught it to students myself. I can no longer recall exactly how and when

I first heard the deceptively simple logic of these profound Truths, but I know they have

remained for me the starting point and the outline for all my subsequent discovery of

Buddhist wisdom and practice.

Simply stated, the Four Noble Truths are the truth of suffering, the truth of the

origin of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path leading

to the cessation of suffering. Even more simply one can say that we are all suffering, our

suffering has causes, the causes can be eliminated, and there is a path of living that can

enable us to achieve that perfect liberation.

In public teachings, the Dalai Lama says, “The Four Noble Truths are the very

foundation of the Buddhist teaching, and that is why they are so important. Therefore I

am always very happy to have the opportunity to explain them.” For many, His Holiness

is the embodiment of Buddhist compassion and loving kindness, and the voice of

Buddhist wisdom, so I will allow his teaching to illuminate an understanding of this

important foundation of my new Mandala journey:

“The first of the Four Noble Truths is the Truth of Suffering, or duhkha.”

Actually, Gautama Buddha said “life is duhkha,” but the English language

doesn’t provide us with a neat, simple, one-word equivalent for the Pali word duhkha.

The suffering to which Gautama was referring is our internal suffering, the sorrow that

arises from real or imagined loss, such as the loss of a loved one or the unfulfillment of a

wish or desire. This sorrow is a constant companion to all of us on the journey of life,

Buddha argued. Life is sorrow-full.

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His Holiness continues: “What is duhkha? What is suffering? Buddhism

describes three levels or types of suffering. The first is called ‘the suffering of suffering,’

the second, ‘the suffering of change,’ and the third is, ‘the suffering of conditioning.’

“When we talk about the first type, the suffering of suffering, we are talking in

very conventional terms of experiences which we would all identify as suffering. These

experiences are painful. In Buddhism there are four main experiences of this type of

suffering which are considered to be fundamental to life: the sufferings of birth, sickness,

aging and death. The significance of recognizing these states as forms of suffering, and

the importance of this recognition as a catalyst of the spiritual quest, is very strongly

demonstrated in the Buddha’s own life story. According to the story, when he was the

young Prince Siddhartha, the Buddha is said to have caught sight of a sick person, an old

person, and a dead person being carried away. The impact of seeing this suffering

apparently led him to the realization that so long as he was not free of the infinite process

of birth, he would always be subject to these other three sufferings. Later, the sight of a

spiritual aspirant is supposed to have made the Buddha fully aware that there is a

possibility of freedom from this cycle of suffering.

“So in Buddhism there is an understanding that so long as we are subject to the

process of rebirth, all other forms of suffering are natural consequences of that initial

starting point. We could characterize our life as being within the cycle of birth and death,

and sandwiched in between these two, as it were, are the various sufferings related to

illness and aging.

“The second level of suffering, the suffering of change, refers to experiences we

ordinarily identify as pleasurable. However, in reality, as long as we are in an

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unenlightened state, all of our joyful experiences are tainted and ultimately bring

suffering.

“Why does Buddhism claim that experiences which are apparently pleasurable are

ultimately states of suffering? The point is that we perceive them as states of pleasure or

joy only because, in comparison to painful experiences, they appear as a form of relief.

Their pleasurable status is only relative. If they were truly joyful states in themselves,

then just as painful experiences increase the more we indulge in the causes that lead to

pain, likewise, the more we engage in the causes that give rise to pleasurable experience,

our pleasure or joy should intensify; but this is not the case.

“On an everyday level, for example, when you have good food, nice clothes,

attractive jewelry and so on, for a short time you feel really marvelous. Not only do you

enjoy a feeling of satisfaction, but when you show your things to others, they share in it

too. But one day passes, one week passes, one month passes, and the very same object

that once gave you such pleasure might simply cause you frustration. That is the nature

of things - they change. The same applies also to fame. At the beginning you might

think to yourself, ‘Oh! I’m so happy! Now I have a good name, I’m famous!’ But after

some time, it could be that all you feel is frustration and dissatisfaction. The same sort of

change can happen in friendships and in sexual relationships. At the beginning you

almost go mad with passion, but later that very passion can turn to hatred and aggression,

and, in the worst cases, even lead to murder. So that is the nature of things. If you look

carefully, everything beautiful and good, everything that we consider desirable, brings us

suffering in the end.

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“Finally, we come to the third type of suffering, the suffering of conditioning.

This addresses the main question: why is this the nature of things? The answer is,

because everything that happens in samsara (the cycle of existence between life and

death) is due to ignorance. Under the influence or control of ignorance, there is no

possibility of a permanent state of happiness. Some kind of trouble, some kind of

problem, always arises. So long as we remain under the power of ignorance, that is, our

fundamental misapprehension or confusion about the nature of things, then sufferings

come one after another, like ripples on water.”

Here His Holiness is introducing three very important concepts in Buddhist

thought - ignorance, impermanence, and karma, or cause and effect. We ignorant human

beings don’t understand the true nature of reality, we don’t grasp fully the total

impermanence of every thing and every phenomenon, and we are subject to causes and

conditions from the past that affect us now and will affect us in the future. And this

“condition of things” is the root of our suffering, of our unhappiness, of our less than

satisfying existence.

Is life suffering? Is life really suffering and sorrow? This is a new way of asking

the same question every theologian has pondered at some time or another: What is the

human condition? For Buddha, the human condition is one of sorrowfulness. For

Christians and Jews the human condition has been, ever since Adam and Eve, our fall

from God’s grace due to our sinfulness. Adam and Eve grasped at the fruit of knowledge

of good and evil and, from that time on, humanity has been banished from the idyllic

Garden of Eden, suffering, if you will, from the wrath of God. Suffering. God says in

Genesis, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all

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wild creatures: upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your

life.” This was the Hebrew’s explanation for the suffering of the human life. It appears

they agreed with the Buddha. Humanity is cursed. All the days of our lives will be filled

with suffering. The author of Ecclesiastes put it this way: “For what has man for all his

labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his

days are sorrowful...”

For Buddhists, the “condition of things” is the less-than-satisfactory nature of life,

and it is our ignorance of the impermanent nature of reality, and the consequence of our

actions borne out of that ignorance that lead to our sorrow-full existence. The Dalai

Lama elaborates on this subtle level of the transient, impermanent nature of reality:

“There are two levels of meaning here. One can understand impermanence in

terms of how something arises, stays for a while, and then disappears. This level of

impermanence can be understood quite easily. However, there is a second, more subtle

understanding of transience. From this more subtle perspective, the obvious process of

change I have just described is merely the effect of deeper change. At the deeper level,

everything is changing from moment to moment, constantly. This process of momentary

change is not due to a secondary condition that arises to destroy something, but rather the

very cause that led a thing to arise is also the cause of its destruction. In other words,

within the cause of its origin lies the cause of its cessation.

“Momentariness should thus be understood in two ways. First, in terms of the

three moments of existence of any entity - in the first instant, it arises; in the second

instant, it stays; in the third instant, it dissolves. Second, in terms of each instant itself.

An instant is not static; as soon as it arises, it moves towards its own cessation.”

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His Holiness is speaking of the Mandala of all existence. It is born with the

painstaking application of the first and the second and the third grains of sand. It exists

long enough to contemplate and to assume a sense of identity, and then it is dissolved.

Inherent in the construction and in the contemplation is the knowledge of its eventual

destruction. The very act of creating sets in motion the process of change and ultimately

of loss. Our inability to understand this fully - our ignorance, if you will - sets the stage

for our inevitable suffering.

His Holiness says, “It is very important to understand the context of the Buddhist

emphasis on recognizing that we are in a state of suffering, otherwise there is a danger we

could misunderstand the Buddhist outlook, and think that it involves a rather morbid

thinking, a basic pessimism and almost an obsessiveness about the reality of suffering.

The reason why Buddha laid so much emphasis on developing insight into the nature of

suffering is because there is an alternative - there is a way out, it is actually possible to

free oneself from it. This is why it is so crucial to realize the nature of suffering, because

the stronger and deeper your insight into suffering is, the stronger your aspiration to gain

freedom from it becomes.”

The Dalai Lama often explains this with the analogy of a sick person: “In order

for a sick person to get well, the first step is that he or she must know that he is ill,

otherwise the desire to be cured will not arise. Once you have acknowledged that you are

sick, then naturally you will try to find out what led to it and what makes your condition

even worse. When you have identified these, you will gain an understanding of whether

or not the illness can be cured, and a wish to be free from the illness will arise in you. In

fact this is not just a mere wish, because once you have recognized the conditions that led

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to your illness, your desire to be free of it will be much stronger since that knowledge

will give you a confidence and conviction that you can overcome the illness. With that

conviction, you will want to take all the medications and remedies necessary.

“In the same way, unless you know that you are suffering, your desire to be free

from suffering will not arise in the first place. So the first step we must take is to

recognize our present state as dukkha or suffering, frustration and unsatisfactoriness.

Only then will we wish to look into the causes and conditions that give rise to suffering.

“Once you have developed this kind of recognition of the duhkha nature of life,

you already have some understanding that at the root of our suffering lays a fundamental

ignorance. This of course, leads us to the Second Noble Truth which is the Truth of the

Origin of Suffering.”

So the Second Noble Truth is that our suffering has causes.

In His Holiness’ words, “we all desire happiness and wish to overcome

suffering.” Yet, despite this natural aspiration, “we tend to create the conditions for more

suffering because we do not know the way to create the causes for happiness.” He

continues, “at the root of this situation lies a fundamental confusion, or, in Buddhist

terminology, a fundamental ignorance.”

Life is suffering, sorrow-full, unsatisfactory...and this suffering has a cause. The

cause is our ignorance - our ignorance of the way things really are.

His Holiness again: “This ignorance, this confusion applies not only to the way

things are, but also to the way causes and effects relate to each other. Therefore, in

Buddhism we talk about two types of ignorance: ignorance of the laws of causality,

specifically the laws of karma...and ignorance of the ultimate nature of reality.”

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The Dalai Lama is repeating the teaching of the Buddha himself when he

simplifies for us the two basic causes of our suffering: one is our misunderstanding, or

ignorance, about the ways things really are, and the other is our ignorance about how our

actions in the past inevitably affect our situation in the present moment.

“So together, delusions and karmic actions are the origins of our suffering.”

Let’s look at the second cause first - karma. For a westerner first encountering the

teachings and practices of Buddhism, karma seems to be one of those strange beliefs of

another religion. But in reality, the concept of karma is nothing more than an

understanding of the observable phenomena that every action has some effect. The

Buddha simply observed this, just as everything he taught arose from his enlightened

observation of the world around him. Our every action affects something somewhere

somehow. And at some time or another our actions will have an impact on our lives. To

some subtle degree perhaps, our actions will either become a source of our suffering or

will contribute to a release from our suffering. And for Buddhists who view this

temporal lifetime as merely one of many each of us has had and will have, the karmic

effects of our actions may not be realized until another lifetime. But, ultimately - even if

it takes multiple lifetimes to be revealed - every action will cause some effect. And it

probably doesn’t take a rocket scientist to sort out the logic in that thinking.

His Holiness says, “Experience shows that certain actions we do in the morning,

for example, will have a continuing effect even in the evening. The action will have

created a certain state of mind. It will have had an impact upon our emotion and our

sense of being so even though it was committed in the morning as an event that is

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finished, its effect still lingers on in our mind...the same principle operates with karma

and its effects, even in the case of long-term karmic effects.”

So simple. What we do has consequences. And yet, the Buddha argued, we

ignore this simple principle of cause and effect every day as we seek the illusive

happiness we desire while continuing with actions that are in fact the very causes of our

suffering.

Why? Because we are ignorant - ignorant of reality, ignorant of the way things

really are. After karma, or cause and effect, the other principle cause of our suffering is

our fundamental ignorance. Not an academic ignorance, not a lack of “book-learning”

facts, but an ignorance that stems from our not being “awake,” not being enlightened;

being, as it were, asleep or numb to the reality that is observable all around us. We

continue to make foolish choices in our lives - choices that cause us suffering - because

we have not awakened ourselves to the real way things are. It’s interesting that Jesus

made the same argument. Basically, we have our thinking upside down and backwards,

he argued. It’s not the rich and those of high rank who find happiness, it is the meek and

lowly. It is those who serve, not those in positions of privilege, who in truth obtain

happiness. And you can discover these truths through simple observation. Wake up and

see.

His Holiness restates the profoundly simple in this way: “The teachings on the

Four Noble Truths clearly distinguish two sets of causes and effects: those which produce

suffering and those which produce happiness. By showing us how to distinguish these in

our own lives, the teachings aim at nothing less than to enable us to fulfill our deepest

aspiration - to be happy and to overcome suffering.”

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When the Dalai Lama admonished me to grow in my understanding of emptiness

- a term which refers to the fact that everything is “empty” of any permanent, inherent

existence as we conventionally perceive it to have - he was pointing me toward a new

understanding of reality, a move away from the conventional patterns of understanding

that are rooted in ignorance. His Holiness also says that “the origin of suffering lies both

in karma and ignorance, but actually ignorance is the principal origin.” Our ignorance

gets in the way of our distinguishing which choices and actions ultimately produce

suffering, and which choices and actions ultimately produce happiness. Life is suffering

and our suffering has causes. The causes are our actions and their effect on our life, and

our actions are choices made by us in ignorance - our ignorance of the truth of reality.

So now we are ready for the good news of the Buddha’s teaching, namely that we

can eliminate these causes of our suffering. Just as Jesus preached the Good News of the

Gospels, Buddha preached the good news of the Third Noble Truth, and that is the Truth

of the Cessation of Suffering, or the truth that the causes of our suffering can be removed

from our lives. We can overcome our ignorance and we can engage in actions which

generate good karma.

This third truth, then, points us directly to the Fourth Noble Truth taught by the

Buddha - the Truth of the Path that leads to the cessation of suffering. It is the Noble

Eightfold Path, or the Middle Way. Just as Jesus spoke of “The Way” to a life centered

within the reign of the Truth that is God, so the Buddha calls us to follow the middle way

between unhealthy asceticism and decadent hedonism. It is through the discipline of an

ordered path through our journey of life that we can replace ignorance with

enlightenment, illusion with an understanding of reality, and foolish choices with actions

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that have a beneficial effect on our lives and the lives of others. This is the Noble

Eightfold Path. It shares an inner affinity with the way of Jesus the Christ and with the

truths taught by all the world’s great religions. It can help us shape the relationships

which define our spiritual maturity. In harmony with the guidance offered by the faiths

of our formation, it can point us toward our personal new Mandala path.

Now, before I continue to share with you my quest for that elusive understanding

of emptiness, and before stepping onto the all-important Noble Eightfold Path, take a

moment to ponder these four profound Truths. As the Buddha instructed his disciples,

and as my Buddhist teachers have admonished me, meditate upon their logic in light of

your own observation and personal experience. Examine each Truth for yourself as

though you were a goldsmith seeking the essence of refined gold. Is life full of

experiences of suffering and sorrow that seemingly get in the way of our search for true

happiness? Does it make sense that our actions and choices might actually be the cause

of our sufferings? And is it possible that we may be able to transform our thinking and

radically modify our ways of doing things to such a degree that we could actually

eliminate the causes of unhappiness in our life? Examine the patterns of your own

Mandala for a time before we examine the Buddha’s call to walk a new path - the Noble

Eightfold Path toward our own spiritual awakening.

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Chapter 5

The Middle Way

All religions agree upon the necessity to control the undisciplined mind that harbors selfishness and other roots of trouble. And each, in its own way, teaches a path . . . a path leading to a spiritual state that is peaceful, disciplined, ethical and wise.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“All beings seek happiness.” The Dalai Lama is teaching. “But most of them,

lacking knowledge of how to gain it, find themselves continually immersed in frustration

and pain. What we need is an effective approach.”

The larger-than-life questions about who we really are and where we truly are

going in life are the questions that shape our life’s journey. Ultimately they are spiritual

questions. They are questions about relationships, our most meaningful relationships: our

relationship with our self, with so-called others, with the Divine, and with all of the

natural creation. The seeking of answers to our spiritual questions of relationships is, in

fact, the entry into our own sacred path.

Listen again to the Dalai Lama: “Our repeated experience of frustration,

dissatisfaction and misery does not have external conditions as its root cause. The

problem is mainly our lack of spiritual development. As a result of this handicap, the

mind is controlled principally by afflicted emotions and illusions. Attachment, aversion

and ignorance rather than a free spirit, love and wisdom are the guiding forces.

Recognizing this simple truth is the beginning of the spiritual path.”

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The fourth Noble Truth is the truth of the path – the path that will lead to the

cessation of the causes of our suffering, and which will therefore lead to our liberation

from suffering - to our true happiness. This sacred path is one of right intentions, right

actions, right thoughts and right effort, each of which depends upon and supports the

others in a manner that gives orientation and meaning to our life-defining spiritual

relationships.

The Buddha observed that life is full of suffering, that suffering has causes, and

that those causes can be eliminated. He then taught the Fourth Noble Truth, the Path to

the cessation of the causes of our suffering: what has come to be called the Noble

Eightfold Path. It is also known as the “Middle Way,” because it avoids the two

extremes of hedonistic pleasure-seeking and self-mortifying asceticism. Having tried

these two extremes himself, Gautama Buddha found that the futile search for happiness

through the pleasures of the senses was “low, common, unprofitable and the way of

ordinary people,” and that the search for happiness through self-mortification and various

forms of extreme ascetic deprivation was “painful, unworthy and unprofitable.” The

Buddha discovered through personal experience the Middle Path “which gives vision and

knowledge, which leads to calm, insight, enlightenment, Nirvana.”

This Middle Way, or Noble Eightfold Path consists of :

1. Right Understanding

2. Right Thought

3. Right Speech

4. Right Action

5. Right Livelihood

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6. Right Effort

7. Right Mindfulness

8. Right Concentration

Practically the whole teaching of the Buddha, to which he devoted himself for

more than forty years, deals in some way or other with this Path. He explained it in

different ways and in differing words to different people, according to the stage of their

spiritual development and their capacity to understand and follow him.

Tibetan Buddhists also believe that the Buddha’s teaching of the Path has been

further revealed through their historical prophets and saints, most notably Atisha, who

elaborated on the Path and the stages of spiritual development called lam-rim;

Tsongkhapa who reformed Tibetan Buddhism and emphasized the practical aspects of the

path with lo jong, (“mind training” or “thought transformation”): and Shantideva whose

poetic Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life established the contemporary Tibetan ideal

of selfless spiritual development.

The eight categories or divisions of the Path are not individual stages to be

completed one after the other nor is there any hierarchy of importance to the eight

divisions. It should not be thought that the elements of the Path should be followed and

practiced one after the other in the numerical order as given in the usual list above, but

they are to be developed more or less simultaneously as far as possible. They are all

linked together like the spokes of a wheel and each helps in the cultivation of the others.

Says the Dalai Lama, “They all share the fundamental aim of leading sentient beings

from darkness to light, evil to goodness, ignorance to clarity.”

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For purposes of understanding the elements of the Path, however, it is helpful to

group them according to the three essentials of Buddhist training and development,

namely Ethical Conduct (Sila), Mental Discipline (Samadi) and Wisdom (Panna).

His Holiness speaks in these terms: “The most important practice is that of the

three higher trainings: the training in morality (Sila), concentration or meditation

(Samadi), and wisdom or insight (Panna).

“In a sense, the most important of these is wisdom – the wisdom of emptiness.

For when we understand the empty, non-inherent nature of the self and phenomena, the

endless forms of delusion that arise from grasping at transient existence are directly

eliminated. However, in order for the training in wisdom to mature and become strong,

one must first develop meditative concentration; and in order to develop and support

concentration one should cultivate the training in ethical conduct and self-discipline,

which calms the mind and provides an atmosphere conducive to meditation.”

Ethical conduct (Sila) is grounded in the notions of love and compassion, and

includes Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood (factors 3, 4, and 5 on the

Path). The Buddha’s teachings are built on the vast conception of universal love and

compassion for all living things. The Buddha gave his teaching “for the good of the

many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world.” The Dalai Lama

echoes that teaching: “The main idea in the practice of ethics is to restrain concern only

for oneself and to live more fully for the benefit of others.”

According to Buddhist teaching, for a person to be perfect there are two qualities

that should be developed equally: compassion on one side, and wisdom on the other.

Here compassion represents love, charity, kindness, tolerance and such noble qualities on

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the emotional side, or qualities of the heart. Wisdom, on the other hand, would stand for

the intellectual side or qualities of the mind. If one were to develop only the emotional

while neglecting the intellectual, one might become a good-hearted fool. Developing

only the intellectual side while neglecting the emotional may turn one into a heard-

hearted intellect without feeling or compassion for others. Therefore, to be perfect – in

fact to realize perfect happiness – one has to develop both sides equally. This is the aim

of the Buddhist way of life. In it wisdom and compassion are inseparably linked

together.

His Holiness says, “The emphasis in one’s life should be on cultivating the mental

and spiritual causes of happiness.”

Elaborating in the Dalai Lama’s words, “These two capacities themselves will

only develop successfully if our single-pointedness of mind is based on an ethically

sound life, in which we apply discipline both to our attitude and to our way of life. In

this tradition, you find intelligence cooperating with the heart, the emotional side. When

faith and compassion – which are more in the nature of emotional states – are backed by

a powerful conviction arrived at through reflection and investigation, then they are very

firm indeed, whereas a faith or compassion that is not based on such powerful reasoning,

but is more affective and instinctual, is not very firm. It is prone to being undermined

and shaken when you meet certain situations and circumstances. There is even a Tibetan

expression that states, ‘Someone whose faith is not grounded in reason is like a stream of

water that can be led anywhere.’”

The Ethical Conduct (Sila) facet of the Path, based on the ideals of love and

compassion includes Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood and is not unlike

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the Hebrew Ten Commandments. The foundation of any spiritual path is basic moral and

ethical conduct grounded in love of others. In the Dalai Lama’s words, “Good conduct is

the way in which life becomes more meaningful, more constructive and more peaceful.”

Right speech for the Buddhist means abstaining from telling lies; abstaining from

slanderous talk that may bring about hatred, enmity, disunity and disharmony among

individuals or groups of people; abstaining from harsh, rude, impolite, malicious and

abusive language; and abstaining from idle, useless and foolish gossip and babble. When

one avoids these wrong and harmful forms of speech one naturally speaks the truth, uses

words that are friendly and benevolent, pleasant and gentle as well as meaningful and

useful. In our relationships with the others around us, we are, to a very real extent, what

we speak. Spiritual development begins with abstaining from speech which is harmful

and the cultivating of Right Speech which benefits both ourselves and those around us.

Right Action aims at promoting moral, honorable and peaceful conduct. The

Buddha taught that we should refrain from destroying life, from stealing, from dishonest

dealings, from inappropriate sexual conduct, and that we should endeavor to set a high

moral example for others to follow.

Right Livelihood means one should avoid making one’s living through a

profession that brings harm to others, such as trading in arms and lethal weapons, killing

animals, engaging in fraudulent business schemes. To be spiritually integrated and whole

requires that the significant time we spend each day engaged in our livelihood should

honorable, blameless and free of any harm to others. Intuitively we understand that it

would be impossible to attain the enlightenment of spiritual maturity while spending the

better part of one’s every day pursuing a career that brought harm or ill-fortune to others.

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These three elements of the Eightfold Path – Right Speech, Right Action and

Right Livelihood – constitute Ethical Conduct or Sila. Buddhists understand that all

human beings live in relationship, in a web of connectedness, and that moral conduct

promotes a happy and harmonious life for both the individual and all of society. His

Holiness tells us that, “For somebody who has an interest in the spiritual life it is

important to understand that it is necessary to have concern for the welfare of society and

a strong relationship with society.”

While no one step nor any group of steps on the Path comes “before” or “after”

the others, moral conduct is considered to be the indispensable foundation for all higher

spiritual attainments. No spiritual development is possible without this moral base.

Next comes Mental Discipline (Samadi), which includes the last three elements of

the Path: Right Effort, Right Mindfulness (or Attentiveness) and Right Concentration.

These factors contribute to the development of the wisdom aspect of the spiritual life.

Right Effort is the application of energy and will to preventing evil and

unwholesome states from arising; to the elimination of such evil and unwholesome

thoughts that have already arisen within; to the production and causing to arise the good

and wholesome states of mind not yet arisen; and to the development and bringing to

perfection the good and wholesome states of mind already present within.

Simply put, true wisdom does not arise without dedication and effort. Good

intentions are not sufficient to produce progress on the spiritual path.

In the Dalai Lama’s words, “Every religious practitioner needs effort. By effort

we mean an enthusiasm for the practice of virtue. On the positive side, this means to pay

attention to what needs to be achieved. On the negative side, it means to overcome the

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forces opposing such effort, that is the various types of laziness. One type of laziness is

attachment to the meaningless activities of worldly life. Another is the laziness of

thinking, ‘I could not possibly do this!’ This is really a matter of having low self-esteem.

The other form of laziness is procrastination. Since these are problems faced by all

religious practitioners, the practices of effort are also for everyone.”

Right Mindfulness or Attentiveness is to be diligently aware, to be mindful and

attentive with regard to the activities of the body; to sensations or feelings or emotions; to

the activities of the mind; and to thoughts, ideas, concepts and things.

The practice of concentration on breathing, which we will discuss in depth in later

chapters, is one of the well-known exercises connected with the body that are used for

mental development. Other modes of meditation and contemplative practice are designed

to awaken and tune our ability to remain mindful and attentive.

With regard to sensations, feelings and emotions, one should be clearly aware of

all forms of feelings, emotions and sensations – pleasant, unpleasant and neutral – and of

how they arise and pass away within oneself.

