Meetings with Chinese and Tibetan Students before Leaving Madison for New Orleans

• Meetings with Chinese and Tibetan Students before Leaving Madison for New Orleans
• From The Under 35 Project: “Beautiful Beasts”
• Change Your Mind, Change the World - Discussion to Make the World a Healthier, Happier Place
• Obama Shouldn't Meet with Burmese Dictator Thein Sein.
• Dalai Lama to teach in New York in October
• Birth-Day, Death-day, & Everything-Inbetween-Days

Meetings with Chinese and Tibetan Students before Leaving Madison for New Orleans Posted: 17 May 2013 08:00 AM PDT Homepage » News » Meetings with Chinese and Tibetan Students before Leaving Madison for New Orleans » May 17th 2013 Madison, Wisconsin and New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 16 May 2013 - On his last morning at Deer Park, Madison, as the early sun caught the new leaves on the trees and peacock calls rang through the woods behind the temple and Kalachakra Pavilion, His Holiness met privately with a group of Chinese and afterwards with a group of Tibetan students studying in the USA. His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaking during a meeting with Chinese students in Madison, Wisconsin on May 16, 2013. Photo/Jeremy Russell/OHHDL The Chinese group consisted of 51 students from Madison and Chicago, among them 10 from Tibet; 13 professors teaching in Madison and Chicago; 15 Chinese scholars and 13 Taiwanese. His Holiness held a warm and friendly conversation with them, mostly in English. He acknowledged the potential benefits to Tibetans of being part of the PRC, but also asserted Tibetans' determination to preserve their language, religion and culture. He explained the profound knowledge of the mind, which is of value to the world, only preserved in the Tibetan tradition. He regaled them with anecdotes from his visit to China 1954-55 and his conversations with Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders. Speaking to the Tibetan students in their mother tongue, he stressed the importance of study. He also extolled the value of Tibetan language, religion and culture. He reminded them that the literature and traditions of Tibetan Buddhism contain the most thorough and comprehensive presentation of Buddhist thought in the world. This is essentially the Nalanda tradition. What's more, the dialectical method developed in India and maintained in Tibet, with its sharp logic and use of reason results in a mental acuity that His Holiness has found has equipped him, with no modern education, to follow the explanations and findings of modern scientists and hold his own in discussions with them. This reasoned and logical approach can be applied to other areas of study. His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaking to Tibetan students during their meeting in Madison, Wisconsin on May 16, 2013. Photo/Jeremy Russell/OHHDL His Holiness acknowledged that in the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries Tibet was a united, powerful nation, but that after that central rule became fragmented. However, the consistent source of Tibetan unity since then has been the shared Tibetan language, religion and culture. Therefore, he encouraged the students to keep up their Tibetan studies even while they need to conduct their academic studies in English. His Holiness also gave a comprehensive explanation of the background to the Middle Way Approach, emphasising that it had involved careful thought at every stage. He pointed out that it continues to attract support internationally and among informed Chinese intellectuals and thinkers. He reiterated that he has completely retired from political responsibility, but feels he retains a moral responsibility to explain such things. As His Holiness left Deer Park, his host Geshe Sopa was there among well-wishers to see him off. His Holiness then flew to New Orleans where he was met at the airport by representatives of Tulane University and Louisiana State Senator Gary Smith. Read More @ Source

From The Under 35 Project: “Beautiful Beasts” Posted: 17 May 2013 07:00 AM PDT Meredith Arena on what it feels like to be embodied and alone. As I understand it, being alone is of great importance in Buddhism. When I sit quietly, following my breath as it travels through my body, holding myself upright and dignified in whatever way I am able on that given day, I am alone with myself. I am alone inside my body. When I began writing this, I had intended to write about being 35 and single and whether or not that made me "free," but the thing about Buddhist practice is that it has helped me shift focus from the little me alone to the big me alone. In these few years of practicing meditation, the lexicon "who I am" and "what I do" has begun to wither, allowing me to be more present with the who and what of each passing moment. When I was new to Buddhism, I heard the words embodied and disembodied a lot. On my first weekend retreat I came to understand these terms a bit more. When I am disembodied, I take myself very seriously, like when you try to learn a dance, but you can't bring the knowledge from your brain into your legs. Situations become story banquets. If I feel hurt or angry, I expect resolution. Ironically, seeking resolution to emotional dilemmas often involves waging both an internal and external war. I have waged many wars with armies of deaf hearts. When I am embodied, I can hear something under the discord of discursive thought, sometimes it is just the sound of feet outside my window or running water. When I am embodied, I notice the piercing darts of