Two Doses of Spirituality: "His Holiness, the Dalai Lama" and "The Buddha Nature in Donald Trump"

Previously, I posted about my conversation over lunch with Corinne about DT and how to think about him while maintaining a sense of calm; why I was having difficulties being able to feel at peace with myself and the world with him in the role of "not my" POTUS.

Click this link to revisit that post. Will open in a new window. http://mhorvich.blogspot.com/2017/02/possible-thinking-about-dt.html

Ironically, on returning home Corinne received an e-mail (and shared the details with me) informing her about a webinar on Sunday with Steven Bodain, sponsored by the Open Circle Organization. The topic was: "Does Donald Trump have a Buddha Nature?" I decided to sign up for this experience.

On Saturday night as I was taking one last peek at Facebook, I came across a live broadcast of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama speaking in New Delhi, India on the topic of "Reviving Indian Wisdom in Contemporary India."  You can see the broadcast here (opens in a new window:) http://dalailama.com/vidyaloke-delhi-2017

The essence of his message was that the ancient wisdom of Buddhism began in India, has been protected for a 1,000+ years by the Tibetan Monks, and that it is now time for the people of India to take those truths and use them to help better humankind.

He said that it is not prayer, or meditation that matters the most, but rather education that makes the difference. And not only current education, which often causes additional societal problems, but an education from early childhood to university level which deals with moral values.

He feels that there should not be conflict in the spreading of one's attention between the demands of personal, spiritual, professional, and family life but rather if one acts from a true motivation of the heart, if acting with love, all those aspects of life are really ONE and the SAME, just as we are all one and we are the same.

While practicing this ancient spiritual wisdom at one level, you are practicing it at all levels. He also feels that these studies in spiritualism are not just for monks and nuns, not just in monasteries, not just for prayer or meditation during short periods a day; but for all lay people in everyone's daily lives at work, at school, and at home.

He said that he hopes that the 21st century can be one of peace in the world so that "hell would not need to make more room!" Then he laughed, large smile on his face, in his chuckling, hissing manner.

During the Q&A, he was asked his feelings on the "going ons" in the U.S.A. with their new president. He felt that "America is OK. It is strong. With the balance of the two houses of Congress and the Judicial Branch of government, America will be OK. The best we can do is wait and see rather than rush to judgment!"

I finally turned out the lights at 2:00 AM after watching this amazing man speak and peacefully, quickly drifted off to sleep.

• • •

I woke refreshed on Sunday looking forward to the seminar by Steven Bodain dealing with "Does DT have a Buddha Nature?" What I will attempt to do here is summarize and paraphrase what I heard during this two hour presentation.

Yes, DT has a Buddha Nature, but it is not visible and most likely not available to him. He is ignorant of its existence, does not tap into or practice its presence, and therefore is the antitheses of what most of us hold dear including acceptance of others, love, truth, etc.

So many of us act from our True Nature through our actions which are based on love, and equanimity. We are aware of all others and their suffering and we are moved to do something. He and his people act from hate, discontent, greed, and division.

In dealing with our feelings towards DT, one needs to work at not dividing life and the world into good and evil. The reality is that life and the world "just are." The division is our own social construct, when we compartmentalize and judge ... we are behaving like those people with whom we are unhappy.

A quote from one of Stephen's teachers: "Everything is PERFECT ... with room for improvement!" Our challenge with DT as the POTUS, is to come back to peace and love within ourselves, act with goodness, do what we have to do to protest and also work at leaving the anger and drama behind. The anger and drama is what DT and his people want for us, so we must avoid these feelings.

A saying: There is the Sun Face Buddha and the Moon Face Buddha. This means that the Buddha is in everything that happens, good and bad. He is in DT as well as well as the Dalai Lama. Life is absolute and essential, but also there is room for improvement and it is ever changing. DT does and cannot act independently in the world, he is acting in relation to everything that exists around him.

So our upset and distain for DT lies not only in his actions but in his use of the antitheses of what we think to be proper beliefs, behavior, and actions. We are conflicted by our view of those actions, our personal experiences, our hopes and fears, our trying to hold on to feeling good and avoiding feeling bad, to health vs illness ... but all those things will pass through our lives at any given moment and we will get to the other side only to welcome the dichotomies back again and see them leave again.