Concerning the activities of mind, one should be aware whether one’s mind is

lustful or not, given to hatred or not, deluded or not, distracted or concentrated. In this

way one should be aware of all movements of mind – how they, too, arise and pass away.

Regarding ideas, thoughts, concepts and things, one should know their nature –

how they appear and disappear, how they are developed, how they are suppressed, how

they are destroyed.

The third and last of the Mental Discipline factors is Right Concentration. This in

large measure refers to meditation and contemplation. The first stage of Right

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Concentration is the discarding of passionate desires and unwholesome thoughts such as

sensuous lust, ill-will, worry, restlessness and skeptical doubt, while feelings of joy and

happiness are maintained. In the second stage, all intellectual activities are suspended,

tranquility or “single-pointedness of mind,” (as the Dalai Lama often mentions) is

developed, and the feelings of joy and happiness are still retained. In the third stage, the

feeling of joy, which is an active sensation, also disappears, while happiness, which is

less active and more a state of mind, remains and there emerges the beginning of a

blissful equanimity. The final stage is pure equanimity and awareness, with all

sensations, even of happiness or unhappiness, joy and sorrow, passing away. “You must

maintain an alertness and gradually stop the fluctuations of thought and sensory

experience within your mind. Then it is possible to have a glimpse of the nature of the

mind.”

This Right Concentration is, again simply put, the opposite of “wrong

concentration,” the abandonment of unhealthy attachments and desires and emotions and

the development of a single-pointed, enlightened and aware state of being in the world.

“Generally speaking,” says His Holiness, “there is nothing uniquely Buddhist

regarding the meditative practice of single-pointedness and the various techniques that

are used to develop this ability. They are common to all the major spiritual traditions in

India, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. What is unique about the application of this

faculty of single-pointedness is that it enables and assists the spiritual practitioner to

channel his or her mind onto a chosen object without distraction. By applying meditative

techniques, and cultivating and enhancing this single-pointedness within you, you may

develop not only profound stability in the mind – thus freeing you from the normal state

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of distraction in which the whole of your mental energy is dissipated and dispersed – but

a profound alertness as well. Hence, these techniques allow you to channel your mental

energies and develop both stability and clarity.”

The ultimate goal of the Path is embodied in the first two elements in the list:

Right Thought and Right Understanding. Together these constitute Wisdom (Panna).

These two facets of Wisdom, combined with the other six spokes of the wheel of the

Eightfold path, bring the stages of the Path together in an unending circle of Wisdom and

Compassion that orients the mature and enlightened spiritual life.

Right Thought refers to thoughts of selfless renunciation or detachment, thoughts

of love and thoughts of non-violence which are extended to all living beings. For the

Buddha, selfless detachment, noble love and non-violence emanate from Right Thought

and are an integral part of Wisdom. True wisdom is endowed with these qualities of the

heart, and thoughts of selfish desire, ill will, hatred and violence are the result of a lack of

Wisdom – or “wrong thought,” if you will.

Right Understanding is the understanding of things as they are, and it is the Four

Noble Truths that explain things as they really are. Right Understanding therefore is

ultimately reduced to the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. In the Dalai Lama’s

words, “There is conventional knowledge that relates to the everyday world of

experience, and then there is the ultimate knowledge that pertains to deeper aspects of

reality. In the Buddhist context, ‘ultimate truth’ refers to the ultimate nature of reality.”

This understanding is the highest wisdom that sees – even experiences – the Ultimate

Reality.

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According to the Buddha’s teaching there are two sorts of understanding. What

we generally call understanding is knowledge, an accumulated memory, an intellectual

grasping of a subject according to a certain given data. This is called “knowing

accordingly.” It is not very deep. Real deep understanding is called “penetration,”

seeing a thing in its true nature, without name or label. This penetration is possible only

when the mind is free from impure thought and preconceived notions and is fully

developed through meditation and contemplation.

From this brief explanation of the Eightfold Path, you can quickly see it is a way

of life to be followed and practiced by each individual who seeks spiritual growth and

enlightenment. It is structure and self-discipline for body, mind and spirit, for self-

development and spiritual growth. It has nothing to do with dogma, belief, worship or

ceremony. In that sense it has nothing to do with what many would label “religious.” It

is a Path leading to the realization of Ultimate Reality, to complete liberation, happiness

and peace through moral, spiritual and intellectual perfection.

In Tibet and other Buddhist cultures there are simple and beautiful customs of

prayer and ceremonies on religious occasions. They have little to do with the real Path.

But they do have their value in satisfying very real human religious emotions and the

needs of those who are making their way gradually along the Path. Says the Dalai Lama,

“When through rituals and formalities you create that spiritual space or atmosphere that

you are seeking, then the process will have a powerful effect on your experience. When

you lack that inner dimension, that spiritual experience that you are aspiring to, then the

rituals become mere formalities, external elaborations.”

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With regard to the Four Noble Truths, it is not ceremony, ritual or dogma that we

are called to. We have four callings:

The First Noble Truth is Dukkha, the human condition, nature of life, its

suffering, its sorrows and joys, its imperfection and unsatisfactoriness, its impermanence

and insubstantiality. With regard to this, our first calling is to understand it as a fact,

clearly and completely.

The Second Noble Truth is the Origin of Dukkha, which is desire, “thirst”

accompanied by all other passions, defilements and impurities. A mere understanding of

this fact is not sufficient. Here it is our calling to discard it, to eliminate it, to destroy and

eradicate it.

The Third Noble Truth is the Cessation of Dukkha, and the realization of Nirvana,

of the Ultimate Truth, the Ultimate Reality. Here our calling is to realize it.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the Path leading to the realization of Nirvana, of

Ultimate Truth and the Ultimate Reality. A mere knowledge of the Path, however

academically complete, will not do. In this case, our calling is clearly to follow the Path

and keep to it.

Let me paraphrase a famous parable of the Buddha that speaks to the purpose and

value of a religious path. The story goes like this: A man is on a journey. He comes to a

vast stretch of water. On this shore the shore is dangerous, but on the other it is safe and

without danger. No boat goes to the other shore which is safe and without danger, nor is

there any bridge for crossing over. He says to himself, “This sea of water is vast, and the

shore on this side is full of danger; but on the other shore it is safe and without danger.

No boat goes to the other side, nor is there a bridge for crossing over. It would be good

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therefore if I would gather grass, wood, branches and leaves to make a raft, and with the

help of my raft cross over safely to the other side, exerting myself with my hands and

feet.” Then that man gathers grass, wood, branches and leaves and makes a raft, and with

the help of that raft crosses over safely to the other side, exerting himself with his hands

and his feet. Having crossed over and got to the other side, he thinks: “This raft was of

great help to me. With its aid I have crossed safely over to this side, exerting myself with

my hands and my feet. It would be good if I carry this raft on my head or on my back

wherever I go.” The Buddha continues his lesson by asking us if this man acted properly,

then answers his own question by suggesting that it would have been better if the man

had said: “This raft was a great help to me. With its aid I have crossed safely over to this

side, exerting myself with my hands and feet. It would be good if I beached this raft on

the shore, or moored it and left it afloat, and then went on my way wherever it may be.”

The Buddha concludes by saying that his teaching is like a raft - it is for crossing over,

and not for carrying.

All the world’s major religions teach a path. For the Hebrews, the Law and

adherence to it was the path to God and salvation. Jesus, preaching to a Hebrew

audience, taught the Way as being an embodiment of the law and a path to the kingdom

of God that was within. Neither the Jewish prophets nor Jesus Christ taught that religious

labels were the Path itself, however. The Path or the Way is the raft meant for facilitating

the crossing, not for carrying on our back like a sandwich board that advertises which

narrow world-view we have chosen to the exclusion of all others. A careful reading of

the Hebrew scriptures or the Christian Gospels will find a confirmation of the Truth of

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the path that was revealed to the Buddha and an invitation to walk it grounded firmly in

one’s traditional faith.

The Dalai Lama has said, “Many spiritual traditions still thrive throughout the

world. The great lack is not in the teachings but in our not having the inclination to study

and practice them. There are many masters alive today who can show us the paths and

practices, but we do not take up training under them. Who can we blame but ourselves if

in this way we generate no spiritual experience?”

The Path which the Buddha taught was born from observation. Gautama

Siddhartha engaged in Right Thought and Right Concentration, enlisting the whole of his

compassion and wisdom in contemplative meditation until the Path to an enlightened way

of living became abundantly clear to him. It was a realization of Truth, an experience of

Ultimate Reality that was beyond labels. It was not the Buddha’s truth, it was just the

Truth - an authentic understanding of the path to the domain of the divine that could be

lived by everyone. It needs no religious name and is in conflict with no religion’s

teaching. It is the Path toward wisdom and compassion to which all the world’s religions

aspire. It is a Path available to anyone wishing to find his or her way toward spiritual

growth and enlightenment.

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Chapter 6

The Illusions of Emptiness

The more we deepen our understanding of emptiness, and the greater the power of our insight becomes, the more we see through the deceptions of emotions, and the weaker those emotions become.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“Emptiness. Learn all you can about emptiness.”

This simple admonition from His Holiness was never far from my thoughts as I

sought to understand Buddhist wisdom. And it was never far from the teachings he

would later share with me in dialogue, and which I would hear from many other monks

and Rinpoches during my time in Dharamsala.

The Dalai Lama’s directive to me during our first visit together was not unlike the

Zen Buddhist koans – puzzling stories that one has to unravel to find the hidden truth.

An example: the student asks the master, “What is the nature of a lotus flower as it grows

in the muddy water.” “A blossom,” replies the master. Then the student asks, “And what

is the nature of the lotus when it has been picked from the water.” “Leaves,” concludes

the master.

There’s meaning hidden in that. Find it!

I had asked the Master what I should study in order to begin to grasp the breadth

of Buddhist wisdom and method, and His Holiness had replied, “emptiness.” It was

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almost as if I had asked, “With what should I fill myself?” and had been told, “Nothing.

Fill yourself with emptiness.”

Since that day, I have been seeking to discern the Path of the Buddha’s teachings,

and I have peeled away several layers of leaves from the hidden blossom of the notion of

emptiness. I am discovering that emptiness is so simple and so complex, so obvious and

yet so hidden from our true understanding, and always so central to our letting go of the

pervasive attachments that get in the way of our spiritual growth and happiness.

The Dalai Lama has said to me of emptiness, “The reason why it is so important

to understand this subtle point is because of its implications for interpreting our own

experiences of life.”

How do we begin to understand this concept of “emptiness?” Does it mean that

nothing is real? No, not really. Listen again to His Holiness: “What does it mean then?

It is the emptiness of real or absolute existence.”

Over time I have learned from His Holiness that another word is just as important

as “emptiness,” and that word is the little preposition “of.” Nothing is inherently

“empty,” but everything is empty of inherent existence. Every thing, every phenomenon

is empty of the real or absolute existence we generally ascribe to it.

Let me explain.

If I say, “You are holding a book,” you can easily observe that the book you are

now holding is real. It does exist, that is true. Even a Buddhist would not argue with

that. But the thing we call a book is actually just a collection of pages and covers, and if

we look further it is cardboard, paper, stitching and glue. And further still it is ink

impressions and wood pulp. Finally, if we look still deeper, it is a mass of molecules and

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atoms all grouped together into a collection we have almost arbitrarily labeled “a book.”

This “book” is empty of any inherent existence as “a book.” This collection of stuff only

has existence as “a book” because we have labeled the paper and ink, the molecules and

atoms as a book. No matter how hard we try, we cannot locate anything in this collection

of stuff that is intrinsically “a book.” Everything we do find can be broken down into its

parts, the sum of which we have chosen to see as a book.

The same is true of your self. If I say to you, “Take care of yourself,” we both

know what your self is. You are real. But, upon further examination, we would discover

that you are totally unable to put your finger on this intrinsic “self.” Your self is empty of

any inherent existence as “self.” Once again, you are simply a collection of skin and

bones, molecules and atoms that only exist as “self” because we both label the collection

this way.

So what? Is this just an academic exercise in semantics? Does it matter that there

is no true book or no true self, only a collection of stuff? Yes, it matters. It matters

because it has everything to do with reality and illusion; it has everything to do with

wisdom and ignorance: it has everything to do with our happiness and our suffering.

The reality is this: everything is empty of inherent existence. That is reality. All

the labels we use, all the ordinary ways we view things, are illusory. We view the

illusion, and fail to perceive the reality.

And what is more, we react to the illusions. We have emotional reactions to the

illusory impressions of things and persons and events, illusions that we create in our

minds. And then we respond. We make our life-directing decisions based on those

illusions.

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We are living our lives in a fantasy, so to speak. Everyone and everything we

observe we label with a fantasy impression that is something other than its true reality.

Its Ultimate Reality is emptiness – empty of all the fanciful qualities of inherent existence

that we create with our naming.

Yet it is the fantasy that determines our emotional response to the thing or the

person or the phenomenon. We label, then we discriminate, then we react.

Example: I see a shiny red sports car in the showroom window. I instantly label

the collection of wheels, metal and chrome as a sports car. Then I call it “good,”

meaning I discriminate and place it in the category of “good things.” Then I react. I

instantly develop desire – desire for something I don’t now own, but wish I did.

I have come to desire something that doesn’t actually exist – at least not in the

ordinary sense in which I have perceived it. First, it has no inherent existence as a sports

car, and second it certainly is empty of all the abstract qualities I also ascribe to it: it is

“sexy,” I have decided. It will make me “feel good” if I own it, I have decided. Just

driving it about town will validate my success and cause others to think more highly of

me, I have decided. These are my fantasies, my illusions, the un-reality. But they are

real enough to me and to thousands of others who create this illusory reality in their mind

as they gaze at the same red sports car. This illusion is real enough to give birth to all

sorts of emotional responses such as craving and desire, and to direct important life

decisions of many a would-be automobile purchaser.

In fact, not only is my imaginative impression of this car a mere illusion, so is the

very notion of “ownership.” I believe I can somehow “own” this collection of stuff I

have chosen to call a car, and furthermore I believe that this “ownership” will confer

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upon me some special aura, of sorts. The truth is, neither I nor you can actually “own”

anything. Ownership is an artificial relationship, one that we make up in our minds and

support with meaningless bits of paper. Just walk outside to the parking lot and find your

cute red sports car is no longer where you parked it, discover that it has been stolen, and

you will know very quickly how illusory the notion of ownership is! That car is always

going to be empty of any inherent quality of “being owned,” by you or by anyone else for

that matter.

Once again, is all of this abstract logic just some sort of intellectual game? Or

does it have some relevance to the Four Nobel Truths of our life’s condition and the Path

we may be able to walk to experience spiritual growth and happiness? Let’s listen again

to the Dalai Lama, who, fortunately it seems to me, is very far removed from any

concerns with sexy red sports cars: “Once we appreciate that fundamental disparity

between appearance and reality, we gain insight into the way our emotions work, and

how we react to events and objects.

“Underlying the strong emotional responses we have to situations (and objects),

we see that there is an assumption that some kind of independently existing reality exists

out there. In this way, we develop an insight into the various functions of the mind and

the different levels of consciousness within us. We also grow to understand that although

certain types of mental states seem so real, and although objects appear to be so vivid, in

reality they are mere illusions. They do not really exist in the way we think they do.

“It is through this type of reflection and analysis that we will be able to gain an

insight into what in technical Buddhist language is called ‘the origin of suffering,’ in

other words, those emotional experiences that lead to confusion, and which afflict the

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mind. When this is combined with an understanding of the interdependent nature of

reality at the subtlest level, then we also gain insight into what we call ‘the empty nature

of reality,’ by which we mean the way every object and event arises only as a

combination of many factors, and has no autonomous existence.

“Our insight into emptiness will, of course, help us to understand that any ideas

that are based on the contrary view, that things exist intrinsically and independently, are

misapprehensions. They are misunderstandings of the nature of reality. We realize that

they have no valid grounding either in reality or in our own valid experience, whereas the

empty nature of reality has a valid grounding both in logical reasoning and in our

experience. Gradually, we come to appreciate that it is possible to arrive at a state of

knowledge where such misapprehension is eliminated completely; that is cessation.”

His Holiness is pointing to the fact that our misunderstandings of the nature of

things and events is the genesis of our suffering, and that a right understanding will lead

to a cessation of the cravings and grasping and desires that arise from those

misunderstandings, and ultimately to a cessation of the very suffering itself. That is how

important an experiential understanding of emptiness is!

Now, in order to fully experience an understanding of emptiness, to go beyond

simply reading and understanding a definition of it, we have to also understand two

additional very important concepts in Buddhist thought: impermanence and dependent

arising.

In a nutshell these concepts teach us that all things arise and pass away. Every

event, every object, every phenomenon arises from something and then passes away into

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something else or some other state. Nothing comes from nothing, and nothing lasts

forever.

Remember when we looked at the Noble Eightfold Path we learned that Right

Concentration and Right Effort contribute to Right Understanding and finally to

liberating wisdom? Well, now is the time to put that into practice. Here is the Dalai

Lama’s teaching on “dependent origination,” and its relevance to an understanding of

emptiness. You may want to read and reread it a couple of times.

“The principle of dependent origination, which is also understood as

interdependent origination or causal dependence, can be explained on three levels of

meaning. Firstly, this principle means that all conditioned things and events in the

universe come into being only as a result of the interaction of various causes and

conditions. This is significant because it precludes the possibility that things can arise

from nowhere, with no causes and conditions.

“Secondly, we can understand the principle of dependent origination in terms of

parts and whole. All material objects can be understood in terms of how the parts

compose the whole, and how the very idea of ‘whole’ depends upon the existence of

parts. Such dependence clearly exists in the physical world. Similarly, non-physical

entities, like consciousness, can be considered in terms of their temporal sequences: the

idea of their wholeness is based upon the successive sequences that compose a

continuum. So when we consider the universe in these terms, not only do we see each

conditioned thing as independently originated, we also understand that the entire

phenomenal world arises according to the principle of dependent origination.

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“There is a third dimension to the meaning of dependent origination, which is that

all things and events – everything, in fact – arise solely as a result of the mere coming

together of the many factors which make them up. When you analyze things by mentally

breaking them down into their constitutive parts, you come to the understanding that it is

simply in dependence upon other factors that anything comes into being. Therefore there

is nothing that has any independent or intrinsic identity of its own. Whatever identity we

give things is contingent on the interaction between our perception and reality itself.

However, this is not to say that things do not exist. Buddhism is not nihilistic. Things do

exist, but they do not have an independent, autonomous reality.

“By developing a deep understanding of the interdependent nature of reality in

terms of causal dependence, we are able to appreciate the workings of what we call

“karma,” that is, the karmic law of cause and effect which governs human actions. This

law explains how experiences of suffering arise as a result of negative actions, thoughts

and behavior, and how desirable experiences such as joy arise as a result of the causes

which correspond to that result – positive actions, emotions and thoughts.

“Developing a deep understanding of dependent origination in terms of causal

dependence gives you a fundamental insight into the nature of reality.

“When you realize that everything we experience arises as a result of the

interaction and coming together of causes and conditions, your whole view changes.

Your perspective on your own inner experiences, and the world at large, shifts as you

begin to see everything in terms of the causal principle. Once you have developed that

kind of outlook, you will be able to situate your understanding of karma within that

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framework, since karmic laws are a particular instance of this overall general causal

principle.

“Similarly, when you have a deep understanding of the other two dimensions of

dependent origination – the dependence of parts and whole, and the interdependence

between perception and existence – your view will deepen, and you will appreciate that

there is a disparity between the way things appear to you and the way they actually are.

What appears as some kind of autonomous, objective reality out there does not really fit

with the actual nature of reality.”

And the nature of reality is…emptiness. Everything and every event is empty of

any inherent, independent existence. Everything exists as a result of the coming together

of other things which bring it into existence, and even that temporary existence is

conditioned by our own perception.

And all this complicated dissecting of our distorted view of reality brings the

Dalai Lama to his point: an understanding of reality is the key to the true happiness that is

the goal of the Path, and our misunderstanding of reality is at the core of the ignorance

that is the root cause of our suffering and unhappiness.

He elaborates: “In examining the Four Noble Truths we looked at the fact that we

all desire happiness and wish to overcome suffering, and how, despite this natural

aspiration, we tend to create the conditions for more suffering because we do not know

the way to create the causes for happiness. We found that at the root of this situation lies

a fundamental confusion or, in Buddhist terminology, a fundamental ignorance. This

confusion applies not only to the way things are but also to the way causes and effects

relate to each other. In Buddhism we talk about two levels of ignorance: ignorance of the

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laws of causality, specifically of the laws of karma, and ignorance of the ultimate nature

of reality, namely emptiness.”

Now His Holiness is moving toward making simple sense of this complicated

logic. We are ignorant of what causes things and events to come into existence, and we

are ignorant of their true nature or reality. And this ignorance causes us suffering and

unhappiness. And if we could only replace our fundamental ignorance with Right

Thinking, we could be free of our suffering and unhappiness.

There is a final point to be developed with regard to the causes and reality of

events and things, and that is their impermanence. Everything arises and passes away.

That is a fundamental axiom of existence. Every thing and every event comes from

something else, from some other intersection of causes and effects, and then that transient

event or thing begins to pass away, or at least to change form into another reality, a new

intersection of causes and effects.

Not only is every phenomenon empty of any inherent existence, it is empty of any

permanent existence. Everything that arises as a causal collection of stuff is, at the same

time, changing into a new collection of stuff. Every event that arises from a chain of

interdependent earlier events is, at the same time, changing into another link in the chain

and becoming still another new event. Everything is at the same time both arising and

passing away. Everything is impermanent. Everything is empty and impermanent. That

is reality.

Our unhappiness, our suffering, is a direct result of our ignorance of this reality.

We misunderstand and misinterpret reality, then we make bad decisions and unfortunate

choices based on our false assumptions.

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Just as things and events arise and pass away, so, too, do our emotional responses

to them. A thing or event arises and we label it – based on our incorrect view of its

reality – as “good” or “bad.” Then we develop either desire or aversion in response.

From that aversion or desire comes the suffering of wanting what we don’t have, or the

suffering of having what we wish we did not have! If we could only understand –

understand at a deeply experiential level – that everything is empty of the nature we think

it has and is also passing away as soon as it is arising. Then we might be able to let go of

our clinging, grasping desires or avoid our painful fears, prejudices, hatreds and other

aversions and begin to experience a blissful glimpse of simple happiness.

Remember that sexy red sports car? It has arisen from the labor of assembling

plastic, rubber and steel into an attractive, enticing package of stuff. I develop desire for

this package, a desire to possess this package of stuff, perceiving it to possess a lot of

qualities it is actually very empty of. Then my suffering starts. Either I want it and

cannot have it, so I suffer; or I acquire it and soon begin to wish I did not – namely I now

have to fuel it, insure it, make the monthly payments, worry about damaging it or having

it stolen, and then washing it every weekend, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera! And that

doesn’t even take into account my future disappointment at the car having not brought me

all the personal esteem and happiness I was sure it was going to bring me, or its

inevitable depreciation into a relatively worthless and undesirable used car.

My ignorance of the true reality of this “thing” and its fleeting impermanence

have led in turn to desire, then attachment and finally to aversion – all emotions which

have arisen and passed away relative to a collection of stuff that has been empty of any

inherent existence all along!

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All of this gets us back to an earlier point about relationships. What the Dalai

Lama is telling us to consider is our fundamental relationship with the people, things and

events in our lives. A spiritually mature person has developed mature relationships with

money, with possessions and with other persons that are based on a mature understanding

of their reality. The enlightened being understands that his or her perception of people,

things and events is conditioned by biases and a limited perspective and do not represent

an inherent reality. And further, the spiritually enlightened being knows intuitively that

whatever the reality of persons, things and events may be now, it is transient and will

soon pass away. This enlightened view of the universal nature of all phenomena leads

the wise and tranquil one along a path of life that is relatively free of destructive desires

and unhealthy aversions, and eminently full of happiness and satisfaction.

Let me move beyond sports cars and into the realm of the celestial beauty of truth.

I was at Tushita monastery, in the hills above Dharamsala village, when I had my

epiphany experience of the nature of emptiness and impermanence. I was looking at the

brilliant pink and red clouds against the azure sky and watching the orange sphere of the

sun as it seemed to set below the horizon beyond the broad plains of India. And then,

almost like the “green flash” that is purportedly visible over the Pacific horizon at the

instant of final sunset, I had a flash of insight and clear light, as the Buddhists like to call

it. I suddenly perceived dependent arising, emptiness and impermanence with an

understanding that comes after knowledge, with a knowing that comes only through

internalized experience.

It was one of those “ah-ha” experiences, when you realize something that you

actually knew all along but never fully understood so clearly as at this moment.

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I turned to a surprised monk and blurted out at him, “The sunset is empty! It has

no existence!” I’m sure this poor Tibetan had no idea what I was saying, but he smiled in

approval. I continued to speak to the monk and to the setting sun. And to myself. The

so-called sunset is beautiful and does exist, of that there is no doubt. But it has no

inherent existence. What I am at this moment observing as a sunset is being observed

somewhere to the west as a morning sunrise, and still somewhere else as the heat of the

noonday sun. What I label as “a sunset” is actually a momentary conjunction of

intersecting phenomenon that have come together to “cause” my so-called sunset. I am

not viewing any “thing” or even any single definable event, per se. It’s only a

coincidental converging of clouds, a random star we call the sun, the rotation of the earth,

and a distant horizon of this planet earth. In fact, their convergence as “a sunset” is

largely an accident of my own placement in time and geography, and an illusion of my

own mental fabrication.