emotion in my shaky knees or tightening chest. Rejection stabs. Jealousy slaps. Sadness seeps or pours. I observe the spread of the poison through me; the moment before it grows arms, legs, and teeth and sprints into battle. When humans are agitated, our vision narrows and our capacity for creative thought lessons. In this process of working with awareness, there are so many false starts, spears thrown, little deaths. I screw up all the time. My understanding did not come with a poof! One thing I had to accept about a Buddhist path is that, although there is magic everywhere, inherent in all of nature, it is truly mundane, there is not one magic moment. I am delighted or bored, titillated or furious, drunk or sober, but I am, just here, occupying space. I finished the weekend retreat knowing that being embodied was the experience of my awareness resting within this flesh that I call Meredith. Disembodied, I send experience through a series of defense and offense filters, distilling it into something finite. Embodied, I just experience it. If I receive a compliment such as, "I like your writing," I can graciously say "Thank you." I also notice that there is awkwardness, an instinct to escape the compliment or to launch it into the pinball machine to be plundered by second-guessing. Being disembodied obstructs our ability to feel pleasure and warps our experience of pain. I was ready to learn this because I was ready to begin relaxing with myself. That I walked away knowing the difference does not mean that suddenly I was an embodied being, graciously moving through life like a ballerina. I am a clown, a bull, a mouse, shape-shifting through these years, as I have all the others with the only difference being that I am learning how to apply non-judgmental awareness to the fire coming out of my nostrils or the venom I inhale in failed attempts at skillful action. It didn't solve the most fundamental problem, that I am alone. I am an expert in the little me alone. Little me alone is single. The big me alone bridges this separate self experience – the big deal feeling of loneliness – and the more general sense of aloneness that I feel in my bones. Embodiment is a practice. Being alone is a practice. So what is the experience of being embodied and alone? To begin, I feel afraid. Fear comes and I don't have someone to hand it off to. I have often used my romantic relationships to offset the fear of being alone and mortal. Being single for the entire time I have been a Buddhist has given me the opportunity to be loved by and to love many people. These facts are clear: my parents will die, my actions matter. I am not the center of the universe. I am, in fact, a very small particle whose implosions and explosions still tilt the scales of my immediate environment because we are interdependent, that I cannot simply take all these emotions and stuff them back inside the dart holes to protect the wounds, that the wounds are the source of my embodiment. They are my potential for joy for myself and the impetus to help others experience joy. The late David Foster Wallace said, "The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad of petty, unsexy ways every day." There is a story about a grain of sand on a beach that begins to suffer once it looks up and says, "I'm a grain of sand." By practicing loving everyone, anyone, I find more acceptance for the fire-breathing beast that I am. We are really just beasts, you know? Beautiful beasts. The fire subsides a bit. Meredith Arena is a writer, artist, teacher and sometimes performer from New York City, who currently resides in Seattle. She began studying Buddhism at The Interdependence Project in 2008 and completed teacher training there in 2011. She teaches meditation to willing students, sells fruit and vegetable in the Pike Place Market and works with homeless youth in Seattle. To see the rest of our Under 35 Project posts, click here. To read more and submit your own work, visit the project's website. Read More @ Source

Change Your Mind, Change the World - Discussion to Make the World a Healthier, Happier Place Posted: 16 May 2013 04:00 PM PDT Madison, Wisconsin, USA, 15 May 2013 - Inspiration for convening this discussion of well-being in relation to global health and happiness arose when Richard Davidson, Chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and Jonathan Patz, Director of the Global Health Institute, both at the University Wisconsin-Madison, were visiting His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India. He showed great interest in participating in such a conversation. Once His Holiness and the panellists had taken their seats on the stage of the Overture Center for the Arts, which was filled to capacity, proceedings both in the morning and afternoon opened with a musical-poetic performance by Logan Phillips, Molly Sturges and Aaron Stern of the Academy for the Love of Learning, who presented musical and poetic notions of a happier world, such as 'we are a beautifully sung song.' Richie Davidson introduced his old friend Dan Goleman, moderator of the morning's session, who began by making clear that the discussions aimed to talk about being well in every sense; exploring different ways in which we can flourish. Richie referred to findings that changes in the body can be attributed to stress, but that there is new work to show that happiness and well-being have positive effects on the body too. His Holiness asked how you measure well-being and Richie said they rely on self-report. His Holiness was asked if he had advice on how to make well-being more