We must drop the "therefore" in our reasoning. Cause and effect does not work here. NOT: DT has a Buddha Nature therefore what he does is good. What DT does is bad therefore he has no Buddha Nature.

In our thinking there is the "Absolute" and the "Relative." We must avoid being "attached" to either. There are dark times and there are light times, there is a time to destroy and a time to build, there is a time for sorrow and a time for happiness. Life is always changing. The suffering comes when we try to hold on to this "ever changing" condition which we cannot ever really grasp!

We must detach from our beliefs on how life is or should be. Yes, we can be heartbroken over the way DT behaves but then we must accept reality as it is and do what we can to make it better. Holding on to beliefs of how things should be is what makes life possible during difficult times but we must also work at not becoming so attached to these beliefs that we become like DT himself! We must remain open to "possibilities!"

We must continue to bring love and wisdom into what we do no matter who the president is or his politics! This too will pass.

If we are upset with the people who voted DT into office, we must try to understand these people and what they are suffering which caused them to vote for DT. What caused them to think that he could help them to feel better?

Most people live in a world of duality, competing views, a polarization of us vs them, and feel that with limited resources we must fight to hold on to our own. There is, however, enough go around and without being selfish or greedy, we can share the "wealth" with everyone!

One set of beliefs does not have to cancel out the others. We must try to keep our eyes open to the relative vs the absolute (which doesn't really exist!) Nothing is independent, no one is independent of the forces at work around us. Everything that takes place and everything we do is interrelated.

Take for example the bag of potato chips from which you just took a bite. The creation of this one bag of chips included thousands of people including farmers, scientists, factor workers, package creators, advertisers, truckers, grocery store owners, clerks who stock the shelves, cashiers, people who grow trees to create the paper bags in which you took the chips home, people who built the machines that were part of the process, and we could go on and on!

Compassion is a better way to go, by living through our essential being, we can stay open and live with inclusion not separation, always open to anything, ready to see the good in everything, but also acting on and doing what we feel is right.

"Politician Politics" is about having a strong point of view and fighting to win with that point of view. Sometimes this works when the politician acts with compassion from the heart and essential self. Citizen Politics can maintain an interest for all possibilities and work for the good of all.

DT is a mirror of that part of ourselves with which we are not pleased. It is a mirror of the internal war which each one of us conducts within our mind. He is an expression of the forces in the universe that are greater than he is, than any one of us are, and he represents the shadows of the U.S. coming to the surface.

They have been there a long time. They are coming to be seen and understood in the person of DT. These forces have become more overt and less covert as they have been for so long. These feelings invoke a helplessness and rekindle our childhood fears. But one good thing that has come out of the current situation is that multitudes of people are no longer complacent in allowing the shadows too be hidden and to go unattended. People are speaking out, marching, and calling for change with a strength we have not seen since the Vietnam War. These are only a small part of the good that has come out of DT's administration.

Again, we can recognize the Buddha in these difficult times, be angry and frustrated; but then act according to our hearts with love, compassion, and wisdom. We can be angry with DT, demonstrate, speak out ... but then regain our peace of mind and know that we cannot possibly see all the ramifications of this situation. This situation is not independent but rather the result of many influences grander then we can imagine; and although we may be suffering, angry, and frightened now ... we can hold on to the knowledge that good will come out in the end.

Possible Thinking About DT

Yesterday, at the end of my post, I talked about how the issues with DT are affecting me.

http://mhorvich.blogspot.com/2017/02/some-random-thoughts-today.html

Today, I had breakfast with my guru (she blushes when I call her this) Corinne Peterson. http://www.corinnepeterson.com. My intension for our discussion was to hear her thoughts on how it seems that everyone is trying to find a sense of solid ground – but also really want to have a feeling of being able to do something about their discontent.

Here are some of her comments and my thoughts which were generated by our get together. Many are also based on our current readings in: Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chödrön.

We are trying to deal with the daily difficult behavior of the current "he is not my" POTUS; and why his behavior, attitude, decisions, actions, etc are causing me such grief and such feelings of helplessness. It is difficult to know how to think about him let alone know what to do about our feelings and/or how to go about letting our voices of dissent be heard.