This sunset has arisen from the convergence of external causes, it is empty of any

inherent existence, and it is obviously fleeting and impermanent. And that makes it no

different from every other phenomenon. Like every other person, thing or event in life, it

has arisen from external causes, it has no independent, absolute existence, and it will

change and then pass away. I had always known this to be true of sunsets, I had just

never thought about it. But now, for the first time, I was understanding it about all the

other stuff of life.

And I was getting the point. Since I intuitively know – and have always known –

that sunsets have no real existence, it has never occurred to me to desire to possess or

own one! As beautiful as the perfect summer’s sunset may be on any given afternoon, I

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would never think of reaching for my wallet and pulling out my American Express card

and trying to buy it! And why not? Because I know - with a knowing beyond mere

knowledge, an intuitive understanding that runs so deep it’s part of the fabric of my being

– the reality of sunsets, that they are just illusion, that you can’t own one, and that – in

the end – none of that matters. I can still enjoy the beauty – the incredible God-given

beauty – of a sunset, without ever clinging to it or crying as I lose it when, like

everything, it inevitably passes away.

Tibetans often use an image of the moon rather than the fleeting phenomenon of

the sunset to help with an understanding of emptiness. They say that every phenomenon

is like the reflection of the full moon on the surface of a still lake. If we try to grasp, hold

on to, or possess the reflection of the moon, we will only disturb the water, and the object

of our grasping will disappear from our view. The reflection is empty of any real

existence as the moon or even as a tangible image of the moon. It is an illusion. Yet we

order our whole life around our grasping and possessing and protecting of just such

illusions.

That sunset in India has been with me in all of my meditation since that day. It

represents for me what meditation is, in fact, all about. It is taking the time to watch the

sunrises and sunsets in life, and to reflect on their illusions and their realities. It’s

observing the arising and passing away of things, and checking my emotional responses

to their coming and going, becoming aware of my grasping and my letting go. It is the

focusing of Right Effort and Right Concentration on the business of calming my mind

and clarifying its perception. It is making time and creating space that allows for a brief

glimpse of the clear light that is an experience of Ultimate Reality. To the enlightened

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mind, all of life can be understood in the radiant and fleeting beauty of an ephemeral

sunset.

88

Chapter 7

The Reality of God

One must admit that, at the theoretical level, the conceptions of God and Creation are a point of departure between Buddhists and Christians. However, I believe that some aspects of the reasoning that leads one to such a belief are common to both Buddhists and Christians. One could say that the Creator is the “ultimate” and the creation is the “relative,” the ephemeral. In that sense, the Creator is absolute and ultimate truth.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

India may or may not be “God’s Country” in the popular western sense, but it is

without question the country of many gods.

In Hinduism there are several gods, and devout followers choose which of the

many they will worship and serve. Siddhartha the Buddha rebelled against this multi-

faceted theism and argued against a logical conclusion that even one god existed, and

particularly eschewed the notion of a Creator God in the Western sense.

I, on the other hand, come from an upbringing and education in the Christian

theology that believes in one creator God. For many who would find wisdom in both the

teachings of Jesus and the wisdom of Buddha, this question of “God” is a central - and

seemingly irreconcilable - point of departure between the two religions.

These theological issues were playing in my head as I entered the main gompa of

the Norbulinka temple that summer’s day. The thoughts were momentarily abandoned as

my eyes caught sight of the captivating figure towering majestically before us.

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Completely dominating the temple’s sacred space was the largest figure of a Buddha I

had ever seen. Even though his arms and legs were as yet unfinished and scattered

around the floor like Jurassic body parts, the chiseled features of Siddhartha returned our

gaze with a radiant peace. His eyes were at once both vacant and piercing. It was clear

that this would be one of the most magnificent Tibetan Buddhas outside of Tibet.

My host for this peek at a treasure in progress was Tenzin Topgyal, the Minister

of Religion and Culture for the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile. As a cabinet member

and religious emissary of His Holiness, Tenzin has traveled extensively in the West and

is a recognized leader in ecumenical dialogue. He is a scholarly monk with an impressive

command of the English language and a solid understanding of the religions of the West.

Tenzin had invited me to tour the Norbulingka that was rising like a Phoenix on

the plains below Dharamsala. The original Norbulingka in Lhasa had been for centuries

the summer residence of the Dalai Lamas before the current Dalai Lama fled its sanctuary

as the violence of the Communist revolution closed in around him in nineteen fifty-nine.

This new Norbulingka would also serve as a retreat for the Dalai Lama, but its

primary mission was to be a living showcase for Tibetan culture in exile and a learning

center for students of Buddhism throughout the world. It was to be a monumental effort

to preserve the Tibetan religion and culture that was being threatened with extinction by

the Chinese to the North, and by dispersion and assimilation to the South and West.

As we watched, craftsmen who had smuggled their ancient skills over the

Himalayas to an uncertain freedom were now lovingly hammering copper plates onto one

limb of the Buddha and meticulously applying gold leaf to another. It’s silly, of course,

but I had just assumed that all the great representations of Siddhartha must each be

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hundreds of years old. Yet here and now a modern icon of Lord Buddha was being

raised, piece by piece, upon its throne of glory to be honored as a deity by a new

generation of Tibetans.

As I marveled at the wood and copper and gold that were being pieced together

into a God of the Buddhas, I couldn’t help recalling the passage from Exodus that had

been read just this past Sunday in the Anglican chapel of Dharamsala: “I am the lord your

God, who brought you out of the land of slavery; you shall have no other Gods before

me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in

heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath…” It had been read in church by a western

Christian who was making a statement that he was appalled by the proliferation of “idols”

he had discovered to be at the center of Tibetan worship.

I didn’t share his concerns as I had already learned that Buddhists are not idol-

worshippers any more than the Eastern Orthodox Church with its ornate icons or the

Western Church with its stained-glass images and statues of the Virgin Mary. Like their

Christian counterparts, Buddhists use visual representations to help them imagine the

many facets of the divine mystery. Buddhists don’t worship figures of the Buddha; they

present themselves as a prayerful offering to the truth the Buddha represents.

Nonetheless, I also know that Buddhists do not believe in a God, at least not the

creator God of Christians and Jews, and their non-belief is reason enough for some to

label them “non-religious.”

I believe in God. My belief is an almost inevitable byproduct of my upbringing in

a nominally Christian family and community. While I have over the years questioned my

image of God, I’ve never really questioned my belief. Belief in God is, in fact, actually

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central to my religion. The very statement of my faith, a statement that is something of a

Christian mantra, begins with “I believe in God, Father Almighty, maker of heaven and

earth…” In the same manner the Jewish believer declares, “The Lord our God is one god

…” As a westerner, it is sometimes difficult for me to imagine religion without God.

So, surrounded by various body parts of this magnificent non-idol of a non-

believing Buddha, I asked Tenzin to help me understand the Buddha’s teachings about

God.

His smile revealed an anticipation of just such a question. “O.K. That’s easy.

Lord Buddha was silent on the concept of God. And yet his attitude toward the idea of

God is very clear. Any concept of a supreme God, or worship of God in any ritualistic

form, is for him totally unnecessary for liberation from the suffering that engulfs us.

Gautama’s Eightfold Path, unlike its Judeo-Christian parallel, the Ten Commandments,

contains no mention whatsoever of the worship of God.”

Tenzin pointed out, however, that although the concept of God was excluded from

Gautama’s path to liberation, he never argued against it. Buddha at times condemned the

folly of blindly adhering to ritualistic practices, but hardly anywhere in his sermons can

one find a direct attack on the concept of God. Gautama was not a true anti-theist in his

native India which prayed to myriad Gods. He just felt that exponents of diverse forms

of worship of God tragically failed to focus on the liberation urgently needed by

humankind.

“Buddha’s own disciples asked him why he didn’t care to give a specific reply to

questions about the nature of God. Gautama explained that such concerns did not come

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within the sphere of his primary preoccupation. His concern was limited to humanity’s

more urgent need.”

Then Tenzin told a famous parable the Buddha often used to explain his position.

Imagine that a man is on a journey through a jungle. Halfway through the jungle he is

shot with a poisoned arrow. If the poisoned arrow remains in his body, he will surely die.

Rather than attending to the certain fatality of his condition, however, the man proclaims,

“I will not pull out this poisoned arrow until I discover who shot it, until I know whether

he is tall or short, fat or lean, young or old, whether he is from a high caste or a low

caste.” Buddha tells his students that this man will surely die before he knows the

identity of the one who launched the arrow.

Gautama’s question is not about whether God exists or not or what He looks like,

but whether belief in God has any relevance to the immediate problems of men and

women who are suffering. For Gautama, the problem of internal human sorrow was too

concrete and too urgent to permit him to luxuriate on purely speculative questions not

immediately relevant to the problem at hand. Gautama viewed human suffering, and the

liberation from it, exactly as modern psychologists would look at mental patients in their

clinics; they are concerned only with the sickness of their patient’s minds, not with their

religious theories.

This made sense to me, but it left me wondering about prayer. Despite the

absence of a wish-fulfilling God, there was constant prayer in the daily life of the Tibetan

Buddhist. Prayer flags were strung from the trees and prayer wheels were turned

constantly, each broadcasting the prayers of the people toward the heavens. Hours of

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ritual were filled with the chanting of prayer. If Buddhists don’t believe in God, who are

they praying to?

Placing his hands together in a gesture of prayer, Tenzin explained, “We don’t

pray in the absence of God, we pray in the absence of a concept of God. You pray to the

creator of the Universe, the one who created and is creating. We pray to that Universe

itself, the creation that is and always was, and to all sentient beings who were, who are,

and who always will be.”

I let that idea sink in for a moment as I marveled at its similarity with what I truly

believe at heart when I pray.

“You say your God is omnipotent, all-powerful; then you pray to him to do this or

that on your behalf. You are actually trying to manipulate this God as though you were

the one in charge. Of course you add, ‘Thy will be done,’ but the truth is it’s the

supremacy of your will you’re actually seeking.”

He was right. I was somewhat embarrassed by his poignant perception.

“We pray for compassion in the world,” he continued, “not because we believe

some God is listening and may grant our wish, but because all humanity is listening and

we believe compassion will arise when it becomes the prayer of all people.”

There was a poetic wisdom here that transcended my mere Christian

understanding of petitionary prayer and yet which at the same time sang in harmony with

it. I recalled what the Dalai Lama had said to me in an earlier conversation. I had asked

him, to whom does the Buddhist pray? His answer had been similar to Tenzin’s:

“Higher Being. Buddha, all the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas … these we can call higher

beings. So, when we appeal to these higher beings, then, from our side, when other

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conditions are right, then there are blessings, forms of blessings, which can influence us.

So we pray.

“One time in France, at an interfaith service, there I told in the meeting that we

Buddhists also pray, pray to a higher being. So there all religions, it seems, have a

common practice. When they identify a higher being, some say ‘Absolute,’ ‘God,’

‘Creator.’ Some say not creator, but still we accept it – there is a higher being. So you

see, we can appeal to this higher being in order to seek inspiration, or blessing.”

There was more than an affinity between my prayer and the Buddhist’s; there was

a profound lesson to be learned about the nature of prayer itself. I smiled in quiet

amazement as I again saw new light through an eastern window.

Tenzin understood and acknowledged my smile. He had explained prayer and the

Buddha’s absence of a belief in God to westerners many times before, and with the love

of a compassionate teacher he smiled into my eyes and encouraged my own reflection:

“This lack of a belief in God is troubling for you Christians, no?”

“It is for many, yes. But I think it’s only troubling if one doesn’t know much

more about Buddhism than that. As I discover the true wisdom and spirituality of

Buddhist thought and prayer - of living, if you will - then I find it not troubling at all, but

rather a challenge to examine my own thoughts and beliefs about the Divine.”

That afternoon, and for many days thereafter, I tried to think through just what I

meant by belief in God, and to reflect upon the teachings of the prophets and of Jesus that

shaped that understanding for me.

I recalled that Jesus, not unlike Buddha, had often pointed out that there is a

wrong form of the worship of God, just as frequently as he had pointed toward a right

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form. Secondly, I realized that belief in God for the Hebrew prophets and Jesus was not

merely a matter of ritual or of external formal worship, but a way of righteous living. We

don’t find them speaking of God with the aim of describing who God is. Rather than

describing the nature of God, they spoke in terms of the noble qualities of the true

believer.

Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan is a good example. The Samaritans, like the

Buddhists perhaps, were not true believers in the God of Israel. The two characters of the

story who were the “professional” believers in God were the priest and the Levite. When

they met the man who had fallen on the side of the road, this victim of street violence,

they were probably on their way to a ritual worship of God in the temple. But somehow

there was something in an “unbelieving” Samaritan, something of the right form of

worship of God, that was missing from the actions of the priest and the Levite. The

Samaritan stopped to help the traveler who had fallen victim to injustice. It was this

Samaritan, this non-believer, this pagan if you will, that Jesus pointed to as the true

worshiper of God. Judging from the story, Jesus’ definition of the ideal worshiper of

God is simply “the one who cares.”

This same attitude is found in the Hebrew prophets I remembered. None of them

were ever concerned about promoting a conceptual knowledge of God, or of creating in

the minds of the people a clear mental picture of God’s appearance. What they seemed to

promote exclusively was a behavioral acknowledgment of God. True worshipers of God,

according to the gurus of my faith tradition, are recognized not by the acts of formal

worship that they perform or by the Biblical concepts of God they carry in their

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imagination, but rather by the characteristics of their day-to-day behavior, the most

central of these being loving care - compassion for those in need.

The fact that the prophets and Jesus pointed out a wrong worship of God in their

societies and openly affirmed the right worship of so-called non-believers is an

understanding that is of great help in bridging the distance between the theism of the

Judeo-Christian tradition and the apparent non-theism of Buddhism. But it is not enough

to resolve the disparity totally, for no one can deny the fact that, after all, the idea of God

is central - not just peripheral - to Jesus’ thought and to that of all Judaism and

Christianity. It is no coincidence that the first four words of the Hebrew scripture read,

“In the beginning, God…” For many, God is truly the Alpha and Omega of their faith,

the beginning and the end of their religion.

If I was to find in Buddhist thought some wisdom that I could make a part of my

Western faith in some substantive way, I felt I would have to go a step further and look

for the inner reality behind my belief in God. In other words, I wanted to catch sight of

the deep human experience that corresponds to the traditional externalized forms of

divine worship, experience that has given birth to my personal anthropomorphic God.

“I believe in God,” I told Tenzin. “I believe in God because it is part of my

experience. Not just my religious experience, not just the teaching I have been raised

with, but from my life’s experience in general.” I continued, “I have a concept of God, a

vague concept, to be sure, not clearly defined, a spirit notion, one that I try to

conceptualize as infinite, even though my poor mind has its finite limitations. When I

met with His Holiness, I asked him what could help me better understand Buddhist

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wisdom from my western perspective. He said, ‘Work to understand emptiness.’ Is

shedding an image of God part of that understanding of emptiness?”

Tenzin smiled with his wonderful grin that showed recognition of the questioning

that was going on beneath the surface of my simple question.

“Yes, part of emptiness is recognizing what we are full of, in other words what we

are carrying around in our minds that is weighing us down. It’s a little like a wooden

bucket we lower into a well to draw water. The empty bucket is very light and easy to

handle. But when we lower it into the well and fill it with water, we need a winch to pull

the heavy bucket slowly to the surface. Once we empty the water, the bucket is once

again easily carried.

“A concept of God can be a weight that we may need to lighten if we are to serve

a divine reality with the unencumbered action of our living. We Buddhists try to use our

meditation to shed our false notions, to get closer to emptiness of thought, so that we are

open to the understanding of a greater reality.”

Tenzin continued with another illustration. It’s like a student who asked his

master to explain the divine mystery. Without a word, the teacher began refilling the

student’s cup with hot tea. He gently poured from the teapot and continued pouring until

the cup overflowed onto the table, and the student called upon the teacher to stop. The

teacher said to the student, “Your mind is like the full cup. I have more to offer you, but

there is no room.”

“Emptiness is, among other things, clearing the mind to make room for

understanding,” said Tenzin.

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He was telling me that God becomes more real when we let go of our illusions.

Certainly the infinite God I believe in is empty of any of the finite labels we westerners

typically ascribe to him/her. Tenzin went on to help me understand my own

understanding of God: “The first step is to recognize that there are two levels, and not

just one, in which humanity reaches out to divinity. One is the level of concept; the

other, the level of experience.”

As I remembered what I had often taught to my teenaged confirmation class in

church, we Christians need to acknowledge that our concept of God, even when God is

thought of as an infinite spirit, is only a picturization. According to the picture we carry

with us, God is a person, a father and a mother. God is a judge, a rewarder, a punisher,

who speaks to us in revelation, listens to us in prayer, and is offended by us when we sin.

In any meditation on the concept of God, we should try to never forget that our concept

of God is therefore a composition of pictures borrowed from behavioral patterns of

human beings. I used to ask my confirmation students to write down a description of the

God they believed in. Then I would startle them by telling them they were all wrong.

With humor I explained that their anthropomorphic picture of God - like my own - is an

incomplete image that has been assembled from our own experiences of human behavior.

I know God as creator of the Universe and of humankind. I am aware of my

relatedness with all that is in the Universe - the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, animals,

fire, water, air - and my fellow human beings. Like a leaf that is part of the

Rhododendron tree on the Himalayan hillside, in spite of my individual identity I still

realize I am but a part of a whole, an integral part of the universal creation.

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So a concept of God as creator is the Genesis of my image of God, but I have

ascribed other human characteristics to my God as well. Mother and father figures have

been a part of my journey through the crises of life, my successes and failures, and I have

the larger experience that I am related to and nurtured by every human being as my

brother and sister. My experience of the nurturing love of the human family has shaped

my image of that which I call God.

There is also a concept of divine judgment, and the possibility of divine

forgiveness, drawn from my experience of human behavior, that has become inherent in

my image of God. In times of trial and difficulty, the God to whom I address my prayers

seems somehow to restore wholeness and harmony with the Universe. When I look at

my own shortcomings, mistakes and failings, I am able to seek forgiveness and receive

assurance within the human community. I have experienced the human behavior of

sympathetic listening and forgiveness, and I have added those attributes to my construct

of the Divine.

These patterns of human behavior have painted my personal concept of God; they

are the gold and copper pieces that I have attached to my rough wooden image of the

Divine. And they may also point to an important universal truth about belief in God.

They may demonstrate that there can be an acknowledgment of God even where there is

no concrete concept of God. Faith in God can actually refer to a person’s higher mental

attitude toward self, toward life, toward humanity and the Universe. Just as one can

believe in justice, for example, one can seek justice in the world through his or her

actions without wasting much time defining the concept. The picture I carry of God

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doesn’t define my spirituality, my actions do. It is not my “belief in” God that matters,

but my “relationship with” God that counts.

While the concept of a God is a very real fact in the western religious traditions,

and while it is absolutely necessary to conceptualize the divine in order to even think

about God, it is just as important for me to acknowledge the weaker side of my concepts

when used in reference to God. I need to constantly remind myself that the image I have

pieced together is limited and incomplete. Divinity, in its deepest form, can in no way be

visualized; it can only be experienced.

Paradoxically, the non-image of God that my Buddhist teachers were challenging

me with was beginning to point me toward a realization that the only place where I can

truly experience divinity is within my own self. And the paradox that follows upon this

is that we discover our true selves only when we empty ourselves, when we shed our

“selves” to a life of selflessness. Our unselfish response to the love of that which we call

God is our real acknowledgment of that divine reality. It’s not our constructed mental

images of God, but our actions, that make God real.

Tenzin reminded me of wisdom I had begun to hear in differing ways from many

sage teachers in Dharamsala. He said that selflessness may have different modes of

expression, and different modes may be accentuated by different religions. But, whatever

the mode of expression, when the Jewish and Christian ideas of belief in God are taken in

their deepest dimensions, there is not the least doubt that they teach that the most

authentic way of acknowledging God is through the actions of a life of selflessness.

Judaism and Christianity in that sense are, just as in Buddhism, self-emptying forms of

human experience. True belief is embodied in action.

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“With that understanding,” taught Tenzin, “it might be possible to re-frame the

atheism of Gautama Buddha. We might be able to say that Buddhism is a non-God

religion only when viewed in reference to belief in God in its imperfect, conceptualized

sense.”

I have also had opportunities to discuss the reality of a higher being with His

Holiness the Dalai Lama. As this book has already demonstrated, the irony is that His

Holiness has sometimes even “explained” God to me, and he has certainly helped me

clarify for myself exactly what it is I am speaking of when I refer to my God.

In our conversations together the Dalai Lama is quick to point out that Buddhists

have no concept of a “creator God,” but they share with Christians and Jews an

understanding of a higher reality that is divine, that the human being is not the ultimate

being, and that there is an order to the divine creation that emanates from a power greater

than mere humanity.

The Dalai Lama, in every conversation I have had with him, is quick to point out

the one facet of Judeo-Christian belief that is a point of divergence with the beliefs of

Buddhists. That point is the belief in a one-time creation and a Creator God. Buddhists

believe that the cosmos always was, that it has existed from a past that is infinite. They

believe this because of their understanding of dependent arising – nothing comes from

nothing and nothing ever has. That is what they have observed: everything springs from

causes, from something or things that preceded it.

His Holiness says to me, “An understanding of the principle of interdependent

arising means that all conditioned things and events in the universe come into being only

as a result of the interaction of causes and conditions. This is significant because it

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precludes two possibilities. One is the possibility that things can arise from nowhere,

with no causes and conditions, and the second is that things can arise on account of a

transcendent designer or creator. Both of these possibilities are negated.”

Nothing comes from nothing. Why should the genesis of creation be the only

exception to that observable law of natural phenomena? Not only does it not make sense,

in light of experience, that the whole of the universe was brought about from nothingness

into a completed creation in just one week, it makes no logical sense to Buddhists that

there ever was a nothingness.

When you get right down to it, the real reason Buddhists don’t believe in a

Creator God is, simply put, they don’t believe in the Western idea of “the creation.” It

doesn’t fit with their experience and its logical interpretation.

When the Dalai Lama brings the subject up, it is not to defend the Buddhist

position, but to warn me, it seems, that many westerners, Christians in particular, find this

divergence in ontological understanding to be such a stumbling block to any mutual

dialogue between Christians and Buddhists that viable discussion often comes to an end

on this difference alone.

But for His Holiness and myself, a discussion of the reality of God is always a

point of surprisingly mutual connection. The reason for that is our shared understanding

of the Divine as Ultimate Reality and infinite love. In His Holiness’ words, “When I

speak of God in the sense of ‘infinite love,’ Buddhists also can accept that kind of

interpretation.”

I guess I always perceived my Christian God in this way, but it was only as I

matured and then entered seminary that I clarified my own thought and, at the same time,

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discovered the writings of a Christian theologian who had organized my thinking into his

own profound and eloquent prose. That theologian is Paul Tillich, and it is his

understanding of the reality of God that has shaped not only my own understanding of the

Divine Reality, but my entire world view as well.

Paul Tillich is considered one of the most creative and influential philosopher-

theologians of the twentieth century. Born in Germany (like many of the influential

theologians of this past century), he fled his homeland as the Nazis rose to power and

wound up teaching in the finest Protestant seminaries in the United States, including

Harvard and the University of Chicago Divinity School. His noted works include The

Courage to Be, Theology of Culture, and The Eternal Now. In his writings he fostered a

new confidence in an ultimate, meaningful unity to life.

Tillich’s two central concepts in his theology and cultural analyses are on the one

hand the idea of the “unconditional” – the divine ground or power of being and meaning

– and on the other hand the idea of “ultimate concern.” In his Systematic Theology, he

argues that the holy, sacred, and ultimate ground or source of all life is the direct concern

of religious faith. And in the language of religion, the Ultimate Reality is God.

Tillich writes, “It is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as it is to deny it.

God does not exist as a being. God is the ground and power of being, and as such is the

answer to the question of being generally. Everything that is has both its origin and its

power to be in God.”

The human being is finite, argues Tillich, and whatever one knows one knows in

terms of finitude. We escape from our finite prison only by the awareness of what Tillich

has called the depth of reason, by our ability to “imagine” the infinite. But we cannot

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describe or have any cognitive relation with the infinite except through that which we

really know, the categories of our limited, finite knowledge.

So can we truly “know” God? Tillich argues that everything we understand or

say about God is necessarily symbolic. Whatever mental construct we carry around

within us to help us understand the meaning of “God” is limited by human finitude and is

only a symbol of the Ultimate Reality to which it points.

To that extent, the representation of the divine Buddha nature that stood in pieces

before me was just as genuine a representation of the Divine Reality as is my own

anthropomorphic Christian symbol that I name “God.”

And beyond an understanding of God as the ground of being and ultimate reality,

Tillich also affirmed the basic understanding of God as Love. “God is love,” writes

Tillich. “And, since God is being itself, one must say that being itself is love.” Love is

the unity of individualization and participation. Love is the longing of the individual for

reunion and participation with the “other.” And since God includes in perfect unity the

polar elements of individualization and participation, God is love.

God as Ultimate Reality and Love is my intuitive understanding of the God I was

raised to believe in. And, interestingly enough, it is the same Divine Reality that His

Holiness the Dalai Lama believes in. It is not at all excluded by the teachings of the

Buddha himself, in fact. An experiential understanding of Ultimate Reality is the aim of

true contemplative endeavor in all the world’s religions, Judaism, Christianity and

Buddhism included.