widespread. "I think you already know what I think." he replied, "But these people in the audience may not have heard it before. At this point everyone here feels at ease, but if I think of you as somehow different from me, if I think that I'm Tibetan, I'm Buddhist, an Easterner, I'm a monk or even something grand like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, this kind of thinking automatically creates a gap between us. It results in a sense of unease. On the other hand, if I consider you as another human being, just like me, then that source of anxiety disappears.! "I'm very happy and encouraged to be here. Some scientists don't even accept the existence of mind, they think there's only the brain. If that were the case we ought to be able change the way we live through surgery. However, the proper way to train the mind is by using the mind itself, not in connection with the next life or anything like that, but focussing on a healthy society and a happier humanity here and now. Everybody wants a happy life and a peaceful mind, but we have to produce peace of mind through our own practice. "Modern science's interest in mind or consciousness is new, and so is the public interest in mind and emotional training. Have I spoken for too long?" Jonathan Patz noted the news that for the first time the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million. He said scientists are very concerned that if this continues and reaches 450ppm it will be very dangerous. He recalled that last time he and His Holiness met, they talked about global climate change and he had explained that it would bring heat-waves, hunger and drought. His Holiness had responded: "If we have the knowledge we have to act." His Holiness the Dalai Lama and fellow panelists during the morning session of the Change Your Mind, Change the World discussions at the Overture Center in Madison, Wisconsin on May 15, 2013. Photo/Jeremy Russell/OHHDL He talked about work he has done concerning the peregrine falcon, which is an endangered species. It was only when the focus shifted to habitat and the context of the falcons' lives that they began to be effective. "Consequently," Patz said, "when we think of prospects for our own species, we need to see ourselves in the context a healthy environment, which means a healthy planet." His Holiness remarked that this is clear evidence of the need to focus on long term interests, of our need for moral principles and a sense of responsibility. Don Berwick talked about developments in health care noting that when he began his career all children with leukaemia died, but now they don't. However, health costs continue to increase, which means that spending on education, for example, has dropped. He mentioned three mistakes with regard to health care: the belief that more is better; the belief that the way to health is through technological solutions rather than looking at what we eat and how we live; and the belief that we can treat the body but not the mind. He said that when he explains that sometimes less is more, people feel they are being deceived. His Holiness agreed that new findings are sometimes not easy to accept, which is why the public needs to hear more from experts like those on the panel. This is a role which the media can play; they should give such experts more exposure. People need to understand that if they want to live long and be comfortable, they may have to change some of the things they are used to. Ilona Kickbusch began with the observation that she was both happy and unhappy to be the only woman on the panel. She said that great strides have been taken in relation to global health, but that we are reaching the limits of this particular model, the 'vertical disease model'. Consequently, there is a need to rethink what health is, to combine a drive for equity and health care reform. Last time His Holiness and Richard Layard met, he told him a! bout Action for Happiness, which His Holiness asked to join. He explained that the movement has since been successfully launched and has attracted 30,000 members. What's more, some governments have begun to adopt some of its objectives regarding well-being, among them Bhutan and the UK. Meanwhile the OECD, the club of developed nations, has drawn up codes to measure well-being rather than depending only on economic indicators; this is a major revolution. Less encouraging was his report that within the context of general well-being, mental health is not taken sufficiently seriously, which amounts to discrimination. He said there is treatment and good prospects for recovery, but overall mental health is not regarded as seriously as physical health. He asked His Holiness how he interprets this finding. "Knowledge of the mind is limited." His Holiness said, "People have only a superficial view of what mind is, which is a cultural issue. I agree that the brain is complex and sophisticated, but the mind and emotions are also sophisticated and complex. Maybe it's due to a fundamental misunderstanding that it's the physical that you have to fix. We need to view these things in a different way. Because we take physical health seriously we have codes of physical hygiene, I'm proposing that equally important are codes of mental and emotional hygiene." The Overture Center, venue for the Change Your Mind, Change the World discussions in Madison, Wisconsin on May 15, 2013. Photo/Jeremy Russell/OHHDL Richard Layard concluded with two facts: every human being wants to be happy and every human being is equally important. If we acknowledge these, we can work to increase the spread of happiness. His Holiness responded that if we can let people know that adopting this or that measure will improve their peace of mind and improve their physical health, it will lead to a more attractive solution. Moderator for the afternoon was Arianna Huffington, who began with the observation that our world has become unmanageable. She also remarked that while we all have a place of inner strength within us, most of us are not there most of the time and we need to ask how we can get there more often. Richie Davidson offered five facts about well-being for consideration. 