She commented from a yoga point of view, I thought in terms of Buddhism, and most religions speak to the issue as well; "the more we can get in touch with our own internal landscape – deeply listening to our emotional responses, beliefs, etc.; they can inform us, giving us direction on the next actions to take. This way our responses are deeply authentic. The Bhagavad Gita is also a great source of wisdom: We take action, honoring those inner callings, regardless of the outcome (which is always unknown anyway.)"

She asked me what about him and his "doings" did I think most upset me. My reply included feeling that in addition to his poor, self serving, in my opinion; actions and decisions; that his blatant lies, manipulation, "gas lighting," and "alternative facts," have created a situation in the world unlike any other before. He goes about it in a way that is unnerving and leaves me not knowing how to think about and/or deal with  those "doings."

He goes about his decision making in a way that clouds me from seeing any good that may come of it. A secondary feeling is that his lies and manipulation are so obvious, how can anyone not see through him and why do they still support him? What does this say about some of my fellow Americans and about our country's governance?

In high school, I remember being taught in "Civics" not to believe everything I read or heard: whether in books, newspaper, radio, or T.V. Now we are not only exposed to how rampant the "Fake News" has been but how it has been used against us by way of manipulation and gas lighting us to the point of not knowing what is true and what is false and/or how to tell the difference.

The ground under my feet has felt as though it is shaking, crumbling. Up until now, government (even if erroneously) has given me the feeling of stability with the balance of powers and checks making it alright. Now I worry that the constitutional purpose of those three branches of government might fail. I cannot find a place of peace or distance from the chaos that is the DT reign and the potential dangers that lie ahead.

With all the progress it felt that we have been making in the area of world peace, civil rights, woman's rights, LGBTQ issues, immigration, etc; I was most likely lulled into a false sense of security that things would always improve and that those changes would last forever.

"Do you think," Corinne asked, "that your sense of instability comes from being reminded of the Buddhist belief that reality is always changing and shifting? That you do not go to bed the same person you were when you woke up?"

This reminded me that at the basic level your body's cells are dying and rebuilding themselves. You are growing and changed based on the day's experiences?

Also, there is the belief that most situations are "empty," they just are! They are not necessarily right or wrong until we make a judgement about them? That an idea or belief is "real" from our point of view but perhaps not from the next person's point of view and not necessarily interpreted in the same way? That our judgements can be based on personal bias and with the ability to "listen" and to gain more information, they may change? That our judgements might be made on faulty or incomplete information? That over time, facts do change when elucidated?

Perhaps my "suffering" (as the word is used in Buddhist discussions,) is because I am being reminded that nothing is ever permanent and my trying to hold on to the illusion of permanence is to blame for my feelings? Everything is changing all the time, and life is impermanent?

My struggles have been trying to make sense out of the nonsense that probably has always existed but currently is so flagrant. I had come to expect and accept things to meet my reality and currently Trump is redefining that reality. I am having to rethink it for myself and how I want to be involved. My struggles have been causing me grief as I try to make sense of nonsense.

So where do I go from here? I must decide where I am coming from and act out of love. That is what should motivate my actions no matter what the U.S. and/or world situation. I need to decide what matters to me and work out how I can make a difference in ways that  I am able.

I cannot change DT, time will take care of that and hopefully the damage he does. I cannot see the good that might come out of his actions no matter how "bad" they seem but most likely there will be some good and I must  really work on looking for the good!

One good thing is that already it feels like there is a renewed energy on many fronts in having an opinion, taking action, speaking out, protesting against what we feel are bad decisions, and protesting in favor of ones we believe are right. It seems so strong again, like the Vietnam era, when protest was everywhere and it felt good to be vocal and to express one's opinions.

Perhaps people will not be as complacent with "things as they" are but rather re-establish a close look at "things as we believe they should be." Perhaps it will cause us to listen to those people on the other side to see why they are unhappy or feeling left out. Perhaps we each need to review our own biases: nationalism, racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, etc.

I cannot somehow magically change the world by myself and bring it back to where it was but I can be part of the whole. I cannot let the changes and discomfort of the present situation cause me to feel helpless and to suffer but I can grow in awareness of what I am feeling the way I am.

I can recognize that things right now are out of control, that DT and the government will make some changes I dislike, that I can ride the change and hold on to my self respect and opinions as well at to be open to changing my beliefs as necessary.

I can hold on to the belief that most people are basically good and will raise to the occasion as necessary, as can I.