The Dalai Lama has spoken of this universal understanding of the Divine Reality

in this way: “One of the most difficult concepts involved here, especially for Buddhists,

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is the concept of a divine being, God. Of course, one can approach this concept in terms

of something which is inexpressible, something which is beyond language and

conceptuality. But one must admit that, at the theoretical level, the conceptions of God

and Creation are a point of departure between Buddhists and Christians. However, I

believe that some aspects of the reasoning that leads one to such a belief are common to

both Buddhists and Christians.

“For example, if one examines the nature of all natural occurrences, common

sense tells us that every event must have a cause. There must be certain conditions and

causes that give rise to an event. This is not only true of one’s own individual life and

existence, but also of the entire cosmic universe. To our common sense, to accept

something as uncaused – whether it is the universe or our own individual existence – is

unacceptable. Then here is the question that follows: if this is the case, if one’s own

existence must have a cause – if even the cosmic universe on that scale must have a cause

– where does that cause come from? And if it follows that that cause must also have a

cause, then we have an infinite regress.

“In order to surmount this problem of infinite regress, it is helpful to posit a

beginning, a Creator, and to accept certain truths regarding the nature of the Creator: it is

independent, self-created, all-powerful, and doesn’t require any other cause. Accepting

such a beginning is one way to answer the problem of infinite regress.

“If one posits such a Creator, and then examines the whole process of evolution

starting from the Big Bang and the whole mystery of the universe, one can quite plausibly

accredit the Creator with omnipotence. In addition, if you examine the nature of the

universe, you will see that it does not operate in total chaos or randomness. There seems

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to be an inherent order, and inherent causal principle in operation. Through that, again, it

is possible to accredit the Creator with some sort of omniscience, as if the whole process

or procedure was planned. From that point of view, all creatures are in some sense a

manifestation of this divine force. On could say that the Creator is the ultimate and the

creation is the relative truth.

“Personally, when I look at the idea of Creation and the belief in a divine Creator,

I feel that the main effect of that belief is to give a sense of motivation – a sense of

urgency in the individual practitioner’s commitment to becoming a good human being, an

ethically disciplined person. When you have such a concept or belief, it also gives you a

sense of purpose in your existence. It is very helpful in developing moral principles.”

I maintain an abiding belief in God and continue to carry within myself some

fairly western images of who that God is. I can’t avoid that. Yet I am constantly finding

in the Buddha’s non-belief a challenge and a tool for looking deeper into my belief, for

questioning that which might be false and for worshipping that which is Truth. It is

becoming clearer to me that Buddhism does not so much offer things to believe as things

to do. This implies that religion has as its central aim a complete spiritual transformation,

not mere belief. It implies a spirituality that moves beyond the knowing of God with my

mind and arrives at the worshipping God with my life. It calls for prayer that is directed

toward my relationship with all creation, not on an inadequate image of the creator.

Belief in God has very little to do with what God is like and everything to do with what I

am like.

I reflected upon this and all that I was discovering as I gazed once more upon the

pieces of the God of Buddha. Surrounded by reminders of the deities of Tibetan

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Buddhism, in the company of gilded Buddhas, flowers and trees, brooks and streams, I

felt wonderfully in touch with the Universe. I felt the experience of the Divine in the

harmony of Norbulingka. I began to pray that the whole of my life might be transformed

into a harmony of belief and purpose; that I might know God in my experience of the

Divine, and that I might worship God in the action of my life.

As my prayerful petition drifted toward the heavens, I spotted a Himalayan eagle

soaring freely in the blue sky. It was a common sight in the valleys below Dharamsala,

an impressive black eagle with a white head and white wing tips. I observed this one for

several moments as he caught the updrafts and hovered above the plains with hardly a

flap of his broad wings. He was gliding in the wind currents, nearly mo tionless on the

waves of air that held him suspended above Norbulingka. He pointed into the wind and

hung on the current, then gently dove a little to pick up yet another updraft, then rode it

still higher again. It was as though he was flirting with the invisible air, teasing the

power of the wind. I realized he was too high and too detached from purpose to be

searching for food on the plains far below. He was removed from the world, it seemed,

focused solely on a single breath of air, mindless of all else, conscious only of his

connection to the Universe.

My brother the eagle was meditating. He, too, was lost in prayer, trusting in the

experience of his connectedness to the Divine. I believe in the God who was holding that

eagle in his breath. I believe in the God that directs my Buddhist friends to empty

themselves in compassion to all creatures in the Universe. And I want to find space

among the pieces of my belief to make room for a greater understanding of the God who

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gave me birth and who beckons me to worship His image by simply living more fully the

divine calling of my humanity.

109

Chapter 8

Resurrection and Rebirth

For someone who believes in rebirth, whenever you speak about

death you are also speaking about rebirth. Rebirth can only come into being when death has preceded it.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or arrogant or rude. It does not

insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but

rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all

things. Love never ends.”

The apostle Paul wrote these poignant words in a letter to the Christian

community at Corinth, not to describe romantic love, but to put into words the experience

of God’s love in the person of Jesus Christ.

It is also a painting in words of an image of the Resurrection. Not merely the

resurrection of the body or the person of Jesus, but the resurrection of the Church, the

community of Jesus’ disciples, and, in the end, the resurrection of God’s infinite love.

Paul is pointing to the whole sweeping story of humanity that begins with the

Hebrew creation story of Genesis (In the beginning, God created…), and is restated in the

Gospels (In the beginning was the Word…), and which continues with the Revelation:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth

had passed away; and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem,

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coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: ‘See, the home of God is among

mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself

will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more; for the first things have passed away’

And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’

This is Hebrew thought – Jewish thought, if you will – reinterpreted through

Christian experience, writing and teachings. Birth, life, suffering, death. It is universal,

beyond Buddhist, Jewish or Christian labels.

And death is, perhaps, the ultimate concern of those who would label themselves

“religious.” That is why the world’s religions have all ritualized the life passage we call

death. Stunned by tragic bereavement, we mortal human beings would founder

completely if we were thrown on our own and had to think our own way through the

ordeal. That is why death, with its funerals and memorial services, its wakes and sitting

shiva is the most ritualized rite of passage. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” – the words

don’t say whose ashes, for this is everybody; all of us. The deceased takes his or her

place in the company of all humankind, one step in the endless march of life into death

and death into life again, with the continuum stretching both ways toward eternity.

The western understanding of this continuum of life into death into life again has

its roots in the Jewish understanding of history: all of the history of humankind is

reflected in the history of each single human life. The Jewish people have never glossed

over the finality of death by inventing images of a land of milk and honey somewhere

above the clouds where all souls would be reunited, but, at the same time they have never

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ascribed a fatalistic futility to life itself, even while acknowledging that it is lived always

in the shadow of inevitable death. There is in Jewish understanding - an understanding

that finds meaning in everything - a rhythm and an order that is God-given and therefore

inherently “good.” And that rhythm includes the seasons of the year and the seasons of

life and death and new life. “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust” is not a resignation to the

finality of death but rather an affirmation of the cyclic nature of life and death that

promises infinite reenactments of creation itself. The loving, compassionate Creator God

of Jewish history would never will the death of the creation, and so the suffering of the

Jewish people and the life-long suffering of humankind – a suffering that includes certain

death – is viewed as an ebbing and flowing, an arising and subsiding that is as natural and

as life-giving as the human breath. It arises and passes away, only to arise and pass away

again.

God is the personification of love and compassion in Jewish experience. An

observation of history provides a revelation of that love and compassion that is

irrefutable. And it is the manifestation of that love and compassion throughout human

history that gives meaning to our finite lives.

Jesus was a pious Jew who felt this love and compassion running through the very

sinews of his being. As a result of a highly contemplative life, he observed – even

experienced – a revelation of Ultimate Reality that he attempted to share with all who

would flock to hear him. His teachings were not new; each can be found in the Hebrew

scriptures. But for his followers it was a new hearing of God’s love and compassion that

was personified in a human being, an incarnation of God’s love that came and walked

among them.

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And he spoke of a kingdom in which God’s will would reign, not mere human

will. And that kingdom, where all was in harmony with God’s good and perfect will, was

within reach – it was “at hand.” All anyone had to do to enter it was to see it – to open

one’s eyes, to remove the scales that were clouding the vision of Ultimate Reality. “Let

those who have eyes, see. Let those who have ears, hear.”

As a personification of God’s love, as the incarnation of God’s compassion,

Jesus’ charisma touched the hearts and souls of the multitudes who were drawn toward

him. He taught a Path, saying “follow me on The Way,” and he lived that path. His

entire life was one of humility, self-giving, and love that sought nothing in return. His

disciples said of him, “he went about doing good.” Ultimately the experience of the love-

became-man would be so pervasive and life-changing for his followers that it would

survive Jesus’ human death.

The way Jesus earthly ministry ended is known well beyond the vast circle of his

contemporary Christian followers. In what has come to be characterized as his final act

of self-emptying love, he allowed himself to be sacrificed on the cross. That could have

been the end of the story. Instead it is the beginning.

No one is sure what happened after the crucifixion. All that is truly known is that

those who were closest to him and who had experienced the reality of God’s love in his

presence were now convinced that death had not extinguished that reality. Beginning on

that first Easter Sunday, Jesus came and stood among them, as real as in life, but in a new

way. His reported resurrection was not a mere bodily resuscitation, but it was a rebirth

into another mode of being. What is clear is that Jesus’ followers began to experience

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him in a new way, namely as having the qualities of God. He could now be known

anywhere, not just in his physical presence.

His physical death gave birth to the Church and to a powerful belief in the

everlasting quality of love and compassion. To grasp the power of that enduring belief

we need to see beyond the disciples’ claim regarding the fate of one good man.

Ultimately their claim extended to one affirming the enduring goodness of all creation.

Jesus’ goodness – a goodness cultivated through a lifetime of walking The Way of

righteousness. – had triumphed over the claim of death. That goodness was alive in the

hearts and minds of all who had experienced it then, and its reality has survived lifetimes

to remain a living reality to this day.

It was this enduring quality of love, exemplified in the Christian resurrection

event, that inspired Paul to conclude, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor

angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor

depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of

God…”

Neither Paul nor the Christian saints and theologians who followed him would

argue that we ordinary mortals are destined to experience a rebirth in the physical sense,

neither as an imitation of Christ’s bodily resurrection nor in the manner that Buddhists

believe will occur for each of us. But Christians do proclaim a faith in the life-giving

creative energy of a Divine love that has nurtured the universe from its beginning and

which will sustain “life everlasting.”

And what does the ordinary Christian in church on Sunday morning believe about

death? In his mystical Revelation, the Gospel-writer John presents a dreamlike image of

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death as the perfection of creation, a cosmic reunion with the creator God from which we

mortals have become estranged through our imperfect lifetime of sin. But does the day-

to-day Christian have such a lofty perspective? Not many, I would venture to guess.

For most in the West, questions about death are answered by parent to child with

such images as, “Grandpa has gone to be with God and with Grandma, in Heaven, and

now both of them are happy and together in peace.” Even Jesus had little to say about

what life after death, if there was one, would be like. Shortly before his crucifixion, he

says to his disciples, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow

afterward…in my father’s house are many dwelling places…I go to prepare a place for

you…” After his death, during his resurrection appearance, he says to Mary, “I am

ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Nowhere in the

accounts of his resurrection appearances, or even in his appearances to Paul at a later

time, does Jesus tell us anything about the nature of life after death.

What is clear is that the early Church, in all its councils and proclamations, clearly

rejected any notion of reincarnation or rebirth in the Eastern or Hindu-Buddhist sense.

And this is where the two, often surprisingly parallel, streams of Buddhist and Judeo-

Christian thought begin to clearly diverge.

I have used the following simple analogy with His Holiness in our conversations

and he has enthusiastically embraced it: the teachings of Christianity and Buddhism are

often like two streams of thought that run side by side. At times they are simply parallel,

separated, but by very little. At other times they converge and appear together as the

same stream. Still other times the two streams part, one taking one path, the other

another.

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Just as we have looked at what Jesus said and didn’t say about resurrection and

rebirth, and then what the modern Christian may actually believe, let us look at the

Buddhist understanding. First the historical Buddha: for Gautama Siddhartha, as with

Jesus the Christ, there was very little said. What he did teach flowed from a long-

standing belief in karma and rebirth learned from the Hindu faith into which he was born,

and the observable phenomena of the arising and passing away of everything. The

Buddha was concerned very little about things he could not observe or events about

which he could only speculate. There was an understanding about afterlife and the

continuity of life that demanded both little attention and little explanation on his part.

What concerned the Buddha was the emptiness of any permanent nature in

anything, and its implications for us human beings. For the Buddha that meant that

everyone and everything was constantly changing – forever impermanent. Death was

just one of the manifestations of that impermanence, and a change, if you will, not much

more important than the moment-to-moment change each of us is experiencing every

minute of every day.

When the Buddha does teach of death and rebirth, his primary concern is

regarding our infinite momentary deaths in this lifetime, and our infinite rebirths as

something entirely new. His total understanding of dependent arising and causation

meant, for him, that every moment of every day in each of our lives is the result of the

moments that that proceeded, and at any given moment, we have died to our past and

have been reborn in a new moment as a new being, different in at least miniscule, albeit

important, ways from the person we were just a moment before. It was this

understanding of rebirth that concerned him, not some speculative view of what

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happened to us after our earthly physical existence. Always the Buddha was concerned

with the medicine for the ailment that plagues us – our suffering in this lifetime. And that

meant swallowing the pill of understanding that could make us well. The root cause of

our illness was always our ignorance, and the cure to our ills was always Right Thinking,

born of the other spokes of the Eightfold Path. Right Thought means understanding

reality. And part of the ultimate reality of this universe is the ever-changing,

impermanent nature of all that is real – human beings certainly included.

Death is real, just as life is real, but as such both are part of an always changing,

always impermanent reality.

Most important to an understanding of reality, an understanding that can help set

us free from the clinging attachments and desires that plague us in this life, would be the

intuitive, experiential knowing that everything is impermanent, passing away, of

momentary existence. Anything we wish we had but don’t now have; anything we have

but wish we did not – all these are passing illusion. All is empty of permanent existence

as we know it, dying and passing away, only to be reborn again in an instant as

something different and new.

When we understand this natural process of death and rebirth of everything in

every moment, then we will intuitively let go of our craving and attachments and be

liberated from the sufferings they cause. That was the Buddha’s concern with death and

rebirth. That was his teaching.

The most radical teaching of the Buddha in his day was his repudiation of the

notion of the human soul. For the Hindus, the soul, or Atman, was unchanging, retaining

its unique identity forever. Buddha denied this permanence, just as he denied the

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permanence of any observable phenomenon. Being an authentic Hindu by both birth and

upbringing, he never doubted that reincarnation was in some sense a fact, but he was

openly critical of the way his Hindu contemporaries interpreted the permanence of a

transmigrating soul. He often taught with the image of a flame being passed from candle

to candle. There is no denying the causal relationship between the one flame giving rise

to the other, but there is no valid argument for the second flame being, as it were, the

same flame as the first. And this leads to the logical addition of Buddha’s teaching of

karma: just as the first flame influenced the second, so, too, does our momentary past

influence the changed reality of our rebirth into the present.

That being said, it is true that contemporary Buddhists have an abiding belief in

the true rebirth of the human being after physical death. We have all heard the stories of

avoiding stepping on an ant because it could be an ancestor, even an aunt! And we’ve

smiled at the warnings that our negative actions in this life could lead us to be reborn as a

frog (or worse!) in the next life. Contemporary Westerners also enjoy mocking the

Buddhist notion of rebirth, intentionally or unintentionally, by “recalling” that they were

princes or horse-thieves (more typically the former!) in some “previous life.” A serious

view of death and life is very real to the Tibetan Buddhists among whom I lived, and it is

often the first difference noted between western and eastern religious thinking.

While this concern for the transmigration of life forms from earthly death to a

physical rebirth was not of apparent importance to the Buddha, it is consistent with the

body of his observation and teaching: everything arises, passes away, and arises again in

a new form. Why should life be the only exception to this observable rule? So, from the

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Buddhist point of view, the question of life after death is no big mystery, and a Buddhist

is never particularly worried about this problem.

The Buddha explained the continuity of life, death and rebirth as a continuum of

thought-moments, each of which conditions the one that follows before dying and being

reborn as still another thought-moment.

For the Buddha, what we call life exists only as a combination of physical and

mental energies. They are constantly changing and don’t remain constant even for a

moment. Every moment they die and are reborn anew. In the Buddha’s words, “When

the aggregates arise, decay and die, O bhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay and

die.” If we can understand that in this life we can, and do, continue without a permanent,

unchanging Self, is it so hard to understand that the same forces can continue after the

physical self has ended its earthly existence? This is the simple Buddhist understanding

of death and rebirth.

For the Dalai Lama, the issues of death and rebirth are also primarily concerns

having to do with our understanding of the impermanence of the here and now. “For

someone who believes in rebirth, whenever you speak about death you are also speaking

about rebirth. Rebirth can only come into being when death has preceded it.” And

rebirth – in the here and now – is what religion, specifically Buddhism, is all about for

His Holiness. The value of religion and religious practice is in its ability to facilitate

rebirth, change or transformation. As in the story of the boat being for the crossing to the

other shore, religion is for helping us understand that we are always crossing from this

momentary life into a new and transformed life in the next moment.

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Following on that thought, His Holiness makes meditation on death and rebirth an

important part of his daily practice because of their importance in integrating a deep

understanding of emptiness and impermanence. Like the Buddha, the Dalai Lama

expends little energy trying to “explain” the after-death state and the details of human

rebirth, but is very concerned with understanding the transitory nature of life. That is not

to negate Tibetan religious beliefs about after-death states, which are, in fact, very real,

very important and very detailed in their description. But it is to say that, for His

Holiness, the real value of the Buddhist view of death and rebirth has to do with what it

can teach us about living in the here and now:

“One important aspect of my daily practice is its concern with the idea of

death…I hold that death is rather like changing one’s clothes when they are torn and old.

It is not an end in itself.”

Speaking in response to the question of what wisdom we westerners might glean

from Buddhist teaching and practice, His Holiness says, “It is good to meditate on death.

This helps with an understanding of attachment. It helps reduce unhealthy attachments.

At the time of death, all money, all fame, all power, all influence is of no use…except for

God’s blessing, God’s grace.” (It never fails to amaze me how the Dalai Lama’s

compassion includes explaining Buddhist thought in ways that avoid any conflict with

my inherited theological belief, and involves the unassuming display of a western

understanding of divine love.) “An understanding of impermanence is very helpful to

reduce anger, hatred…and to increase forgiveness, tolerance…and here they have very

much in common with Jesus’ teachings of love and compassion.”

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That has been my lesson learned from exploring the Buddhist understanding of

death and rebirth for myself. There is little to be gained from dissecting the differences

between the Christian and Buddhist views on the subject, and much to be gained from an

expanded understanding of both the impermanence and the continuity of life. Life and

death continue to be a divine mystery. Physicists tell us that matter and energy cannot be

destroyed, they can only change form. Certainly this fragile mystery we call “life” is, if

anything, energy, and as such will certainly change form and continue.

Perhaps more than any other subject, I am often asked to explain how I reconcile

my Christian faith with the Buddhist belief in reincarnation. I have a resurrection view of

all of life. I explain as I have learned with experience from my Buddhist teachers: when

we come to know all of life as a continuous process of change and renewal, then we

neither believe nor disbelieve in reincarnation; we simply understand.

For me, there is value in the Buddhist understanding. I cannot know, in a factual

way, what will be my fate after my physical death, and my inherited faith offers no

concrete explanation either. So I make choices regarding what I imagine it to be.

Everyone makes such a choice and, in the end, employs his or her imagining to divine an

acceptable answer. We choose to believe what we choose to believe. I find value in

choosing to incorporate a Buddhist understanding of the infinite continuum of life, death

and rebirth into my own set of beliefs. It has value to me.

First, it gives some meaning to what can appear at times to be a futile life. If one

is simply born biologically and mentally detached from any previous existence, then lives

seventy-five years or so without appreciably changing the world, and then dies to an

equally detached and meaningless death, where is the reason for living? On the other

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hand, a life that is causally related to the one that was lived before, and which represents

a spiritual and biological renewal and affirmation of that life, and then lays a karmic

foundation for another life yet to be lived – this is a life that is meaning-full.

The other value for me is one that aids in the cultivation of compassion.

Buddhists can understand anyone they encounter in life as someone who was at one time

or another, in any one of an infinite number of lifetimes, their mother or their father. This

stranger, or even enemy, was – by any understanding of an infinite regression and

repetition of lifetimes – my parent in at least one other life, a parent who nurtured, fed,

and clothed me, who cared for me unselfishly in some long ago childhood. Viewing the

“others” in our life with such a perspective can be life-transforming. The daily exercise

of such an understanding cannot fail to help me cross to another shore on my journey

toward spiritual growth that is centered in mature relationships.

To that extent, it seems to me, the wisdom of the Buddhist concept of life, death

and rebirth can lead even this skeptical Christian toward a path that can be

transformational, and a life that is centered not in things transitory and impermanent, but

rather in that which is, in the words of the Saints, “from everlasting to everlasting.”

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Chapter 9

Meditation and Contemplation

The practice of meditation becomes important for the

transformation of our mind. And this must also be true for the Christian practitioner. Of course Christians are seeking help or blessings from God. But spiritual transformation must also involve our own effort.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Tushita heaven is the final training ground for a “buddha-to-be,” according to the

celestial hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhism.

Tushita monastery is a bit of heaven that rests nearly in the clouds on the highest

hill in the Himalayan foothills above Dharamsala. It is not a mere metaphorical

coincidence that any path in Dharamsala which takes one higher eventually leads to

Tushita.

This peaceful monastery has been my home and my Buddhist training ground

while living in India. Surrounded by the pines and rhododendron trees, in the company

of chattering monkeys and chanting monks, I have learned to calm my mind and to enter

into communion with the oneness of which we are all a part.

The Psalmist wrote, “Be still and know...” This could well have been the

guideline for all of Buddhist meditation and Christian contemplation. In the shelter of

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my Tushita heaven, with the guidance of my gurus in the form of high Lamas and

ordinary seekers, I have practiced my ancient faith with the new insight and clarity of

Buddhist wisdom and method. I have learned how to be still, and I have come to

experience knowing.

Even as all paths upward in Dharamsala eventually lead one to Tushita, so all the

elements of the Noble Eightfold Path ultimately lead one to meditation. While it is true

that there is no “hierarchy” per se in the elements of the Path, the Buddha has taught that

Right View leads to Right Thinking; Right Thinking leads to Right Speech, which leads

to Right Action, which leads to a Right Livelihood, which leads to Right Effort, in turn

leading to Right Mindfulness - with all spokes of the Eightfold wheel directing one

toward Right Concentration.

And Right Concentration is, plain and simple, meditation.

Westerners typically react to the thought of meditation in the same way the first

Episcopalians reacted when a folk mass with guitars and drums was suggested for

Saturday night worship, or when the rabbi’s son expressed his desire for a Christmas tree.

The word meditation evokes more misconceptions and suspicion among Christians and

Jews than probably any other religious practice outside their own faith.

This is a shame, since meditation - as the Buddhists practice it - is, plainly and

simply, concentration. There is nothing hocus-pocus about it. At its best, concentration

is meditation and meditation is prayer.

In Dharamsala, young westerners would arrive daily from Europe, from the

United Sates, from Israel and head for the hills to learn some exotic form of Indian

meditation. Their vague hope, it seemed, was to find a mental way to get “high,” a sort

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of religious experience that would equal something they had while on the latest “in” drug.

Actually, the sweet, acrid smoke that often wafted out of the colorful teahouses indicated

that they were more than willing to combine both meditation and drugs to achieve some

new release from reality.

This is not the goal of Buddhist meditation. Meditation is the means of achieving

Right Concentration. It is, therefore, also the means of focusing Right Mindfulness with

Right Effort in a way that integrates Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech,

Right Action and Right Livelihood. While no single element of the Eightfold Path is

more or less important than the others, Right Concentration, or meditation, is the

exceedingly important cement that binds them all together as one whole. Buddhism is

not, as some westerners mistakenly believe, simply a form of meditative practice.

Meditation is only one of the elements of the Noble Eightfold Path. But it is certainly an

important and necessary one.

Meditation is not foreign to Judaism or Christianity, nor for that matter to almost

any of the world’s religions. The Psalmist who sang the words written above also wrote,

“Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my meditation,” (Ps. 5:1) and “Let the words of

my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my

strength, and my redeemer.” (Ps. 19:14) You have heard those words before. When the

Hebrew prophets and, later, Jesus “went up onto the mountain to pray,” they were

concentrating, focusing their mindfulness and effort in meditation. When Christ is

tempted during forty days in the wilderness, his struggles with the forces of evil take

place during his meditation, meditation that clarifies for him his relationship with God

and his mission in life.

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In the earliest centuries of Christianity, structured forms of meditation were

common in the Church. The later monastic movement in Catholicism is a direct

outgrowth of people’s need to practice a deeper form of prayer, one devoid of

distractions, prayer that was pure, simple, intense; in a word, concentrated.

Saint Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits and author of the original Spiritual

Exercises, wrote in the early sixteenth century that, “by the term spiritual exercises we

mean every method of examination of conscience, meditation, contemplation, vocal or

mental prayer, and other spiritual activities...for, just as taking a walk, traveling on foot,

and running are physical exercises, so is the name of spiritual exercises given to any

means of preparing and disposing our soul to rid itself of all its disordered affections and

then, after their removal, of seeking and finding God’s will in the ordering of our life for

the salvation of our soul.”