1. Well-being is a skill, 2. Well-being seems to be universally related to the mind's well-being. He referred to a study that asked people: what are you doing? is your mind focussed? and are you happy? The response showed that people's well-being is higher when they are focussed, but also that their minds wander a good deal. When the mind wanders performance suffers. It is a source of suffering; people are not happy living this way. His Holiness recognised Richie's description of the wandering mind, saying he is familiar with it too. Richie continued to explain the facts about well-being. 3. Well-being is associated with patterns of both mind and body. 4. Well-being has three aspects - returning to calm after a stressful event; mindfulness and generosity. 5. There is an innate disposition towards well-being, demonstrated by findings that young babies show a preference for altruistic behaviour. Arianna asked what we can do to ensure that such well-being becomes more widespread. His Holiness replied: "I mentioned this morning - education, in schools but also through our various media. We need to see reports of positive as well as negative news. Basic human nature is gentle. We are born from our mothers, who show us affection.! We are social animals and depend on each other to survive. People who receive more affection from their mothers are happier and more secure. The basic gentle nature we are born with tends to become dormant as we grow up, we need training and education from an early age to ensure that it remains fresh instead. This is an example of using our human intelligence for the well-being of ourselves and society." Jonathan Patz said that his theme for the afternoon was interdependence. Without awareness of interdependence we won't understand that our energy consumption is affecting the world's climate. We need to be mindful of that, just as we need to be mindful of our consumption. His Holiness commented: His Holiness the Dalai Lama and fellow panelists during the afternoon session of the Change Your Mind, Change the World discussions at the Overture Center in Madison, Wisconsin on May 15, 2013. Photo/Jeremy Russell/OHHDL "We must address these problems like global climate change and the global economy as one community. We can't expect our population of 7 billion human beings to live the life of a hermit. When the world population was smaller each country was self-sufficient, but today's reality is that everyone is interdependent; the old way doesn't work anymore. For example, you spend a huge amount of money and resources on developing and maintaining nuclear weapons, and yet, because, quite rightly, no one dares use them, the money is in effect wasted. We must find ways to change the way things have been done until now." Matthieu Ricard suggested that we have so far underestimated the power of mental health, but expressed confidence that this can change. Arianna wanted to know if His Holiness feels we have reached a tipping point. He replied: "If we make consistent effort, based on proper education, we can change the world. We are selfish, that's natural, but we need to be wisely selfish, not foolishly selfish. We have to concern ourselves more with others' well-being, that's the way to be wisely selfish. We have the ability to take the long-term benefit into account. I think it is possible to make real change in this century. "Education is the best way to train ourselves that we will secure our own well-being by concerning ourselves with others. It is possible to create a better world, a more compassionate, more peaceful world, which is not only in everyone's interest, but is everyone's responsibility to achieve." His Holiness offered each member of the panel a kata, a white silk scarf, and then standing hand in hand with them at the front of the stage, energetically appealed to the audience. "Great changes start with individuals; the basis of world peace is inner peace in the hearts of individuals. This is something we can all work for. If what you've heard here interests you, if you think it's something you can act on, share it with others. If there are a thou! sand people here and each of you shares this with ten friends, ten thousand people will hear about it, and so on. That's the way we can change our minds and change the world. Thank you." Read More @ Source