Saint Theresa of Avila, also writing in the sixteenth century, spoke of the

Mandala of the soul as a castle: “Let us return to our beautiful and delightful castle and

see how we can enter it. For we ourselves are the castle. But you must understand there

are many ways of ‘being’ in a place. Many souls remain in the outer court of the castle;

they are not interested in entering it, and have no idea what there is in that wonderful

place, or who dwells in it. As far as I can understand, the door of entry into this castle is

prayer and meditation. Prayer must be accompanied by meditation.”

For the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity contemplation and meditative

practice were the rule, embodied, in fact, in the monastic Rules of both Saint Benedict

and Saint Francis.

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Our churches and synagogues have lost much of that intense contemplative

practice, but the human need for it still exists. Witness the exploration of mind-

expanding options among today’s new age of spiritual seekers or find yourself in the

crowded waiting rooms of any psychologist’s office. There are ample reminders all

around us that people have a universal and undeniable need to get in touch with

themselves and with the infinite mystery of life. Reciting memorized bedtime prayers, or

listening to the priest or cantor pray for us, doesn’t always satisfy that longing.

Many of us Christians are aware today that we are lacking in method. Certainly

we seem to have had good methods in the past, but they are not active, they’re not alive

for us today. So we can not only learn from our Buddhist friends, but we can actually

avail ourselves of Buddhist methodology to a large extent. One of the early fathers of the

Church said, “If something is true, don’t ask who said it. It’s the Holy Spirit who said

it!” This is all the more true if it is a method that works. It definitely comes from the

Holy Spirit, and we grow in our own spirituality if we avail ourselves of it according to

our own faith orientation.

Can we learn to meditate? Can we raise the level of our prayer life to a point

where we can truly touch our deepest selves and reach out to the farthest cosmic

mysteries? Can we concentrate with all our being in a way that orders our lives and

provides release and liberation? Can we discover reality and meaning in our Mandala

journey through transforming it into one long walking meditation?

Yes, we can! We can do so by being open to the wisdom and method of our

Buddhist sisters and brothers. It is the practice of meditation that enables us to integrate

the wisdom and method of Buddhism with the inherited faith of our formation. And the

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big surprise is that it isn’t so difficult. It requires a little guidance, and a lot of discipline,

to be sure, but it doesn’t require walking on hot coals or even tying our legs up in knots!

When the young westerners I mentioned earlier would arrive in the foothills of the

Himalayas, they would often wind up in one of the many local meditation programs that

were several days of nothing but silent meditation. Very little instruction would proceed

hours after endless hours of sitting, legs crossed and spine erect, on cushions that did

little to soften the hard floor. The students experienced so much lower back pain that

there was very little mindful concentration going on. Most westerners dropped out of the

course after only a few days.

Fortunately, many of these same disillusioned western pilgrims would find their

way to the Tushita monastery and retreat center. Here, gentle and loving monks and nuns

- many of them western converts themselves - would explain the philosophy of the

Buddha, and would guide their western students into a meditation practice which they

could understand and employ. It is in the spirit of their example that the Dalai Lama and

I will offer guidance to you in the teachings which follow.

During my many walks up the path from lower Dharamsala, where the Tibetan

government-in-exile is located, I would pass the main Temple of the Dalai Lama and the

monks of the School of Dialectics. From inside the Temple would come the droning yet

angelic chants of their daily ritual. Circumambulating the Temple were monks and nuns

and local Tibetans, each in a near-trance, repeating the mantra, “Om mani padmi om.” I

would walk past two more monasteries and a nunnery on my way to Tushita. At each of

these sacred places of holy solitude I would hear more ethereal chanting. Outside, nuns

and monks were seated cross-legged on the ground, their concentration painted on their

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faces, eyes half-open, staring into the blankness of the void in front of them. One could

feel the intensity of their meditation and envy their commitment and discipline. It

appeared far beyond the level of prayer I had ever practiced, and, I feared, beyond my

limited western ability.

On my first visit to the pastoral hilltop monastery of Tushita, western meditation

students joined the Buddhist monks and nuns who were all making a giggling fuss over a

gaggle of Tibetan Himalayan puppies that were little more than a week old. The impish

monastics were reduced to mere children in the company of these active and affectionate

pups, licking any face that came near. Soon the happy crowd made their way into the

meditation center, and with some look of bewilderment took a seat on the simple

cushions which had been arranged as the only seating on the floor. This motley group of

westerners, myself included, was a far cry from the solemn mendicants I had seen

meditating in the monasteries below. “Could we really learn the sacred art of

meditation?” I thought as I attempted to intertwine my legs.

A western nun - raised as an atheist in Switzerland - introduced herself as

Venerable Rita and proceeded to provide a simple introduction to the basics of Buddhist

philosophy. She was a delight in her open, outspoken way of delivering the Buddha’s

Truths in a no-nonsense way. When the subject turned to meditation, she was just as

disarming. “Forget the B. S.,” she told us. “There’s no magic to meditation. It’s just

concentration: calming the mind and training it to concentrate. Anyone can do it. It does

take practice and the discipline to work at it daily, but anyone can do it.” She was right.

As I learned from Venerable Rita and from wise Lamas and monks and rinpoches

thereafter, I can do it. You can do it. Those chanting and meditating monks and nuns I

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had earlier encountered on my walk have found no magic that isn’t freely available to

you and to me.

Meditation can and should be learned by anyone. Right Concentration is, in fact,

absolutely necessary to the integration of our spiritual wholeness. Without the eighth

element of the Eightfold Path, the other seven are nothing more than idealistic notions.

The same Apostle Paul who said we need action with our faith also said, “Pray

unceasingly.” He meant meditate! While meditation is not the petitionary type of prayer

many of us are most used to, it is the deepest, most intense type of prayer; and it is the

level of concentrated prayer to which we should be striving.

Why should we meditate? Certainly not for meditation’s sake itself. Meditation

is not an end unto itself but rather a means to an end. We actually have two important

ends in mind when we meditate: the calming of the mind, and the widening of our mind’s

vision of the reality of life. Why do we meditate? It is to find mental peace, and to seek

the release from sorrow that comes from Right Understanding. Why do we meditate? To

get it “right” - right thought, right action, right speech and all the other elements of our

life that we want to get right. Why do we meditate? To know ourselves, to know our

place in the world, to know our relationship with all the others around us, to experience

the Infinite of which we are a part. We meditate because it is the real journey, the inner

journey, the journey of growth, of deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the

creative action of love and grace in our hearts.

If, as the Buddha has taught, life is sorrow-full; and if, as the Buddha has also

taught, this sorrow has its causes; and if, as the Buddha has still further taught, these

causes can be confronted and eliminated through the Noble Eightfold Path of living, then

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meditation, as the Buddha taught his disciples, is the vehicle by which our liberation can

be realized. Meditation is the Mandala whose center is everywhere and whose

circumference is nowhere, and into which one enters not by traveling but by remaining

still. It is through the interior exploration of this contemplative Mandala that we can

examine our attachments to things transient and begin to let go. It is in the peace of our

meditation that we can confront our anger and greed and replace them with compassion.

It is in the crucible of our meditation that we can test and refine our wisdom and cause it

to grow. It is in the solitude of our meditation that we can be in touch with our

connectedness with all living things and practice reverence for all of life. It is in the

light of our meditation that we can clarify the darkness of our ignorance and replace it

with enlightenment. It is in the prayer of our meditation that we can open ourselves to

the mysteries of the universe and become one with the Infinite.

Jesus’ disciples approached him at one time and begged of him, “Lord, teach us to

pray.” All religious traditions include instruction in prayer and meditation by the masters

of the tradition. All religious masters address themselves to the longing of their disciples

to pray better, to pray unceasingly, to meditate with the Divine.

I am going to share my instruction in meditation from the contemporary masters

of meditation - the high Lamas of Tibet who were my teachers, as well as the Dalai Lama

himself. The instructions and meditations that follow have been selected as ones

appropriate for self-teaching, however they are even better when shared in the

community of partners. While meditation is a personal inner journey, it can be facilitated

by the company of another practitioner.

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I now teach meditation to others, and I am constantly surprised at the number of

students who have received instruction in meditation before, but who have never been

taught a reason for their meditation. While it is appropriate not to have too many

expectations from any one meditation session, it is also very appropriate to understand

why one meditates in the first place. Thomas Merton said, “The reason why meditation

and mental prayer do not serve their true purpose in the lives of so many who practice

them is that their true purpose is not really understood.”

I have learned that Buddhism does not so much offer things to believe as things to

do. Buddhist meditative techniques and practice are aimed at the development of our

untapped spiritual resources. Put in western terms, the ultimate aim of Buddhist practice

- one which we can emulate in our own spiritual practice - seems to be to experience

Truth, and in so doing to re-orient our thoughts and actions. This implies an aim of

complete re-formation of the mind, a radical spiritual transformation. Can we westerners

learn this from the eastern masters?

Let’s begin with a teaching from His Holiness: “Meditation is needed for

developing mental qualities. The mind is definitely something that can be transformed,

and meditation is a means to transform it. Meditation is the activity of familiarizing your

mind, making it acquainted, with a new meaning. Basically it means getting used to the

object (or emotion) on which you are meditating.”

His Holiness meditates daily on compassion, on love of neighbor as well as love

of enemy, and on impermanence and death. He does so to familiarize himself with each

of these, to understand their reality, and to check his thoughts, emotions, attitudes and

actions which daily arise in response to his perception of the world around him. It is a

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practice of Right Effort combined in harmony with Right Concentration to develop

mindfulness, wisdom and Right Thought.

His Holiness continues to teach “the unique Buddhist practice of what is called

meditation or contemplation. I will try to explain,” he says, “something which can be

useful and may be adopted by Christian practitioners. This can be, I think, a way to

enrich one another.

“I am not going to talk about whether there is a Creator or not. This is too

complicated; and anyway I think it is beyond our concepts. In that regard, it is better to

follow one’s own belief. Then you can achieve some kind of satisfactory result.

Otherwise, the issue is too complicated. For centuries there have been great debates in

India between Buddhist logicians and non-Buddhist logicians. The result is that the

argument is still going on! So, it is better to follow according to one’s own belief. The

important thing is to practice, to implement one’s belief sincerely and seriously.”

Once again His Holiness affirms his belief in following the faith of one’s

formation, but does so offering the valuable wisdom and method of the Buddha to any

who would find value within it.

“So now we will deal with Buddhist approaches to meditation. The Tibetan word

for meditation is sgom, which appears in scriptures but is actually part and parcel of

ordinary life. It means familiarizing yourself with certain particular objects or attitudes.

Take for example when we feel emotionally afflicted from seeing an object that makes us

feel unhappy. We use some kind of analytical meditation that includes reasoning. The

more we investigate, the more the afflictive emotion develops. And then, after becoming

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familiar with that object, you will be able to come to a conclusion, or a sort of conviction.

You will realize, ‘Oh, this is something positive!’ or ‘This is something negative.’”

His Holiness is pointing toward the three main types of Tibetan Buddhist

meditation - analytic meditation, mindfulness meditation, and visualization meditation.

Analytic meditation is meditation with a set purpose, with a narrative, with a “program,”

if you will. The second form of Tibetan meditation His Holiness moves to is the clear

mind arising from mindfulness meditation. This is akin to viewing an image in a fogged-

up mirror, and gently clearing away the fog for a clearer view. Our mind is by nature a

clear mirror, and the fog which obscures that clarity can, with effort, be dissolved over

time.

“This conviction of mind is a form of single-pointedness meditation. So, we

always use analytical meditation and single-pointedness meditation in our daily life. The

very purpose of meditation is to familiarize ourselves with any object or attitude we want

to know more about. That is the meaning of meditation as familiarization.

“This practice of meditation becomes important for the transformation of our

mind. And this must also be true for the Christian practitioner. Of course Christians are

seeking help or blessings from God. But spiritual transformation must involve our own

effort. So Christian practitioners also need to practice some kind of personal effort in

spirituality. And it is here that meditation is valuable.”

The Dalai Lama is speaking to the real purpose, in my mind, of religion itself:

religion should be a vehicle for personal transformation, for change.

“I think the most important task of any religious practitioner is to examine oneself

within one’s own mind and try to transform one’s body, speech and mind, and to act

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according to the teachings and the principles of the religious tradition that one is

following. This is very important. Conversely, if one’s faith or practice of religion

remains only at the intellectual level of knowledge, such as being familiar with certain

doctrines without translating them into one’s behavior or conduct, then I think that is a

grave mistake.”

Then he adds this concern: “One thing you should remember is that these mental

transformations take time and are not easy. I think some people from the West, where

technology is so good, think that everything is automatic. You should not expect this

spiritual transformation to take place within a short period; that is impossible. Keep it in

your mind and make a constant effort, then after one year, five years, ten years, fifteen

years you will eventually find some change.”

Jesus said we must all be “born again,” that is be changed into something new.

And that requires effort on our part, as well as proper faith.

“How can you develop faith in the proper way through meditation? Using our

two types of meditation, first you can practice analytical meditation by thinking how

great God is, for example.” (Once again, His Holiness is teaching me how to understand

God!) “After using this analytical meditation some kind of conviction is reached, ‘Now,

yes, definitely this is the case!’ Then, without further investigation, simply settle your

mind in that belief, in that deeper faith. This is single-pointedness meditation. These two

forms of meditation from the Buddhist tradition must go together. So you see, faith is not

just believing in words. Rather it combines one’s own experience and the Gospel to form

a firm conviction. That is very important and even necessary in any religion.

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“There are also two other types of meditation that can be helpful. In the first type,

you focus on a particular object and then meditate on it. In this case, you take an object

of apprehension to the mind. An example of this first type might be when a Christian is

aware of the greatness of God. In that case you have a separate object as the focus of

your meditation. In the second type of meditation, you cultivate your mind in the form of

an attitude of meditation. An example of the second type would be when the Christian

meditates to cultivate faith or love. In that kind of meditation, you cultivate your own

mind in the very nature of faith or love. In Buddhist practice, when we meditate like this

on the attitudes of compassion or loving kindness, our mind transforms into that kind of

mentality.

“Let us now take as an example the Buddhist awareness of impermanence.

Generally speaking, at the beginning this awareness is not through experience but relies

on reasons given in the scriptures or someone else’s words. But then, one meditates on it

using the kinds of analytical and single-pointedness meditations we discussed for

Christians.

“After much thought and reflection, impermanence becomes familiar. Then, at a

certain stage, you realize these reasons and reach a more full conviction concerning

impermanence which you can now prove by these reasons with complete confidence. At

this stage of meditation, the awareness of impermanence is much firmer than your

previous awareness. Of course, you already thought that all things are impermanent,

always momentarily changing. But through reasoning in analytical meditation you

develop a firm and full conviction.

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“Then going further without any more reasoning, there is a spontaneous

realization of impermanence. Whenever you see something, without any effort there is a

spontaneous realization or awareness of impermanence. In this uncontrived state of vivid

realization and developed experience of impermanence, there is a kind of direct

perception in which your mind is merged, as it were, with impermanence. From this

point of view there is no dualistic appearance.

“There are also objects of meditation used in Buddhism for development of

‘special insight’ and for the development of ‘calm abiding.’ The difference between calm

abiding and special insight is not determined by the respective objects of these different

meditative states; rather, the difference is determined by how one is engaging the objects.

One can engage objects of meditation in ways that produce insight or in ways that

produce inner calm. For Buddhists, there is calm abiding that even observes emptiness,

and there is also a special insight that is observing the varieties of phenomena. Christians

too should discover what objects of meditation there are to help them develop insight and

calm abiding both in relation to faith in God and with regard to developing love for

fellow human beings.”

A very important aspect of meditation is that it is not confined merely to our

contemplative sessions. Meditation is a “practice,” a way of practicing new ways of

thinking and responding which we can use in our everyday living. I like to think of

meditation in the same manner that a musician thinks of practicing the scales on the

piano. One doesn’t practice the playing of scales in order to be the best “scale-player,”

one practices the basics in order to implement them automatically when playing a

concerto. It’s the same with our meditative practice. His Holiness explains it this way:

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“One of the basic Buddhist approaches in meditation is somehow to engage in a form of

practice during the meditative session so that it can have a direct impact on one’s post-

meditative period, for example on our behavior, on our interaction with others and so on.

In fact, one could say that the post-meditative periods are the real test of the strength of

your practice. During formal meditation, in a sense you are recharging your batteries, so

that when you come out of the session you are better equipped to deal with the demands

of your everyday life. The very purpose of recharging a battery is to enable it to run

something, isn’t it?” What His Holiness is proposing is that meditation can energize the

battery of our mind, allowing it to run our day-to-day lives according to the principles of

loving compassion and true wisdom.

As for our personal practice of meditation, His Holiness offers some practical

advice: “Diet is important when we engage seriously in the practice of meditation. One

should follow a light diet which is also very good for the body.

“One’s daily routine is also important. Getting up early in the morning is very

good. Some people, particularly in the city, do the opposite. They stay up very late and

are very busy and are fully alert at night. Then they are sleeping peacefully after the sun

rises the next morning. For a practitioner, that kind of lifestyle is very bad. So, get up

early in the morning - Tibetans say ‘The freshness of early morning, the freshness of our

mind.’ And for that you need sufficient sleep by going to bed early.”

This leads to the question of when one should meditate, and for how long each

time. My teachers, as well as my own personal practice, have suggested that some time

set aside in the early morning and some time before retiring for the day are the foundation

for a good contemplative practice. And each session should be around one half hour,

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with twenty minutes being the minimum and one hour being an ideal. A regular time and

a quiet space soon become your own gift to yourself. In His Holiness words, “We spend

a large amount of the best human brainpower looking outside - too much - and it seems

we do not spend adequate effort to look within, to think inwardly.” So much in our

world is calling us outward - television, advertising, our daily obligations in general - that

when we claim for ourselves the luxury of solitude and turning inward, the sounds we

perceive in our inner silence soon become for us a rich reward that we will gladly return

to claim again and again.

The next question for the novice is that of place - where to meditate. One should

select a quiet space that can remain the same each day. It should be free of visual

distractions, as we are turning inward with our meditation and wish to avoid those

distractions which regularly call us outward. A window with a view or even soft music

should be avoided since, once again, they call our undisciplined mind to turn away from

our center.

With that said, it should be added that meditation is not simply a matter of sitting

in a particular place or breathing in a particular way; it is a state of mind. Although the

best results usually come when we meditate in a quiet place at a regular time, we can also

meditate while working, walking, riding on a bus or cooking dinner. First, we learn to

develop the meditative state of mind in formal, sitting practice, but once we are good at it

we can be more freestyle and creative and can generate this mental state at any time, in

any situation. That will be when our meditation has become for us a way of life.

“Then there is the question of posture. Generally this is also quite important,”

says His Holiness. “You should sit straight. The Buddhist justification for this posture is

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that if you remain straight then your body energy circulates more normally. If you sit

one-sided then the body may not be so balanced. Therefore, you should consider this

important. But, do not think it is very important to sit cross-legged. For some people,

instead of helping meditation it causes more pain. So, I do not think it is very important.

You can find a more comfortable posture if you wish.

“According to Buddhist tradition, sometimes one may get a kind of extraordinary

understanding or awareness. Take faith for example. Sometimes without a particular

reason, some kind of spontaneous feeling may occur. But from our tradition such an

experience - while very positive - is not so reliable. One day faith may be there

spontaneously, but the next day it may not. However, once you get that kind of

spontaneous experience of faith, it is very useful to maintain and sustain the faith through

effort. So you should not rely too much on just spontaneous experience. It comes and

goes, comes and goes. The other more sustained experience of faith, developed through

continuous effort, is much more reliable.

“I think that in both analytical meditation and single-pointedness meditation the

important thing is one’s sharpness of mind - having a fully alert mind. This is very, very

important. Now, in analytical meditation, a sharpness of mind is essential for the

analytical process. But in single-pointedness meditation, fully alert clarity of the mind

must also be maintained. Otherwise, sometimes the experience of single-pointedness

develops as a result of darkness. This is not at all helpful. You must remain fixed on the

object of meditation with full alertness.

“How can you keep full alertness? When your mental energy goes down,

then an uplifted state of the mind does not occur. For example, if you start single-

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pointedness meditation, and your mind at that moment is in a slightly sad mood, then that

mood automatically reduces the alertness of mind. So at the time you need to extend

some effort in order to heighten the state or spirit of your mind.

“One method for a Christian would be to think about God’s grace or mercy and to

reflect on how fortunate we are. Thinking of these kinds of things, which make you feel

happy with more hope and more self-confidence, will uplift your mind.

“Sometimes you experience the opposite, namely, your mind may be too excited.

That state of mind is also a great hindrance to single-pointedness. When you are about to

do single-pointedness meditation and your mind is too distracted due to excitement, then

think about the fact that because of this kind of mental attitude your spiritual practice,

your spiritual experience, will not develop much. Think that because of this excited state

you will experience a failure of single-pointedness of mind. Then, you see, your

excitement will become a little reduced. When you see your mind come down a little bit,

then with that cooler basis go on to meditate. So, these are the methods for avoiding

mental dullness and excitement in meditation.”

Many of us have a sincere desire to establish a daily meditation practice, but can’t

seem to fit it into our busy schedules. His Holiness shares how he manages:

“First, I must say that I am a very poor practitioner. Usually I get up at 3:30 in

the morning. Then I immediately do some recitations and some chanting. Following this

until breakfast, I do meditation, analytical meditation mainly. Then after each analytical

meditation, I do single-pointedness meditation. The object of my meditation is mainly

dependent arising. Because of dependent arising, things are empty.

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“So, meditating on this gives me a kind of firm conviction of the possibility of the

cessation of afflictive emotions. This is one of the main objects of my practice. Another

is compassion. These two are my objects of practice. If you ask me about experience in

my practice I think it is better than zero! On that basis, I can assure you that the mind is

always changing, so no matter how strong the afflictive emotion, there is always the

possibility of change. Transformation is always possible. So therefore, you see, there is

always hope. I think that is why it is really worthwhile to make an effort.

“Then also, in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Buddhist tantra practice is also

involved. So you see, a lot of time is also spent on visualization in deity yoga.” This is

the third of the major types of Tibetan meditation, visualization meditation. It is

generally reserved for the highest practitioners, since it is thought to be the most

advanced form of meditation, one that allows for the attainment of enlightenment in a

single lifetime. One popular form of visualization meditation involves meditating on the

image of a deity who represents a particular quality of an enlightened being -

compassion, for example. The goal of the meditation is to become the quality meditated

upon. Through repetitive meditation, the teachings say, one can actually come to take on

the qualities of compassion, to embody it.

Visualization meditation takes on other forms as well. His Holiness: “This

includes visualizing the process of death and rebirth. In fact in my daily prayer or

practice, I visualize death eight times and rebirth eight times. This is not necessarily the

Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, but some reincarnation. These practices I feel are very

powerful and very helpful in familiarizing oneself about the process of death. So when

death actually comes, one is prepared. Whether these practices are really going to benefit

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me at the time of death, I do not know at this moment. I suppose that even with all this

preparation for death, I may still be a complete failure! That is also possible.

“There is another type of meditation which is like praying. Its purpose is to

recollect the various stages of the path by going through something that you have

memorized and reflecting on each stage.

“So from around 3:30 a.m. until 8:30 a.m. I am fully occupied with meditation

and prayer, and things like that. During that time I take a few breaks, including my

breakfast - which is usually at 5:30 a.m. - and some prostrations. After 8:30 a.m., when

my mood is good, I do some physical exercise. One very important thing is that I always

listen to the BBC for the news. Then I do office work until noon. And if it is a holiday, I

also start reading important texts. Prayer and meditation are usually done without any

texts. Then at noon, I have my lunch. Afterward usually I go to the office and do some

more work. At 6:00 p.m., I have my evening tea and dinner as a Buddhist monk. Finally,

around 8:30 p.m., I go to sleep - my most favorite, peaceful meditation!”

One of the most frequent problems we westerners have with meditation is

“finding the time.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama is one of the busiest men on the planet,

and he finds the time! Saint Thomas à Kempis wrote in The Imitation of Christ, that “if

you give up unnecessary conversation, idle walking about, and listening to news and talk,

you will find plenty of time which you can well devote to good meditation.” His

Holiness manages to make the time, and still listen to the news!

In addition to finding a time to meditate, we westerners have difficulty making a

commitment to the “right time” to start. I would suggest that the best time to start your

own contemplative practice is right now, with the reading of this little book. In the next

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few pages I will share some concrete methods of meditation and contemplation for use in

developing your own spiritual practice. They have proven beneficial to me. However,

the purpose of a book about meditation and contemplation is to provide suggestions on

how to order your spiritual practice and perfect your thinking, and not to do your thinking

for you. Consequently, if you have picked up this book and are merely reading it, you

will be wasting your time. In the pages that follow, when any thought stimulates your

mind or your heart you may put this book down and take the time to reflect...for then you

will have entered the Mandala, and your meditation has, in fact, already begun.

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Chapter 10

Taming Your Monkey Mind

One of the major aims and purposes of religious practice for the

individual is an inner transformation from an undisciplined, untamed, unfocused state of mind toward one that is disciplined, tamed, and balanced.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Painted on the entry wall of the gompa, or meditation hall of Tushita monastery is

a pastoral representation of the “Tree of Life,” a popular theme in the folk art of all

cultures. A flowering tree in a green meadow gives shelter to a variety of animals who

share each other’s company in peace alongside a life-giving stream. Dominating the

painting are the two central figures: a monkey seated calmly on the back of an elephant.

This hand-painted scene is something of a Tibetan version of Edward Hicks’ classic

American folk painting, “Peaceable Kingdom,” a presentation of the idyllic Biblical

image of the realized Kingdom of God on earth found in the eleventh chapter of the book

of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah. This passage, often read as a foretelling of the coming of

Jesus, speaks of a day when one will come with the spirit of the Lord resting upon him,

the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and on that day the wolf shall live with the lamb,

the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion together, and a little

child shall lead them.

Conspicuously absent from the Hebrew imagery, or from the Quaker artist Hicks’

painting, is any representation of either an elephant or a monkey! Here in the foothills of

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the Himalayas, however, any image of an ideal, imaginary peaceable kingdom would

have to include a monkey at rest and in abiding harmony with his neighbors. The reason

being, such a calm monkey does not exist in the less than idyllic world of day-to-day

experience! Such a monkey could exist only in the mind’s imagination.

In Dharamsala, the gregarious monkeys descend in chattering packs down from

the hills, swinging rapidly from tree branch to tree branch just before daybreak, moving

ever lower down the hills toward the villages below, in search of food, and, it seems, in

search of child-like mischief. They taunt each other and scream, pouncing on each other

and beating on the corrugated metal roofs of the Tibetan’ homes, awakening all and

signaling the start of a new day. Throughout the remainder of the day, their playful

behavior is non-stop – chasing, climbing, swinging in the trees, endless tumbling and

jumping one on the other. And the games with food never stop. Pity the poor child or

unsuspecting westerner who has just purchased a banana or mango from a vendor and is

walking toward home with her fruit in hand. Seemingly from nowhere, the clever

monkey will fly in from behind, snatch the fruit from the startled human’s hand, and race

away to the nearest tree to gobble down the prize. And even as the gloating monkey eats,

he, too, has to flee the attacks of other monkeys who would, in turn, steal the fruit from

him! It’s an endless cycle of games and activity that continues unabated until dark begins

to settle over the hills, when then the monkeys, still in full play, commence their noisy

return to the mountain tops for the night.

It is this experience of the monkey, not the image of the peaceable monkey

painted on the wall, that is known to myself and the other meditators as we pass by the

Tree of Life on the wall and enter the gompa to take our place on the cushions in silence.

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I join a group of monks and nuns and westerners who are already sitting cross-

legged in calm silence, awaiting the morning’s teacher. When the tall monk enters the

front of the hall from the side door, all rise and bow in a gesture of respect, a welcome

that is acknowledged with a giggle and an embarrassed grin by the gentle monk, Stardust.

Stardust takes his place on the elevated cushion of the teacher, adjusts his saffron

robe, and begins. “Good morning. Today we are going to go bananas.” His face erupts

with a most delightful smile as he lets his surprising statement sink in. “Our minds

cannot be controlled, at least not in the pre-programmed manner that the western thinker

likes to believe the mind can be programmed to concentrate on one thought. When we let

go of our inhibitions, when we let our hair down, so to speak, we sometimes say we let

ourselves ‘go bananas.’ That is what the mind is doing all of the time. Today we are

going to let go of our obsession with trying to control the mind, and simply observe as it

goes bananas.”

Stardust was born in Germany, just outside of Stuttgart, about forty-six years ago.

He grew up in a devout Roman Catholic family and remembers his childhood as “a

wonderful mystery,” but also remembers his Catholic upbringing as very narrow-minded

and with so much emphasis on “sin” that there was no effort or encouragement to connect

with the “goodness within.” He rebelled against the Christian conformity of the church

and his family, and escaped to an inward adventure in Asia. His first stop was Indonesia

where a friend told him he was a natural meditator, and encouraged him to find a teacher

in Thailand. A monk outside Bangkok gave him some names of “forest teachers,” and

Stardust picked one at random, sought him out and entered into the “forest life” of a Thai

Buddhist monk. He tried the monastery, but learned he was best meditating as a loner.

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He remained with his teacher for about two years before ordination as a full-fledged

Buddhist monk, and then meandering in the Thai forest as a traditional “wandering

monk.”

He spent time in Thailand, India and Sri Lanka before returning to India recently.

He describes his experience in Sri Lanka as living in silence in a small forest temple,

“discovering my inner self and getting in touch with emotions.”

He says he went from rejecting the forced, narrow views of Christianity to forcing

upon himself new attachments and aversions of Buddhism. He made a pendulum-like

swing from one extreme to a new one. It was later that he discovered the middle way –

letting go of attachments to any predetermined belief or way of thinking.

Today, he says that visual meditation and analytical meditation are necessary for

him because all day long he is contemplating how everything he encounters is arising and

passing away. For Stardust, “the more we move from or let go of the notion of and the

attachment to self, the more compassion arises automatically. The more one lets go of

the obsession with self, the greater one’s compassion toward others.”

His Master taught him about Buddhist meditation, “Don’t strive to become simply

an enlightened parrot.” To Stardust, this meant that for most westerners the Buddhism

they discover just becomes a “new prison,” that replaces the old. “They are too

conditioned, so they respond to Buddhism just as they did to their old Christianity or

Judaism.” What he means is that old attachments are discarded but simply replaced with

new attachments.

Now, each morning in a simple meditation session, Stardust captivates his

western audience of novice meditators with his simple wisdom of non-attachment. “Let

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go of your thoughts,” he teaches, “as they are nothing more than illusion – illusions

which arise randomly and then pass away.” But he is careful to admonish those of us

before him on our cushions that one also needs to learn not to force that letting go.

Meditation is not to be a rigid rejection of thought, but rather a gentle letting go of

thought, and a mindful observation of their random rising and passing away.

And he teaches this penetrating wisdom and practice with the abandon of a child.

“Observing your thoughts is full of ‘ah-so’ experiences. A thought arises and you

observe it, not making any value judgements about it - just observing. And then you say

in your mind, ‘ah-so,’ as if to say ‘OK – it is. It simply is. Ah-so.’ It is, and so be it. No

judgement, just the observation and acknowledgement of its arising, and later of its

passing away.”

Tibetans practice three types of meditation: mindfulness meditation or calming of

the mind, analytical meditation or guided thought, and finally visualization meditation

that focuses on a deity or quality and moves the mind toward imitating or “becoming” it.

Mindfulness, or single-pointedness as His Holiness refers to it, is the foundation of a

contemplative practice. “In order for the training in wisdom to mature and become

strong, one must first develop meditative concentration; and in order to develop and

support concentration one should cultivate the training in self-discipline, which calms the

mind and provides an atmosphere conducive to meditation.”

And Stardust has the most delightfully disarming way of introducing his western

students to this basic calming of the mind. Allow the following illustrations from his

teaching, embellished with the wisdom of His Holiness, to calm your mind and aid you in

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letting go of your monkey-like tendencies to jump from thought to thought, and your

selfish tendency to cling to each thought as though it were a tangible possession.

We begin calming the mind by concentrating on the natural breath. Neither

posture nor technique is terribly important. Remember, we are not trying to become

“great meditators.” There is no inherent value in that. Meditation is a tool, a means

toward the end of enlightened thinking and acting. It is good, however, to sit comfortably

and with the spine erect. This facilitates the natural flow of mental energy. His Holiness

teaches, “The meditation seat should be slightly raised at the back because that helps

reduce tightness. Sitting in the full cross-legged position is very difficult, but if it causes

no pain then that is the proper way. Or you can sit in the half-lotus position which is

usually very comfortable.”

Then the hands should be resting comfortably on the crossed legs, either extended

toward the knees, with the thumb and first or second finger touching, as if to form a small

circle with the fingers. Or the hands can rest cradled, one in the other, in the lap. Again,

His Holiness’ preference: “In the correct hand mudra, the back of the right hand rests in

the palm of the left hand and the two thumbs stand up and touch one another, forming a

triangle. This triangle has a tantric significance, symbolizing the Realm of Truth.”

The head should be allowed to tip slightly forward, naturally, with the eyes

directed in approximately a forty-five degree angle toward the floor. In the Dalai Lama’s

teaching, “The arms should not touch the body. The head is slightly bent down, the tip of

the tongue touching the palate, which prevents thirst and drooling when the meditator

engages in deep, single-pointed concentration (His Holiness grins broadly). Lips and

teeth should be left in their natural position, eyes looking toward the tip of the nose. This

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is no problem when one has a big, pointed nose, but if one has a small nose, looking at its

tip sometimes causes pain. (now His Holiness is laughing heartily) So this depends on

the size of one’s nose.”

Initially, the meditation student should close the eyes, not with any strength, but

just naturally allowed to rest closed. Experienced contemplatives often sit with open

eyes, but for those of us just beginning it is best to avoid the external distractions we see

with our eyes open. Meditation is turning inward. All the day long, in our modern

society especially, we are bombarded with sensory stimuli drawing our attention outward.

It has become unnatural to block all that out and take time to look only inward. That is

the luxury we are going to claim for ourselves with our meditation. But it requires Right

Effort and Right Concentration, meaning that, initially at least, we will have to be very

intentional about blocking out all those sounds and sights that would return our attention

toward the outer world. And that means, for now, gently closing the eyes.

A word of caution is in order here, however. Sitting comfortably, with the eyes

gently closed, creates a significant risk for the new practitioner: he or she may fall asleep!

And sleeping is not at all the same thing as meditating! The cure for falling asleep is

simply concentrating on the focus of the meditation, and that is what we will examine

next.

Our focus will be simply the natural breath – the arising and passing of each

normal breath. Why? Why “waste our time” looking at nothing more important than our

natural breathing? It is because this practice begins to train our mind to calm itself, to

center itself, and then to examine itself through observation. Anything else we may try

to do in our meditation – analytical meditations or visualization meditations – will require

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our ability to calm the mind and focus our attention. Like a musician practices playing

the scales over and over to master the basic techniques, we, too must practice – over and

over – the basics of concentration.

But there is also great value in mindfulness meditation for mindfulness’ sake

alone. It is in these times of focused concentration, but absence of conscious thought,

that we have the opportunity to experience “knowing.” Real experiential knowing only

occurs in the absence of our ordinary, conditioned – and “wrong,” as it were – thoughts.

So, on to the practice. In your comfortable meditative position - spine erect, head

at rest, eyes gently closed – focus your attention on the small triangle of space that

encompasses your lower lip as the base and the bridge of your nose at the top.

“Watching” this space in your mind’s eye, simply pay attention to your natural breathing

in and breathing out. Don’t force it. Don’t increase or decrease the natural rhythm of

your breath. Just begin observing it. As His Holiness says, “During meditation your

breathing should be natural. You should not breathe violently nor too gently. When you

are in a fluctuating state of mind, like when you are angry or have lost your temper, then

it is good to bring back calmness by concentrating on breathing. At that moment when

your mind concentrates fully on breathing - the breath coming and going - all passions

subside. Afterwards, it is easier to think clearly.”

Observe how the breathing in is somehow different from the breathing out. Feel

your lungs expand, your diaphragm lower, and the air pass over your lower lip and into

your nostrils. Notice that the air is cooler going in, warmer passing out. Pay attention to

the very feeling of your lungs being full, the feeling of your lungs being empty. As you

pay closer attention, notice that you can observe the very hairs in your nose responding to

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the flowing in and flowing out of your breath. Notice how the arising and passing away

of each breath has its own stages of effort and relaxation. Don’t force the effort. This is

not an exercise in breathing, it’s an exercise in awareness.

At this point, it is worth reflecting upon how we are now practicing observing

something so natural and so ordinary that we may never have actually “observed it”

before at all. What a miracle this action of breathing is! How many of our body parts

participate and are nurtured by this simple yet so complex an act that we daily take for

granted. This is the beginning of the practice of everyday mindfulness – becoming aware

of the daily reality to which we have become so numbed. It is the beginning of being

awake, becoming enlightened.

Continue to focus on the natural breath. But now, as you do, notice – observe, if

you will – how random disconnected thoughts enter your mind, distracting your focus on

the breath. When this occurs, as it will constantly, don’t chastise yourself or give up,

thinking you can’t concentrate. These random and distracting thoughts are natural and

unavoidable, even for the “expert” meditator. The appropriate way to respond to these

thoughts is with Stardust’s approach: observe that a thought has arisen and respond with a

mental “ah-so.” That’s all. Notice it, then move on. Think of the random thoughts as

clouds, that arise and pass away, and then gently, without much effort or pushing, simply

brush them aside and return to the focus of your attention, the natural breath. At times,

the distracting thoughts will completely take over your attention. You will suddenly

realize you are no longer paying attention to your natural breath at all! Again, very

natural. Again, “ah-so.” Observe this phenomenon as having arisen, make note of it,

then return your attention to the natural breath without scolding yourself at all. This is

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the practice of Right Effort and Right Concentration and you will daily get better at it,

daily become more easily focused and centered.

But the random, distracting thoughts will never disappear, no matter how many

years you meditate. And that is not important. As with most things in nature, your only

hope is to tame the mind, not to subdue it entirely or, heaven forbid, shut down its

activity. What this practice seeks is the calming of the mind and, at the same time, the

increasing of mindfulness. What we hope to create is simply time and space to turn

inward, time and space to observe the arising and passing away of thought that occurs

naturally every day, and to experience it as a teacher – a teacher of the reality of the

arising and passing away of everything in life.

In mindfulness meditation, one tries to keep the mind centered on the focus of our

attention, in this case the natural breath, for as long as possible without distraction. As

meditators, we soon discover how difficult that is. As soon as we try to keep the mind

fixed on our breathing, we begin to worry about a pain arising in our leg. As soon as we

try to brush distracting thoughts aside, a thousand new thoughts arise: memories, plans,

hopes, fears. One of these soon catches our attention and after a short time we realize we

have forgotten the natural breath altogether.

Who’s in control here? Not long into this exercise it becomes clear that the mind

is, in fact, out of control. Like the monkeys that interrupt our meditation by their racing

across the temple roof above our head, our minds race from one random thought to

another, testing our patience and our ability to focus and observe.

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Again, that’s OK. We can’t change our mind’s lifelong pattern of processing

thought continuously. But we can learn to observe and tame our mind’s reactions to its

own thoughts.

There is no “goal” to these sessions of practicing mindfulness. In fact, we want to

use this time of observation to learn how to avoid labeling the thoughts that arise as either

“good” or “bad.” They are just thoughts, natural thoughts. They are neither good nor

bad unless we label them as such. They are empty of any inherent existence as “good

thoughts” or “bad thoughts,” they only take on such an appearance if we name them.

Continuing with that thought, there is no such thing as a “good meditation session” or a

“bad meditation session.” Meditation time is simply meditation time. The good or bad

label is illusion. Perhaps the only “goal” of our mindfulness meditation, if there were one

at all, would be the observation and realization of this illusion.

His Holiness points to these illusions and our mental capacity to sort illusion from

reality: “With respect to the fact that the nature of the mind is clear light, we can say that

the nature of the mind is that it has the capacity to know objects. Therefore, since the

mind itself has a nature of comprehending objects, ignorance of objects is not due to the

nature of the mind but is due to some other obstructive factor. For instance, if you put

your hand over your eyes, you will not see anything. That absence of sight is not due to

the fact that the eye does not have a nature of seeing or capacity to see. The eye does

have a nature of seeing, but something is obstructing its sight.” A purpose of

mindfulness meditation is the removing of those obstructions to our truly seeing.

Stardust pointed out how mindfulness meditation simply teaches us how to live

our lives mindfully, placing no value judgements on the daily occurrences of life, but

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learning to sort out their illusion from reality. “Observing the natural breath is the means

for practicing right awareness. Our sufferings arise out of our ignorance. We react

because we do not know what we are doing, because we do not know the reality of

ourselves. The mind spends most of the time lost in fantasy and illusion, reliving

pleasant or unpleasant experiences and anticipating the future with eagerness or fear.

While lost in such cravings or aversions we are unaware of what is happening now, what

we are doing now. Yet surely this moment, now, is the most important moment for us.

We cannot live in the past; it is gone. Nor can we live in the future; it is forever beyond

our grasp. We can only live in the present; and yet most of us are painfully unaware of

the reality of the moment. If we can develop the ability to be aware of the reality of the

present moment, we can use the past as a guide for ordering our actions in the future.”

I recalled his words the following day, when, after waiting for silence at the

beginning of the morning meditation, Stardust simply began the session by slowly

reciting this poignant admonition: “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream,

merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream.” The gompa was pregnant with

silence as a new meaning of these familiar words settled in.

But now I digress. My thoughts have wandered. Back to the natural breath. How

long should the practitioner do this, and how often? The experts suggest at least half an

hour a day, with twice a day being better, and working at it every day. This is the

foundation of an effective contemplative spiritual practice.

But, we say, where can I find an hour each day for meditation? My life is so

busy. Well, the obvious answer is that we can all find time for anything we really desire;

it’s just a matter of priorities. To actually find that extra half an hour in the morning, all

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one needs to do is set the alarm a half-hour earlier. Give yourself the gift of that extra

time. As for the possible loss of sleep, practicing calming your monkey mind will work

wonders with your ability to make your actual sleeping time more restful. One hour less

time spent sleeping and one hour more time spent meditating each day will actually result

in your being more rested each day. For me, the curious part was this: after a while

meditating daily, I became very possessive of my contemplative time. This is a problem,

from the Buddhist standpoint, I know! But, nonetheless, I soon came to crave and desire

“my time,” that time that I selfishly set aside for myself to turn inward and shut out the

mundane for a half-hour. I soon wanted nothing to keep me from my meditation time,

and settling into my cross-legged position on the cushion began to feel like a warm,

“coming home” experience that I daily cherished.

Now back to focusing on the breathing in and breathing out. Notice how easy it is

to become distracted and for the thoughts to drift in other directions. No problem. Just

return to observing the natural breath as soon as you realize you’ve drifted away. That’s

the value of having the natural breath as a tool to help center yourself. It’s always with

you, always available to use as a focus for those otherwise errant thoughts. It is like a

training leash for that monkey mind of yours.

As your meditation practice continues over days and weeks, you can begin fine-

tuning your powers of observation. Pay closer and closer attention to that triangle of

space between your upper lip and the bridge of your nose. Start to become aware of

every sensation that arises and passes away there, from as profound as the passing in and

out of air to the subtlest arising of a small twitch beneath the skin. Notice how each of

these sensations arises and passes away. Begin to notice how we instantly label these

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sensations, either as “good” or “bad,” “pleasant” or “pain;” how we instantly develop

attachment or aversion to them, wanting the “good” sensations to remain or repeat, and

wanting the “bad” sensations to go away.

When you have practiced sufficiently that you think you are becoming good at

remaining somewhat focused on the natural breath and the portion of the body around the

nose, you can progress to what is sometimes referred to as “body sweeping.” In this

practice, you simply move your focus from the area around the nose to other parts of the

body, one area at a time. Start with the head, perhaps the forehead. Focus your attention

on a small space, as small as a square inch or two. Notice for a few moments every

sensation that arises and passes away there. Observe the arising and passing away of

pain, or of sensations of warmth or cold, or of an itch or a twitch. Observe this one small

part of your forehead, then move down the face. Stop for a while and let your mind’s eye

observe, then move on to the neck, the arms, the chest, and so on. At each stop, focus

and observe. Observe what arises and passes away, and make note of your mental

reaction to those sensations: how you label them and react to them.

The most profound of all these bodily observations will probably prove to be the

pain that arises in your legs, calves, or lower back as you extend your periods of

meditation. This discomfort is common to all who begin meditation, especially to we

westerners who have not practiced from birth crossing our legs and sitting for prolonged

periods of time on a hard floor.

His Holiness is often quoted as saying that his enemy is his best teacher. This

usually refers to his “enemy” China, and he means it sincerely when used in that vein.

But he also teaches that any of our enemies are our best teacher, and, in the case of

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meditation, that includes our pain. Pay considerable attention to the arising and passing

away of pain, for inevitably the pain will pass away. No one, to my knowledge, has ever

lost a limb to the pain of meditation! In time, the pain that has arisen will just as surely

pass away, just like the little itch on your upper lip arose and passed away if you

exercised enough patience and discipline not to scratch it away.

This observing of the arising and passing away of pain is the beginning of an

experiential knowing of the emptiness of all phenomena and of impermanence. No

sensation is inherently “pain.” One cannot put one’s finger on the actual pain, even

though one is very much aware of its existence and location. There is a sensation, true

enough, but not a concrete thing we can hold and touch that has any independent

existence as “pain.” A sensation arises, we label it pain, and we immediately develop

aversion to it, wishing it would go away. In our meditation we can observe how we do

that. Then, over considerable time, we can learn to slow down our monkey mind to the

point where we no longer are so quick to label, no longer so quick to develop aversion,

and are more able to simply observe what is, without suffering the consequences of pain

over it. This ability will grow in direct proportion to our ability to observe how even pain

passes away, just as surely as does anything else. What we are seeking here is an ability

to react to our enemy pain with that “ah-so” reaction. It’s a matter of being awake to the

reality of the nature of that which we call pain, and through Right Understanding, Right

Effort, Right Concentration removing the mental causes of our suffering, replacing our

ignorance of how things are with a new and enlightened mindfulness. It is our enemies

that can teach us thusly, in the inner calm of our meditation.

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This mindfulness meditation, this sitting quietly and turning one’s thoughts and

attention inward, is not unlike the contemplation of the monks of the early Christian

church. On the surface, it seems that there exists a differing “reason” or goal for

Christian contemplative endeavor compared to Buddhist or Hindu meditation. Christian

contemplatives would probably use language such as “to experience God” to describe

their purpose in meditating, while Buddhists would probably say it was to “perceive

reality.” Here I would argue that, just as in our earlier look at the differences between the

western understanding of a Creator God and the Buddhist understanding that denies such

a god, there is a meeting of minds on the subject of Ultimate Reality. With that in mind,

it seems to me that meditation that allows for an experiential knowing of reality is very

much the same as contemplation that seeks to experience the Divine Reality. Both can

lead to a knowing that transcends mere knowledge.

This points to the reason that a meditative practice is necessarily an integral

component in any effort toward spiritual growth. Recalling that spirituality is

relationships, it is only through Right Effort, Right Thought, Right Concentration, Right

Mindfulness that we can understand and even transform our relationships with persons

and events in our lives. In the concluding chapters of this little book we will examine

specific meditative practices, including directed and analytical methods, that can help us

shape who we are and who we are becoming. But these require a foundation of a clear

and calm mind and the ability to focus. They also depend upon a growing appropriation

of reality: of the inherently empty nature of things in terms of our false understandings,

and of both the causal arising and fleeting impermanence of everything in the universe.

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It has been my observation that Western religion has lost its sense of daily

spiritual practice. If there is a growing disillusion among many church and synagogue

members today, it is, at its core, arising from this void. Each of us is seeking a path, a

path toward greater understanding and a more spiritually mature relationship with the

people and the world around us. There was a time that the western religions were

practiced in an all-consuming and life-changing way by at least a few. Spiritual seekers

today are searching for such a practice and not finding it within the walls of the

traditional western faiths.

The contemplative endeavor I have discovered for myself among my Buddhist

teachers and friends is empty of any inherent labels such as Hindu, Christian, Jewish - or

Buddhist. The Masters of every faith persuasion have found their way within the calm

and revelation of contemplative experience. Clear thinking and a calm mind belong to

any who would claim them. That is the reality. And walking a spiritual path requires a

foundation of nothing more – or less.

There is a favorite story, told by Buddhist teachers of meditation, about the

doctor’s prescription. A man becomes sick and goes to the doctor for help. The doctor

examines him and then writes out a prescription for some medicine. The man has great

faith in his doctor. He returns home and in his prayer room he puts a beautiful picture

and statue of the doctor on his altar. Then he pays respect to the picture and the statue by

bowing three times and lighting candles and incense. Then he takes out the prescription

that the doctor wrote for him and very solemnly recites it: “Two pills in the morning.

Two pills in the afternoon. Two pills in the evening.” All day long, for several days, he

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recites the prescription, but, alas, the prescription does not help him overcome his

suffering.

The man decides he wants to know more about this medicine and the doctor who

prescribed it, so he runs to the medical office and asks, “What is this medicine and why

did you prescribe it?” The doctor explains, “Here is the cause of your disease. If you

take the medicine I have recommended it will eradicate the root cause. When the cause

has been eliminated, your suffering will cease.” The man thinks, “Ah, wonderful! My

doctor is so intelligent and his prescriptions are like a miracle.” He goes home, and then

starts arguing with his neighbors, insisting, “My doctor is the best doctor. Your doctors

are useless."

But still he is not cured. All his life he may venerate his doctor as the best, but

what does it gain him? Until he takes the medicine, only then will he be relieved of his

misery. Only then will the medicine help him.

All of the world’s religions have their Masters who are like the physician. Out of

loving compassion they have offered their lives as prescriptions for alleviating suffering.

But many of their followers have venerated the doctor without entering into the regimen

of taking the medicine to relieve their suffering.

Having faith in the doctor is useful if it encourages you to take the medicine the

doctor prescribes. Understanding how the medicine works is beneficial if it encourages

you to take the medicine regularly. But the medicine can only work its miracles and

relieve the suffering if you take it, internally, yourself.

The Dalai Lama embellishes on the meaning of the story: “Religions are like

medicine in that the important thing is to cure human suffering. In the practice of

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medicine, it is not a question of how expensive the medicine is; what is important is to

cure the illness in a particular patient. Similarly, you see, there is a variety of religions

with their different philosophies and traditions. The aim or purpose of each religion is to

cure the pains and unhappiness of the human mind.”

My inherited faith offers answers - and prescriptions, if you will - for the anxiety I

have personally felt regarding my spiritual journey. In the silence of the meditation

room, with the help of teachers from all walks of life, I have begun to still my monkey

mind and discover unused prescriptions in my ancient medicine cabinet. I have begun to

take them. Daily spiritual exercise is beginning to improve my spiritual health.