Obama Shouldn't Meet with Burmese Dictator Thein Sein. Posted: 16 May 2013 03:00 PM PDT PHOTO CREDIT: Reuters News Agency via the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) US Campaign for Burma (link): (Washington DC, May 15, 2013) – Today the U.S. Campaign for Burma (USCB) expresses its dismay over President Obama's decision to welcome Burma's President Thein Sein to the White House on Monday, May 20, 2013, just days after President Thein Sein failed to effectively manage the multiple dangers Rohingya internally displaced persons (IDPs) face from the oncoming cyclones and security forces, ignoring months of warnings about the danger they face in low-lying areas during cyclone season, and not holding security forces accountable for their role in attempting to ethnically cleanse the Rohingya from Burma. This trip follows a troubling downward trend in Burma: hundreds of new political prisoners, ongoing war against the Kachin, breakdown of several ceasefires, ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, escalating anti-Muslim violence, denial of humanitarian aid, pandemic land confiscation, and a complete lack of justice and accountability. JAMES: Inviting Thein Sein to the White House is like inviting Saddam Hussein. By visiting with Thein Sein, Obama is legitimizing a man who kills, tortures and imprisons innocent, non-violent, Buddhist monks. I vehemently disagree with Obama on this one. ~i bow to the buddha within all beings~ Read More @ Source

Dalai Lama to teach in New York in October Posted: 16 May 2013 01:00 PM PDT His Holiness the Dalai Lama will visit New York this fall, giving several teachings at the Beacon Theatre on Broadway from October 18 to 20. He will teach on the Heart Sutra, the Sutra of the Recollection of the Three Jewels, and the ninth chapter of Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life. The event is sponsored by the Gere Foundation and the Tibet Center. More information will be posted to dalailamany.org as it becomes available. Read More @ Source

Birth-Day, Death-day, & Everything-Inbetween-Days Posted: 16 May 2013 11:00 AM PDT Today yet another birthday comes, which also means another year gone. One year further away from my birth and one year nearer my death has passed. And, in-between these two bookends of life, innumerable days of dukkha, or stress. Not that it's been a particularly troublesome existence, you understand - there have been plenty of highs along with the lows (and the in-betweens). But, through it all, there has been this gnawing fact that life is somehow inherently unsatisfactory, which is another translation of the Buddhist term dukkha. The fact is, that as a human being, I am born to suffer; until I die that is. Life's a bitch, and then you die, goes the somewhat cynical saying.  The Buddha's teaching on dukkha is not an inherently negative view of the world, however, merely a realistic one. Most babies come into this life screaming, and many people go out of it in a similar way. Existence can be confusing, scary, painful, and wearisome. The good times can seem awfully fleeting, and what do we have to look forward to? Death! If we reflect on this, it may come to us that given this knowledge, we may as well make the most of what little time we have, and there is much to be said for this attitude. One problem is the perception that we need to doing an incredible things to lift us out of the mire of dukkha, whether it be being a movie star, a noble prize winning s! cientist, or a living saint. Unfortunately, such an existence is out of reach for most of us. We are stuck in our unsatisfying lives. This, however, turns out to be not such a bad thing. For, we've all heard or read of filthy rich people committing suicide, or celebrities visiting addiction clinics. Living the dream isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be. Having an ordinary lifestyle can actually turn out to be a saving grace, allowing us the chance to reflect on life and develop some insight into it. This means that dukkha itself becomes the focus for contemplation, leading us to insight into the way-things-are (the Dharma), which turns out to be the real way out of our stressful lives. So, while pop stars, politicians and millionaire business types wallow in the extraordinary suffering of their extraordinary lives, we can use our quieter, less distracting situations to awaken to true happiness. Bearing in mind the day that this body & these thoughts will pass away is not a morbid thing to do, but a wise one. Accepting the mortality of this person can be a motivating factor to discover what's important, and how to achieve it. In the Buddha's teaching it is happiness or contentment that is considered of prime importance in our lives. Not just for the individual, but for all people and creatures. The ultimate happiness is the absence of suffering, a state that is known by many names, some of the most well known being enlightenment / awakening (bodhi), 'blowing-out' (nirvana), extinction (nirodha), the deathless (amata), and the unconditioned (asankhata). Some of these might appear negative, but it's worth noting tha! t happine! ss (such) is another synonym for this realization. Unless we are monks or nuns, earning enough money to live by is an important occupation in life, and avoidance of this aspect of living can cause much suffering in the long run. However, thinking that fame & fortune are the most important factors in leading a happy existence would seem negated by the above references to the stress experienced by the rich & famous. The must be another way to lasting happiness, and this is the path (marga) that leads to awakening (bodhi). This path involves eight factors which cover correct understanding, correct intention, correct speech, correct action, correct livelihood, correct effort, correct mindfulness, and correct concentration. They are 'correct' in that they lead to enlightenment. Walking this path is the Buddhist 'holy life,' and its fulfillment is true, lasting happiness. So, on a birthday such as this, a wise thing to do is resolving to continue walking this path & realizing its many fruits, the pinnacle of which is nirvana...before death day arrives. May all beings be happy! Read More @ Source