163

Chapter 11

Cultivating Compassion

I believe the purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

It is Sunday morning in Dharamsala when Christine approaches me outside the

historic St. John-in-the-Wilderness church where I have just given the morning sermon.

Across the valley we can view His Holiness’ residence and the Namgyal Temple, and

hear the guttural drone of the temple horns echoing their call to Tibetan Buddhist

worship. She asks a question I am often asked: “What is there in Buddhism that is of

any particular benefit to those of us who were raised as Christians. Why should the

western Christian bother to investigate Buddhist wisdom and practice?”

I tell her I’ve had the opportunity to ask the same question of the Dalai Lama. His

response was, “That is mainly, I believe, the message of love and compassion...of

forgiveness. And then...there are different techniques, different ways, to promote or

increase these human good qualities. And there, I feel, is where we can learn from each

other.”

I am inclined to believe that it is within a shared emphasis on love and

compassion that Buddhism and Christianity find their deepest expression of inner

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affinity. I have also come to believe that a personal spiritual journey toward embodying

the Christian ideal of self-sacrificing love can be enhanced with the illumination of

Buddhist wisdom and practice.

It is often said in Christian theology that “God is love.” It is not said that God is

like love, or similar to love. It is not even said that God is merely loving. The teaching

says that God is, in fact, love. If that is a Christian truth - that God is love - then

Buddhists certainly believe in the same God - and the same Truth - since nothing is more

important in Buddhist teaching and practice than love and compassion.

And the wonderful value of Buddhist teaching for we westerners is that it offers

us a method and a practice for cultivating the genuine love and compassion we earnestly

seek to embrace and express through the thoughts and the actions of our everyday lives.

Jesus taught us to love our neighbor as our selves. Not only are we to love our

neighbor as we love our self, but we are to understand our neighbor as an extension of

our self, loving our neighbor as inseparable from self, one and the same. And we are

taught to love our enemies as well. But nowhere in the Gospels did Jesus directly teach a

method for his ordinary followers to develop that love, to cultivate it, to fine-tune it. We

can all understand love of neighbor as a logical abstract concept, but how can we make it

come alive and pervade the very sinews of our being and become the directing force in

our every impulse?

Our Buddhist neighbors offer us a method and a practice that can do just that.

With effort and concentration - with practice - we can become more loving, more Christ-

like, more God-like. We can come to be more compassionate in our spiritual

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relationships with self, with others, with the Divine and with all of creation. We can

discover and awaken the heart of Christ within us.

Certainly Buddhism teaches “the message of love and compassion,” but, so, too,

does Christianity - and Jesus. Where we can benefit from our exploration of Buddhist

wisdom and method is in those “different techniques, different ways, to promote or

increase those human good qualities.”

His Holiness says, “I believe it is possible to progress along a spiritual path...and

reconcile Christianity with Buddhism. Love of one’s neighbor, kindness, and

compassion - these are, I believe, the essential and universal elements preached by all

religions. Christians say ‘love of God, love for neighbor, love for fellow being.’ This is

my personal interpretation of Christianity. And just as you have love for God, love for

your neighbors, so the purpose of having love for God is to be able to make yourself

close to God. If you are close to God you have a motive to listen to His voice, and His

voice or teaching is that we should love one another. Basically the most important thing

is this love for others. In Buddhism, also, every emphasis is on love for others.”

He adds, “There are a number of qualities which are important to mental peace,

but from the little experience I have, I believe that one of the most important factors is

human compassion and affection; a sense of caring.”

To progress along the spiritual path, then, seems to imply growth in our ability to

love and to show compassion. What exactly do we mean by “compassion?” His

Holiness responds: “Usually our concept of compassion or love refers to the feeling of

closeness we have toward our friends and loved ones. Sometimes compassion also

carries a sense of pity. This is wrong. Any love or compassion which entails looking

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down on the other is not genuine compassion. To be genuine, compassion must be based

on respect for the other, and on the realization that the others have the right to be happy

and overcome suffering just as much as you do. On this basis, since you can see that

others are suffering, you develop a genuine sense of concern for them.”

I learned as a hospital chaplain that the word compassion is derived from the

Latin com and passio - literally “with the pain.” To be truly compassionate is not to show

pity but rather to enter into another’s pain, to be one with them in their pain, to share their

suffering, to recognize their suffering as if it were our own, to love our neighbor as

though his or her suffering were, in reality, an extension of our own.

His Holiness continues, “As for the closeness we feel towards our friends, this is

usually more like attachment than compassion. Many forms of compassionate feelings

are mixed with desire and attachment. For instance, the love parents feel for their child is

often strongly associated with their own emotional needs, so it is not fully compassionate.

Again, in marriage, the love between husband and wife - particularly at the beginning,

when each partner still may not know each other’s deeper character very well - depends

more on attachment than genuine love. This is an indication that love has been motivated

more by personal need than by genuine care for the individual. Genuine compassion

should be unbiased. If we only feel close to our friends, and not to our enemies or to the

countless people who are unknown to us personally and towards whom we are

indifferent, then our compassion is only partial or biased. True compassion is not just an

emotional response but a firm commitment founded on reason. Therefore, a truly

compassionate attitude towards others does not change even if they behave negatively.”

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Jesus pointed out this need to develop unbiased love and compassion when he

related his famous parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans were considered

outcasts and non-believers, second-class religious citizens in Jesus’ time. But in his

story, it was the Samaritan who came to the aid of the poor victim of street violence while

the priestly religious figures passed him by. Jesus explained the moral to his story by

asking, “Who is your neighbor?” and answering his own question with, “Your neighbor

is anyone in need.” He might well have answered that genuine love and compassion

should be freely directed toward anyone who is suffering - namely, everyone!

“Of course,” says the Dalai Lama, “developing this kind of compassion is not at

all easy! As a start, let us consider the following facts: Whether people are beautiful and

friendly or unattractive and disruptive, ultimately they are human beings just like oneself.

Like oneself, they want happiness and do not want suffering. Furthermore, their right to

overcome suffering and be happy is equal to one’s own. Now, when you recognize that

all beings are equal in both their desire for happiness and their right to obtain it, you

automatically feel empathy and closeness for them. Through accustoming your mind to

this sense of universal altruism, you develop a feeling of responsibility for others: the

wish to help them actively overcome their problems. Nor is this wish selective; it applies

equally to all. As long as they are human beings experiencing pleasure and pain just as

you do, there is no logical basis to discriminate between them or to alter your concern for

them if they behave negatively.”

His Holiness is alluding to what is often referred to in Buddhist teaching as the

principle of equanimity. Genuine love and compassion involves equanimity - loving all

others without prejudice or bias - whether friend or foe, brother or enemy.

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“Let me emphasize that it is within our power, given patience and time, to

develop this kind of compassion. Of course, our self-centeredness, our distinctive

attachment to the feeling of an independent, self-existent ‘I’ works fundamentally to

inhibit our compassion. Indeed, true compassion can be experienced only when this type

of self-grasping is eliminated. But this does not mean that we cannot start and make

progress now.”

Here His Holiness is again making reference to emptiness, and the fact that

everything is empty of the inherent existence we typically ascribe to it, most notably this

illusory concept of “self” we all cling to. Until we can let go of our false concept of self,

we will be hindered in our capacity to grow in compassion and loving kindness.

“Obviously, it is not enough for us simply to think about how nice compassion is!

We need to make a concerted effort to develop it; we must use all the events of our daily

life to transform our thoughts and behavior. We should begin,” His Holiness continues,

“by removing the greatest hindrances to compassion: anger and hatred. As we all know,

these are extremely powerful emotions and they can overwhelm our entire mind.

Nevertheless, they can be controlled. If, however, they are not, these negative emotions

will plague us - with no extra effort on their part! - and impede our quest for the

happiness of a loving mind.

“So as a start, it is useful to investigate whether or not anger is of value.

Sometimes when we are discouraged by a difficult situation, anger does seem to be

helpful, appearing to bring with it more energy, confidence and determination. Here,

though, we must examine our mental state carefully. While it is true that anger brings

extra energy, if we explore the nature of this energy we discover that it is blind: we

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cannot be sure whether the result will be positive or negative. This is because anger

eclipses the best part of our brain - its rationality. So the energy of anger is almost

always unreliable. It can cause an immense amount of destructive, unfortunate behavior.

Moreover, if anger increases to the extreme, one becomes like a mad person, acting in

ways that are as damaging to oneself as they are to others.

“It is possible, however, to develop an equally forceful but far more controlled

energy with which to handle difficult situations.

“This controlled energy comes not only from a compassionate attitude, but also

from reason and patience. These are the most powerful antidotes to anger.

Unfortunately, many people misjudge these qualities as signs of weakness. I believe the

opposite to be true: that they are the true signs of inner strength. Compassion is by nature

gentle, peaceful and soft, but it is also very powerful. It is those who easily lose their

patience who are insecure and unstable. Thus, to me, the arousal of anger is a direct sign

of weakness.

“So, when a problem first arises, try to remain humble and maintain a sincere

attitude and be concerned that the outcome is fair. Of course, others may try to take

advantage of you, and if your remaining detached only encourages unjust aggression,

adopt a strong stand. This, however, should be done with compassion, and if it is

necessary to express your views and take strong countermeasures, do so without anger or

ill intent.

“You should realize that even though your opponents appear to be harming you,

in the end their destructive activity will damage only themselves. In order to check your

own selfish impulse to retaliate, you should recall your desire to practice compassion and

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assume responsibility for helping prevent the other person from suffering the

consequences of his or her acts.

“Thus, because the measures you employ have been calmly chosen, they will be

more effective, more accurate and more forceful. Retaliation based on the blind energy

of anger seldom hits the target.”

His Holiness, while using language that could just as easily have come from the

Gospels, is pointing us toward the calming of the mind that has already been alluded to in

our discussion of meditation. A calm mind, a rational approach to the manner in which

we respond to difficulty, checking our own selfish impulses - these are the concerns of

our meditation, these are the cutting edges of our spiritual growth that can be the

appropriate subject of our contemplation.

And His Holiness offers two principal meditational techniques for cultivating the

compassion that he argues will benefit not only those “others” around us, but ourselves as

well. These meditations focus on the “others” in our lives, on the relationships we can

cultivate with the others in our lives. For ultimately, since we are all connected, since we

are all part of a cosmic “one,” we cannot realize true and complete happiness in our own

lives until all the “others” in our lives have achieved happiness as well. And we can have

some small effect on that happiness of others. The compassion we desire to cultivate

must, in the end, be based on a sincere desire to relieve the suffering of all if we are to

ever be free of our own suffering.

The Dalai Lama teaches the first of these two meditations in this manner: “The

way to develop love and compassion is first of all to visualize a person whose level of

suffering is such that, to an ordinary mind, we feel we cannot bear it. We just do not

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even want to look at it. Take that person to mind and reflect on the qualities of his or her

suffering. Then reflect on the fact that he or she is similar to yourself in terms of wanting

happiness and not wanting suffering. Through time, you will very strongly feel a sense

of concern for that other person. This is how love and compassion are developed.

“Then move your meditation to other persons who are close to you, one by one.

Eventually work on your enemies, one by one, taking them to mind and seeing that they

are similar to yourself in wanting happiness, not wanting suffering, and having the right

to be free from suffering. Thus, you can develop the same strength of concern with

respect to them. It is important that we emphasize developing love and compassion with

respect to those persons who are hard to care for, our so-called enemies. They are the

ones who give us the most trouble. And they are the ones who give us the most

opportunity to practice love and compassion. Not our friends, of course, but our

enemies! So, if we truly wish to learn, we should consider our enemies to be our best

teachers.

“For a person who cherishes compassion and love, the practice of tolerance is

essential, and for that an enemy is indispensable. So we should feel grateful to our

enemies, for it is they who can best help us develop a tranquil mind. In the Gospels, (this

is the Dalai Lama speaking!) there is the same message about the need to develop

patience and forbearance in loving one’s enemies.”

His Holiness goes on to point out that “it is often the case in both personal and

public life that with a change in circumstances, enemies become friends. So anger and

hatred are our real enemies which we need to confront and defeat, not the temporary

‘enemies’ who appear intermittently throughout life.”

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This is the concept of labeling, and it is always our decision how we choose to

label someone. We decide who is enemy or friend or even lover, and we do so typically

without any critical thinking on our part. And labels are perfect examples of emptiness -

they are empty of any inherent existence. Our labels of others are only our self-centered

projections. Think for a moment: if this stranger were really an “enemy,” everyone

would see “enemy” in him or her. But the reality is that most see him or her as a neutral

stranger, while still others see a friend, or a son or daughter, father or mother, even lover.

The Dalai Lama often points out that he has learned much from his “enemy,”

China - the nation that currently occupies his country and which has systematically

persecuted his people. I used to think he was just being “politically correct” and

magnanimous when he publicly stated that this “enemy” has been his best teacher in life.

But after dealing with my own personal “enemies” in meditations in India and at home, I

have come to realize the truth contained in his message. We don’t learn how to cultivate

love and compassion from those who are easy to love, we learn it from those for whom

our love requires significant effort and constant practice - our so-called enemies. And

some of our most troublesome enemies are not people at all, but our inner sources of pain

and suffering. We can learn from these enemies, and liberate ourselves from their control

over us, through the practice of our contemplation and meditation.

This meditation on love and compassion (His Holiness refers to it as the

meditation on equanimity) has become an important part of my personal meditation

practice and a favorite of those I teach in my meditation classes. Let me guide you

through it in detail:

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Imagine in the space in front of you three people: someone you like, someone you

dislike, and someone you feel indifferent to. Retain the images of your friend, your

enemy, and the stranger throughout the meditation.

First, focus on your friend. Allow your feelings for him or her to arise. Feel your

conviction that this person is definitely friend, that is, a person who is good to you and

who satisfies your needs. Feel how you really want this person to be happy. Immerse

yourself in your good feelings.

Now, turn to your enemy, the person you do not like and who is not kind to you,

who does not satisfy your needs, who hurts you. Look carefully at this man or woman;

carefully note your feelings.

Finally, turn to the so-called stranger, this person you know a little but whom you

neither like nor dislike. Look carefully at the person and note your feeling of

indifference.

Now, recognize that the basis for your relationship to these three people is solely

what they do or don’t do for you, at this point in time. Is this a sound basis? Given the

Buddhist view that our minds are beginningless, it follows that everyone has been our

friend, enemy and stranger countless times before, so isn’t it reasonable to be kind to

your enemies now because they have been friends before?

Now return to your friend and imagine a situation that would cause the

relationship to end. Imagine your friend turning against you; feel the resentment and

hurt, and how you no longer feel warm, no longer wish him or her well. Where is your

friend now?

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Recall that this person was not your friend before you were acquainted, and could

very easily cease to be your friend now, as you have visualized.

Realize that there is no sound reason for feeling kind and loving towards only the

friend of this moment. Relationships have changed in the past and will continue to

change in the future. Today’s friend can become tomorrow’s enemy.

Now, turn to the present enemy. Imagine a situation in which you could be drawn

together: a common interest, a word of praise or kindness. Look carefully at the person

and your feelings. Are you softening? You can learn to feel warmly towards your

enemy. This has happened before and will happen again. Why hold so strongly to the

conception that this is definitely “enemy?”

And what of the “stranger?” Imagine how one act of kindness or anger from this

person could immediately turn him or her into a friend or enemy. There is no inherent,

definite stranger there and no sound reason for your feelings of indifference. Remember

that your present friend and enemy were strangers to you beforehand; this stranger could

become friend or enemy now.

Keep these three people clearly in front of you. Think about the fragile

impermanence of these relationships. It is only your misconceived belief in the stability

of them that holds your mind back from the possibility of change.

Your friend, enemy and stranger all want happiness as much as you; in this

respect everyone is equal. And everyone is equal in having the potential to develop their

minds to the fullest and to achieve ultimate clarity and compassion. The differences we

see in people are superficial, based on our mistaken and narrow self-centered viewpoint.

In fact, everyone is equally deserving of our care and compassion.

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None of this means that we should not discriminate; on a practical level it is

necessary. Naturally we feel closer to some people and are wise to keep our distance

from others. This is not a contradiction. The point of the meditation is to develop equal

concern, equal regard, for everyone, whether they help or harm us at this point in time,

and to see that our present discrimination is based on arbitrary, mistaken and very

changeable labels.

Finally, close your meditation with a genuine wish for the happiness of your

friend, your enemy, and for the strangers in your life, and dedicate your positive energy

and insight toward the well being and happiness of all.

There is a second important meditation and way of re-framing our thinking that is

also helpful in cultivating compassion. This was touched upon in the previous

meditation, and also in our earlier discussion of the Buddhist belief in countless past lives

for all of us. This has to do with a view that all persons - friend, enemy or stranger - were

at one time our mother; our nurturing parent in a previous life among the infinite lives we

have known. This re-framing of our relationship with friend, enemy and stranger as

having been a past parent is one of the benefits I mentioned earlier of choosing to

integrate the Buddhist view of rebirth into one’s own world view. It helps one

understand our interconnectedness at a deeper level, and facilitates this cultivation of

compassion toward all persons that we intuitively understand is necessary for our own

happiness.

His Holiness explains it this way: “It would be reasonable to call one person

friend, another an enemy, and a third a stranger if they had held this status throughout the

billions of lives we have experienced since beginningless time. But this is not the case.

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All beings have been friend, relative, and even mother and father to us again and again.

Each time they have showered us with a rainfall of kindness, protecting us from harm,

and providing us with much happiness. This is in the past. As for the future, until we

attain liberation or enlightenment we shall continue to spin on the wheel of life with

them, meeting them again and again in relationships of friend, relative and so forth.

“The kindness of the mother is chosen as the example of the intensity of kindness

that all beings have shown us. We can see the kindness of a mother not only in humans

but in animals, birds and so forth. A mother dog will starve herself to feed her pups and

will die to protect them. In the same way, even if our mother were strange to us in some

ways she would still have instinctively and unconsciously shown us great kindness. All

beings have loved us in this very same way, sacrificing their food for us and even dying

to protect us because their love for us was so strong. The people who are friends,

enemies, and strangers to us in this life showed us the great kindness of a mother in

countless previous lives. We have to learn how to see all beings in this same loving

image.

“When we meditate on these facts,” His Holiness teaches, “and apply the

experiences of our meditations in our daily exchanges with people, the smooth mind that

looks upon all beings with equanimity is quickly generated. As a result of this meditation

one gains a feeling of spontaneous familiarity with all other sentient beings, a recognition

that they are somehow very close to us and very precious.

“Whenever anyone harms us we should think to ourselves, ‘In many past

incarnations this person was my mother. As my mother she fed me, cleaned my body,

and protected me from every harm. I slept in her lap and drank milk from her breasts. At

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that time this person only benefited me and shared all possessions with me. The harm

this person is now bringing to me is due only to the forces of negative karma and

delusion.’

“How can we repay the kindness of all those persons who have at one time loved

us as a mother? Through showing them immaculate love and compassion. Immaculate

love is the thought, ‘May they have happiness and its causes.’ Compassion is the

thought, ‘May they be free of suffering and its causes.’ When we meditate that we

ourselves should generate a personal sense of universal responsibility for the welfare of

others, each of whom has been our mother many times over, we begin to understand that

we are striving for enlightenment in order to benefit all living beings, and a subtle change

in our attitude toward them is immediately effected. Our compassion takes on an added

depth and richness, and our meditation takes on a new dimension.”

Love your neighbor as your self, Jesus taught. How much easier might it be to

put that teaching into the action of our lives if we could relate to everyone in our world as

if they had once loved us as our mother?

His holiness ends this contemplative lesson by asking, “Why are we able, through

the application of such meditative techniques, not only to develop but to enhance

compassion? This is because compassion is a type of emotion that possesses the potential

for development. Generally speaking, we can point to two types of emotion. One is

more instinctual and is not based on reason. The other type of emotion - such as

compassion or tolerance - is not so instinctual but instead has a sound base or grounding

in reason and experience. When you clearly see the various logical grounds for their

development and you develop conviction in these benefits, then these emotions will be

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enhanced. What we see here is a joining of intellect and heart. Compassion represents

the emotion, or heart, and the application of analytic meditation applies to the intellect.

So, when you have arrived at that meditative state where compassion is enhanced, you

see a special merging of intellect and heart.”

In Christian churches and in Buddhist monasteries, in communion and in conflict

with my universal brothers and sisters, and in my sacred journey through the Mandala of

life, I have experienced that compassion is neither automatic nor instinctive. The loving

and compassionate heart of the Christ or of the Buddha needs to be learned; it needs to be

nurtured and cultivated. And I have learned that it can be cultivated by any of us - with

wisdom and insight nurtured in the discipline of a daily spiritual practice.

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Chapter 12

Spiritual Exercises

If we practice religion properly or genuinely, religion is not something outside, but in our hearts. The essence of any religion is a good heart.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“By the grace of God I am a Christian, by my deeds a great sinner, and by my

calling a homeless wanderer of humblest origin, roaming from place to place.”

These are not my words, but they might have been. They were penned by an

unknown nineteenth-century Russian peasant and speak of his constant wrestling with the

problem of “how to pray without ceasing.” Through his journeys and travels, and under

the tutelage of spiritual guides, he becomes gradually more open to the experience of

God. The Way of a Pilgrim has become a classic of inspirational literature.

The author continues writing: “On the twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost I

came to church to attend the Liturgy and entered just as the epistle was being read. The

reading was from Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, which says in part, ‘Pray

constantly.’ These words made a deep impression on me and I started thinking of how it

could be possible for a man to pray without ceasing when the practical necessities of life

demand so much attention.

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“What shall I do? I thought. Where can I find a person who will explain this

mystery to me? I will go to the various churches where there are good preachers and

perhaps I will obtain an explanation from them. And so I went. I heard many good

homilies on prayer, but they were all instructions about prayer in general: what is prayer,

the necessity of prayer, and the fruits of prayer, but no one spoke of the way to succeed in

prayer. I did hear a sermon on interior prayer and ceaseless prayer but nothing about

attaining that form of prayer. Inasmuch as listening to public sermons had not given me

any satisfaction, I stopped attending them and decided, with the grace of God, to look for

an experienced and learned person who would satisfy my ardent desire and explain

ceaseless prayer to me.”

Again, these are not my words, but they might have been. Like myself, the

pilgrim who wrote these words would seek and find a valuable teacher:

“I heard that you are a devout and wise man and I came in the name of God to ask

you to explain the meaning of the words, ‘Pray constantly.’ How is it possible to pray

continuously? I am very eager to know this and cannot in any way comprehend it.

“The gentleman was silent for a moment; then he looked at me intently and said,

‘Ceaseless interior prayer is a continuous aspiration and a yearning of the spirit of man

toward God. To succeed in this sweet exercise it is necessary to ask God frequently that

He teach you to pray continuously. Pray often and fervently and prayer itself will reveal

this mystery to you, how it is possible for it to be continuous. But it takes time.’”

I have heard His Holiness offer much the same wisdom: “Although it is essential

to maintain a reasonable material basis on which to live, the emphasis in one’s life should

be on cultivating the mental and spiritual causes of our happiness. Persons who seek

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happiness and wish to overcome suffering are wise to exert themselves in spiritual

methods.”

I have learned the value of praying unceasingly and of spiritual exercise and of

meditation and contemplative practice from Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Jews.

Their wisdom converges in universal themes and language. Saint Ignatius sounds very

Buddhist when he writes in his Spiritual Exercises, “The purpose of these Exercises is to

help the exercitant to conquer himself, and to regulate his life so that he will not be

influenced in his decisions by any inordinate attachment. In order that the one who gives

these Exercises and he who makes them may be of more assistance and profit to each

other, they should begin with the presupposition that every good Christian ought to be

more willing to give a good interpretation to the statement of another than to condemn it

as false.”

And the Pilgrim encounters this advice along the way to an understanding of

continuous prayer: “To be spiritually enlightened and to be an interior man one needs

only to take a passage from scripture and meditate on it; as much as possible one should

hold one’s attention on it and in this way one’s mind will become illuminated.” He

doesn’t record it in his journal, but I suspect his teacher had encountered Buddhist

thought along his own way.

There is a universal understanding among the sages of all faith traditions that the

key to personal spiritual growth and fulfillment is the cultivation of a daily contemplative

practice.

That revelation has been the sum total of the lessons I have learned in my own

spiritual wanderings. This book has been written to make the same case, and this closing

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chapter will offer methods and suggestions which, when combined with some of the

techniques presented in the past few chapters, can form a framework for your own daily

spiritual practice. They are drawn from several traditions, but share a commonality: they

are all offered as a means to an end, not an end unto themselves. Spiritual practice is

intended to foster an experiential awareness of reality, which can and should be applied

to one’s daily living. Spiritual practice and meditation are not something we “do” for an

hour or two in the privacy of our room while seated on our cushions, and after which we

resume our ordinary and unsatisfactory patterns of life. The contemplative endeavor is

the “practice” of observation and life skills that need to be applied to every waking

moment of every single day. Spiritual practice is intended to be transformational.

The Tibetans divide their practice into three categories: calm abiding or

mindfulness, analytical meditation and visualization.

We have been introduced to the basic skills of mindfulness meditation in an

earlier chapter. For our western thinking, that wants results and wants them right now,

this basic skill can sometimes seem empty of any concrete result. The exact opposite is

actually true. Simply creating the time and space to experience reality is the one most

effective method of experiencing spiritual growth. Over time, we can observe the

illusions that comprise our daily thought and we can begin to understand the fallacy of

most of our reactions to the people and events around us. We see, feel, hear, touch, smell

and then draw conclusions about the reality of that which we perceive. Usually we label

that reality with a false understanding. Then we react. We like what we perceive or we

dislike it. We want it or we want it to go away. Usually this perceiving, labeling and

reacting is so automatic we are not even aware it is happening. And we are surprised to

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know that there might be any other way of perceiving, understanding and acting.

Mindfulness meditation allows us to examine all of this, to observe it, to experience it

and to begin to understand it. Then, we can move from our cushion to our daily

interaction with people and things and observe how we interact with them. Meditation,

like the prayer life of our wandering Pilgrim, can and should be practiced unceasingly.

In his Holiness’ words, “At a time when people are so conscious of maintaining

their physical health by controlling their diets, exercising, and so forth, it makes sense to

try to cultivate the corresponding mental attitudes too.”

That having been said, let’s look at a delightfully simple spiritual practice that is

taught by Stardust, usually by leading his western students in silence to an idyllic

meadow above Dharamsala. Here, within view of the snow-covered peaks of the

Himalayan foothills and in the company of playfully-chattering monkeys, Stardust

teaches “walking meditation.” The purpose of this exercise is summed up in a little story

of an encounter between a practicing monk and an incredulous observer. “What are you

doing,” asks the observer. “I’m meditating,” replies the monk. “No you’re not. You’re

just walking.” “That’s right,” taught the monk, “but I am aware of my walking.”

Walking meditation can be done anywhere, at any time. It is certainly nice to

practice it in a grassy meadow with the Himalayan peaks as a backdrop, but downtown

Manhattan will do just as well! Just walk. But as you do, allow your eyes to rest in a

nearly closed position – the eyelids naturally at rest – and begin to pay attention to

everything. This is the quintessential experience of mindfulness. Become mindful of

every motion, every sensation, every thought. Understand, at a very deep level, that you

are consciously placing one foot in front of the other in order to move from here to there.

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Become aware of the present moment. Gently brush aside memories of the past and

thoughts of future plans that may arise in your thinking. In this manner, it is much like

our seated mindfulness meditation. Become totally aware of the present moment – the

sounds of the birds, the warmth of the sun, the fragrance of the flowers and the grass (or

the noise and exhaust if you’re in Manhattan!), and the interaction of your own thoughts

and responses as you, methodically and with focused concentration, place one foot

deliberately in front of the other to become somewhere where you were not only a

moment before. This is walking, and “knowing you are walking.”

The really great thing about walking meditation is that you can do it anywhere.

Oh sure, people on the street may pause and stare if you take it too far, but so what? Just

tell them, like the monk, “I’m walking. But I know I’m walking,” and enjoy their head-

shaking response as they try to find meaning in your strange walking and your puzzling

koan-like assertion.

And you don’t have to limit this kind of meditation to walking. I do some of my

best meditation as I wash the dishes, looking out the kitchen window. It’s my

dishwashing meditation! People think I’m only washing the dishes, but I know that I

know I am washing dishes! It may sound silly, but it has very real value: it reminds me of

the need for constant mindfulness, and it reinforces an understanding of how

contemplative spiritual practice can and should be translated into an enlightened

understanding of everyday experience.

Now let’s look at those contemplative practices that are of value during my

specific meditation time. Again these come not only from the Buddhist tradition but

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from my inherited Christianity as well. They also include some practices from the

newest contemporary spiritual movements, as no one tradition has all the good tools.

Firstly, and so very importantly, are the practices mentioned in the previous

chapter on cultivating compassion. Over and over I visualize the friend, the stranger, the

enemy as having been my mother or my father in a previous lifetime. I stated earlier that

an understanding – if not a belief – in an infinite progression and regression of lifetimes

has value, value from the standpoint of being able to see the people around me in the new

light of their former and future relationships to me. This enables me to comprehend how

I apply arbitrary labels to others, labels that are empty of any inherent meaning when

viewed in the light of infinite lifetimes. I would encourage you to make this type of

analytical meditation a cornerstone of your daily practice. By so doing, you will soon

notice how naturally it begins to have an effect on your day-to-day interactions with

others. The labels of “stranger” or even “enemy” start to dissolve into the nothingness

they really are, and you soon are treating all persons with a new and satisfying

equanimity. Judgements of people that used to cause you unnecessary suffering start to

disappear.

This meditation on compassion is an example of analytical meditation. There is a

“script,” if you will – a plan for organizing and even reordering your thinking. In that

respect it differs markedly from mindfulness meditation which has little or no preset

“goal.” The following is an analytical meditation taken from the original Spiritual

Exercises of Saint Ignatius. Ignore the dated language and pious Christian emphasis of

its time if you wish and observe instead the essence of the meditation.

Contemplation to Attain Divine Love.

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“Two points are to be noted here:

“The first is that love ought to be manifested in deeds rather than words.

“The second is that love consists in a mutual interchange by the two parties, that

is to say, that the lover gives to and shares with the beloved all that he has or can attain,

and that the beloved act toward the lover in like manner. Thus if he has knowledge, he

shares it with the one who does not have it. In like manner they share honor, riches, and

all things.

“Prayer: Begin with your usual preparatory prayer.

“The first prelude is the mental representation of the place. Here it is to see how I

stand in the presence of God our Lord and of the angels and saints, who intercede for me.

“The second prelude is to ask for what I desire. Here it will be to ask for a deep

knowledge of the many blessings I have received. I will ponder with great affection how

much God our Lord has done for me, and how many of His graces He has given me. I

will likewise consider how much the same Lord wishes to give Himself to me in so far as

He can, according to His divine decrees. I will then reflect within myself, and consider

that I, for my part, with great reason and justice, should offer and give to His Divine

Majesty, all that I possess and myself with it, as one who makes an offering with deep

affection, saying:

“Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and

my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me, to Thee O

Lord, I return it. All is Thine; dispose of it according to Thy will. Give me Thy

love and Thy grace, for this is enough for me.

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“The second point is to consider how God dwells in His creatures; in the

elements, giving them being; in the plants, giving them life; in the animals, giving them

sensation; in men (and women), giving them understanding; So He dwells in me, giving

me being, life, sensation, and intelligence, and making a temple of me, since He created

me to the likeness and image of His Divine Majesty. Then I will reflect upon myself in

the manner stated in the first point, or in any other way that may seem beneficial.”

O.K., so you don’t want to imitate the language of the contemplative pillars of the

early Church. That’s understandable. But take note of the guidance offered here with

regard to analytical meditation and how a litany can guide you into a contemplative state

that has richness and value. At some deep level it can touch a chord with the primordial

spirituality of your inheritance.

Now let’s try a more Buddhist meditation and notice the similarity with the

ancient Christian exercise we just examined. Let’s look at a visualization meditation on

compassion and a meditation on emptiness.

Visualization meditation, as practiced in the Tantric rituals of Tibetan Buddhism,

is of the highest form of mental exercise and spiritual development, and is often difficult

for westerners to enter into fully. It has as its goal the “becoming” of a quality that is

embodied in a deity or higher being, such as becoming the essence of compassion as

embodied in the deity Avalokiteshvara. The principle is simple: meditate on a quality

long and hard enough and you can literally “become” it. It is not unlike being told you

are the greatest, and repeating it over and over again until you actually are. Or, at the

other end of the spectrum, being told by your parents or your peers over and over that you

are nothing and will never amount to anything. If you hear it often enough, it will

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become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can, it seems, literally become what you believe,

what you visualize.

In visualization meditation, the object of one’s meditation is a representation of a

quality such as pure compassion. Avalokiteshvara is the deity who, for the Tibetans, is

the embodiment of compassion, literally compassion incarnate. By focusing one’s entire

being on that embodiment, it is possible in Tantric practice, to “become” compassion.

The same could work for westerners - whose experience of Avalokiteshvara is

limited, at best – by focusing the attention on Jesus or Mother Theresa or any

embodiment of a human quality worthy of emulation. The following example is Tibetan,

but your choice of western figures could be substituted effectively in your own practice.

Relax your body and mind and bring your awareness to the present by mindfully

watching your breath. Check your thoughts and feelings and generate a positive

motivation for doing the meditation.

Imagine that all of space is filled with beings, sitting around you and extending

beyond the horizon. Contemplate their suffering. First, think of the suffering of your

parents and the other people you are close to. Open your hearts to the physical and

psychological problems they are experiencing and think that, just like you, they want to

be free of all suffering. Feel how wonderful it would be if they were free and could enjoy

the peace and bliss of enlightenment.

Then think of the people you do not like or who have hurt you. Imagine their

suffering: physical pain and discomfort, feelings of loneliness, insecurity, fear,

dissatisfaction. Just like you, they don’t want problems but they have no choice: as long

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as the mind is confused and ignorant of reality, it cannot find peace. Open your heart to

these people for whom you normally feel irritation or anger.

Now, visualize just above your head and facing the same way as you

Avalokiteshvara (or the other personification of compassion of your choosing), the

manifestation of pure unobstructed compassion, love and wisdom. His body is of white

light, transparent and radiant. Try to feel his living presence.

His face is peaceful and smiling and he radiates his love to you and all the other

beings surrounding you. He has four arms, able to reach out and embrace the world with

compassion. His first two hands are together at his heart and hold a jewel that fulfills all

wishes; his second two are raised to the level of his shoulders, the right holding a crystal

rosary and the left a white lotus. He is sitting on a white moon disc upon an open lotus,

his legs crossed in the full-lotus posture. He wears exquisite silk and precious jewels.

Hold your awareness on this visualization until it is stable. Stay relaxed and

comfortable and open to Avalokiteshvara’s serene and loving energy.

Now, make a prayer from your heart, to overcome your misconceptions and

negative energy and to develop pure love and compassion for all beings. Feel that you

are connecting with your own true nature, your highest potential.

In response to your request, Avalokiteshvara lovingly sends streams of white

light, filling every cell and atom of your body. It purifies all your negativities and

problems, all your past harmful actions and your potential to give harm in the future, and

completely fills you with his limitless love and compassion. Your body feels light and

blissful, your mind peaceful and clear.

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The light from Avalokiteshvara radiates out to every living being, purifying their

negative energy and filling them with bliss.

Hold this image in your consciousness as long as you like. Then visualize

Avalokiteshvara dissolving into white light, which flows down through the crown of your

head and reaches your heart’s center. Your mind merges indistinguishably with

Avalokiteshvara’s mind and you experience complete tranquility and bliss.

Hold this feeling as long as possible. Whenever your usual sense of “I” starts to

arise - an “I” that is bored, restless, hungry, whatever - think that this is not your real self.

Simply bring your attention back again and again to the experience of being at oneness

with the qualities of Avalokiteshvara’s mind: infinite love and compassion.

Finally dedicate the positive energy you have created by doing this meditation to

the happiness of all living beings.

Now the meditation on emptiness: Begin with the breathing meditation to relax

and calm your mind. Now, with full alertness, slowly and carefully become aware of the

“I.” Who or what is thinking, feeling and meditating? How does it seem to come into

existence? How does it appear to you? Is your “I” a creation of your mind? Or is it

something existing concretely and independently, in its own right?

If you think you can identify it, try to locate it. Where is this “I?” Is it in your

head…in your eyes…in your heart…in your hands…in your stomach…in your feet?

Carefully consider each part of your body, including the organs, blood vessels, and

nerves. Can you find the “I?” It might be very small and subtle, so consider the cells, the

atoms, the parts of the atoms.

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After considering the entire body, again ask yourself how your “I” manifests its

apparent existence. Does it still appear to be vivid and concrete? Is your body the “I” or

not?

Perhaps you think your mind is the “I.” The mind is a constantly changing stream

of thoughts, feelings and other experiences, coming and going in rapid alternation.

Which of these is the “I?” Is it a loving thought…an angry thought…a happy feeling…a

depressed feeling? Is your “I” the meditating mind…the dreaming mind? Can you find

the “I” in your mind?

Is there any other place to look for your “I?” Could it exist somewhere else or in

some other way? Examine every possibility you can think of.

Again, look at the way your “I” actually appears, feels to you. After this search

for the “I,” do you notice any change? Do you still believe that it is as solid and real as

you felt before? Does it still appear to exist independently, in and of itself?

Next, mentally disintegrate your body. Imagine all the atoms separating and

floating apart. Billions and billions of minute particles scatter throughout space. Imagine

that you can actually see this.

Now, disintegrate your mind. Let every thought, feeling, sensation and

perception float away.

Stay in this experience of space without being distracted by thoughts. When the

feeling of an independent, inherent “I” recurs, analyze it again. Does it exist in the body.

In the mind? How does it exist?

Do not make the mistake of thinking, “My body is not the “I” and my mind is not

the “I,” therefore I don’t exist. You do exist, but not in the way you instinctively feel,

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that is as independent and inherent. Conventionally, your self exists in dependence upon

mind and body, and this combination is the basis to which conceptual thinking ascribes a

name: “I” or “self” or “Mary” or “John.” This is the you that is sitting and meditating

and wondering, “Maybe I don’t exist!”

Whatever exists is necessarily dependent upon causes and conditions, or parts and

names, for its existence. This is how things exist conventionally, and understanding

interdependence is the principle cause for understanding a thing’s ultimate nature - its

emptiness. The conventional nature of something is its dependence upon causes and

conditions and its ultimate nature is its emptiness of inherent, independent existence.

Think now about how your body exists conventionally; in dependence upon skin,

blood, bones, legs, arms, organs and so forth. In turn, each of these exists in dependence

upon their own parts: cells, atoms and sub-atomic particles.

Think about your mind, how it exists in dependence upon thoughts, feelings,

perceptions, sensations. And how, in turn, each of these exists in dependence upon the

previous conscious experiences that gave rise to them.

Now, go back to your feeling of “self” or “I.” Think about how you exist

conventionally, in dependence upon mind and body and name – the self parts.

When the body feels hungry or cold, for example, you think “I am hungry,” “I am

cold,.” When the mind has an idea about something, you say “I think.” When you feel

love for someone, you say “I love you.” When introducing yourself to someone you say

“I am so-and-so.”

Apart from this sense of “I” that depends upon the ever-flowing, ever-changing

streams of body and mind, is there an “I” that is solid, unchanging and independent?

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The mere absence of such an inherently-existing ‘I’ is the emptiness of the self.

Finish the session with a conclusion as to how you, your self, exists. Conclude by

dedicating sincerely any positive energy and insight you have gained to the

enlightenment of all beings. Think that this meditation is just one step along the path to

finally achieving direct insight into emptiness and thus cutting the root of suffering and

dissatisfaction.

Allied with the concept of emptiness is an understanding of impermanence. The

ultimate example of impermanence is our own. We are constantly changing and

precariously finite human beings. Our impermanence is reflected in the shadow of death

in which we live our every day. For this reason, His Holiness the Dalai Lama reflects on

his own death each day in his personal meditation.

“One important aspect of my daily practice is its concern with the idea of death.

To my mind, there are two things that, in life, you can do about death. Either you can

choose to ignore it, in which case you may have some success in making the idea of it go

away for a limited period of time, or you can confront the prospect of your own death and

try to analyze it and, in so doing, try to minimize some of the inevitable suffering that it

causes. Neither way can you actually overcome it. However, as a Buddhist, I view death

as a normal process of life. I accept it as a reality that will occur while I am in Samsara,

the endless cycle of life and death and rebirth.”

As related in an earlier chapter, His Holiness has told me that, “with regard to

impermanence, it is very good to meditate on death. This helps with an understanding of

attachment. At the time of death, all money, all fame, all power, all influence is of no

use…except for God’s blessing, God’s grace. An understanding of impermanence is very

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helpful to reduce anger, hatred…and to increase forgiveness, tolerance, and here they

have very much in common with Jesus’ teachings of love and compassion.”

Here is a method for reflecting on death. As preparation, begin with the basic

centering approach of mindfulness meditation, focusing your attention on the natural

breath. Bring your mind to a calm but alert state, and think clearly about your motivation

for doing the meditation. Then, with your mind relaxed but fully concentrated,

contemplate on the subject of death, using analytical thought enriched with your own

experiences and insights, in an effort to feel it deeply.

Meditate on the inevitably of death. Everyone has to die. We plan many projects

and activities for the coming days, months and years. Although death is the only event

that is certain to occur, we don’t count it among our plans.

To generate an experience of death’s inevitability, first bring to mind people from

the past: famous rulers and writers, musicians, philosophers, saints, criminals, and

ordinary people. These people were once alive. They worked, thought and wrote; they

loved and fought, enjoyed life and suffered. And finally they died.

Is there anyone who has ever lived who did not have to die? No mater how wise,

wealthy, powerful or popular a person may be, his or her life must come to an end. The

same is true for all other living creatures. For all the advances in science and medicine,

there is still no cure for death and no one expects to be able to eradicate it.

Now bring to mind all the people you know. Go through them one by one,

reflecting that each of them will one day die. Think of all the human beings on earth at

the moment: one hundred years from now only a handful of these billions of people will

still be alive. You yourself will be dead. Experience this fact with your entire being.

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Your lifetime is decreasing continuously. Even as you sit, time is passing.

Seconds become minutes, minutes become hours, hours become days, days become

years, and you travel closer and closer towards death. Hold your awareness for a while

on the experience of this uninterrupted flow of time carrying you to the end of your life.

The amount of time spent during your life to develop your mind is very small.

Given that the mind’s energy alone may be the only thing that continues after death, the

only thing that will be of any value to you at the time of death is the positive energy and

constructive energy you have created during your lifetime. But how much time do you

actually devote to understanding your mind, being kind to others, developing wisdom and

compassion? Assess your life in this practical way to see clearly just how much of your

time is spent doing things that will bring positive results, that is, happiness for yourself

and others.

By meditating on these three points we will develop the determination to use our

life wisely and mindfully.

It is possible that you will feel depressed or worried after doing this meditation.

In one sense this shows you have taken the ideas seriously and contemplated them well,

but it also shows you may have made a wrong conclusion, and it would not be wise to

end your meditation session in such a state of mind. Remember that death is just a

natural and inevitable aspect of life, and it is your inability to accept it as such that makes

you upset.

Fear and regret arise because of unrealistic clinging to a permanent self. If we

keep death in mind in an easy, open way this clinging will loosen, allowing us to be

mindful and make every action positive and beneficial, for ourselves and others. And an

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awareness of death has the potential of giving us enormous energy to not waste our life

but to live it as effectively as possible.

Conclude your meditation on death with the optimistic thought that you have

every possibility to make your life meaningful and positive and thus will be able to

conclude your life fulfilled and with peace of mind.

From the meditation on death and the impermanence of life, we turn to a

contemporary Christian contemplative technique that allows time and space for an

encounter with the Infinite, an experience of the Ultimate Divine Reality. This is the

Centering Prayer movement which seeks to renew the teaching of the Christian tradition

of contemplative prayer. It is an attempt to present that tradition in an up-to-date form

and to put a certain order and method into it. The leading proponent of this technique is

Father Thomas Keating, a Cistercian priest, monk, and abbot in the tradition of Thomas

Merton, and founder of Contemplative Outreach. He likes to speak of his approach to

contemplative prayer as making time and space for “hanging out with God.”

Contemplative Prayer is practiced both in small groups and alone. It begins with

the ancient practice of Lectio Divina, the reading or sharing of sacred texts or

inspirational writings to begin the cultivation of “friendship or acquaintance with God.”

The Bible is the typical source of these sacred texts, but any inspirational writings that set

a contemplative mindset in the meditator will do. The quotations of His Holiness that

begin each of the chapters of this book may serve you well as inspiration for some of

your own daily meditations.

After a period of sharing and reflection on the inspirational text, the meditator

chooses a sacred word as the symbol of his or her intention to consent to God’s presence

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and action within. The sacred word is chosen during a period of prayer and reflection as

the sacred text is read. Examples might include Lord, Jesus, Love, Peace, Shalom.

Next, sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle for a moment and then

silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and

action within. When you become aware of thoughts, return ever-so-gently to the sacred

word.

Father Keating recommends a centering prayer session of at least twenty minutes.

At the end of the contemplative session, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple

of minutes before returning your attention outward and concluding.

Listen to Father Keating’s description of the contemplative centering prayer

technique and notice its universal language:

“We begin our prayer by disposing our body. Let it be relaxed and calm, but

inwardly alert.

“The root of prayer is interior silence. We may think of prayer as thoughts or

feelings expressed in words. But this is only one expression. Deep prayer is the laying

aside of thoughts. It is the opening of mind and heart, body and feelings – our whole

being – to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond words, thoughts and emotions. We do not

resist them or suppress them. We accept them as they are and go beyond them, not by

effort, but by letting them all go by. We open our awareness to the Ultimate Mystery

whom we know by faith is within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer

than choosing – closer than consciousness itself. The Ultimate Mystery is the ground in

which our being is rooted, the Source from whom our life emerges at every moment.

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“We are totally present now, with the whole of our being, in complete openness,

in deep prayer. The past and future – time itself – are forgotten. We are here in the

presence of the Ultimate Mystery. Like the air we breathe, this divine Presence is all

around us and within us, distinct from us, never separate from us. We may sense this

presence drawing us from within, as if touching our spirit and embracing it, or carrying

us beyond ourselves into pure awareness.

“We wait patiently; in silence, openness, and quiet attentiveness; motionless

within and without. We surrender to the attraction to be still, to be loved, just to be.

“How shallow are all the things that upset and discourage me! I resolve to give

up the desires that trigger my tormenting emotions. Having tasted true peace, I can let

them all go by. Of course I shall stumble and fall, for I know my weakness. But I will

rise at once, for I know my goal. I know where my home is.”

These eloquent words from a living contemplative from my inherited faith

tradition speak to the universal experience of the spiritual quest. It is at one time an

exercise in Right Effort and at the same time the letting go of all conscious effort. It is

the seeking and then the discovery of a peace at the center of our being that was never

absent. It is the realization of the self and the non-self in the same moment.

For me, the spiritual quest has led to discovery of truth outside the boundaries of

my traditional faith teaching. Sometimes the truth of what is contained within a temple

can be best obtained by viewing it through the eastern as well as the western windows.

I have not so much been transformed by this quest and discovery as I have been

empowered and enabled. The truths of Ultimate Reality and my relationship to myself,

to others, to that Ultimate Reality and to all of creation have always been a part of the

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faith of my formation. The gift I have been given from my brothers and sisters in

Dharamsala is a Path to walk for myself, one that can lead to a personal experience of

that Ultimate Reality. And this Path, like everything else, will be constantly changing.

My path will continue to take new and revealing turns that will join it with the paths of all

the spiritual seekers who have gone before me. Without hesitation, I will learn from each

new experience along the way, and I will grow.

I recall the words of Tenzin, as he added still more sand to the Mandala path he

was constructing. “This is the path to the domain of the Deity. But the path exists only

in the mind. Each time a new spiritual journey is initiated the path must be constructed

anew. And the path is never the same as the last one – always new, always changing,

always impermanent. It is like the kingdom of the Deity – with chambers and hallways,

places to discover, places to get lost – but it is only represented in the sand. In reality it is

only ever discovered in the mind.”

Now is the time for my discovery. That will come with my endeavoring to walk a

path of Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and applying Right Effort, Right

Mindfulness and Right Concentration to the development of Right Thought and

ultimately a Right Understanding.

The teachings of the Prophets, of Jesus, of Buddha and of wise teachers like His

Holiness the Dalai Lama will continue to guide me. It will be a lifetime journey.

“A common mistake in practice is to have expectations of quick results,” says His

Holiness. “Of course, we should practice as intensely and purely as we can, but unless

we have generated the subtle levels of bodily energy and consciousness, I feel it is more

wise to practice without our eyes anxious for signs of quick enlightenment. First we

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should try to generate some signs of small attainments. By thinking of enlightenment as

something far away, one’s practice remains stable and calm. To expect immediate

progress is to hinder progress, whereas to practice without expectations makes

attainments possible.

“What is progress? How do we recognize it? The teachings are like a mirror

before which we should hold our activities of body, speech, and mind. Think back to a

year ago and compare the stream of activities of your body, speech, and mind at that time

with their present condition. If we practice well, then the traces of some improvement

should be reflected in the mirror.

“The problem with having expectations is that we usually do not expect the right

things. Not knowing what spiritual progress is, we search for signs of it in the wrong

areas of our being. What can we hope for but frustration? It would be far better to

examine any practice with full reasoning before adopting it, and then to practice it

steadily and consistently while observing the changes one undergoes, rather than

expecting this or that fantasy to become real. The mind is an evolving organism, not a

machine that goes on and off with the flip of a switch. The forces that bind and limit the

mind, hurling it into unsatisfactory states of being, are impermanent and transient agents.

When we persistently apply the practices to them, they have no option but to fade away

and disappear. Ignorance and the ‘I’-grasping syndrome have been with us since

beginningless time, and the instincts of attachment, aversion, anger, jealousy and so forth

are very deeply rooted in our mindstreams. Eliminating them is not so simple as turning

on a light to chase away the darkness or a room. When we practice steadily, the forces of

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darkness are undermined, and the spiritual qualities that counteract them and illuminate

the mind are strengthened and made firm.

“We must practice with clarity, humility, and a sense of personal responsibility

for our own progress. Then the path to enlightenment is something that we hold in the

palms of our own hands.”

His Holiness’ teachings were reflected in Tenzin’s earlier prophetic words that

summer’s day. “John-la, this is your path. This Mandala path represents the triumph of

wisdom over ignorance, suffering and death. But it also represents the

interconnectedness of all things, the entire universe, what you would call creation. And

finally, John-la, it’s a way of understanding your journey, a map of yourself, a path

leading inward, away from the borders you have imposed upon yourself and toward the

energy of your own center.

“Now it’s your turn. Add your part to the whole. Go ahead, give it a try.”