Tommy G or Tommyji: Part 2

Swamiji, Tommyji, and the Dalai Lama

I went to see the Dalai Lama two weekend s ago and, I must say, it was pretty amazing. His talk was entitled, “How to find happiness in troubled times,” but really he was just seemed to be free associating without much structure. The Dalai Lama is supposedly the reincarnation of the Buddha of Compassion and is certainly the acting political and spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists. Whether or not you think that he is the Buddha of Compassion or not, there is one thing that is difficult to deny, this guy knows something about compassion. In his talk he spoke of the Chinese in positive terms, pointing out that there is more religious freedom there now than there has been in many years. This is the same China that has forced him to remain in exile in India for the past 52 years. It takes some compassionate chops not to use his platform and extensive influence to continuously bash the Chinese, who could reasonably be held responsible for the economic hardships described in this less than compassionate ad from Groupon:

Aired during the super bowl

He also talked about India, mentioning what he considers to be the two greatest attributes of the country, namely, its commitment to non-violence and its amazing ability to maintain religious harmony. I have to agree with him on these points, particularly with respect to religious harmony. There is no other place on earth where religions live so closely, and as peacefully, as they do here in India. It is so refreshing in this time in human history to come to place where you can look around and see people who are religious, but not fanatical; devout, but not bigoted. That is not to say that there is no bigotry or religious violence, there is, but for the most part people live and let live in a very real and touching way. If you are religious or spiritual or agnostic or atheist or whatever you are, seeing people give a damn about each other, despite where they are on that spectrum, is beautiful.

One of the more interesting tangents he went on was about what he thinks religion is, and what its role should be in society. You would think that the religious leader of millions of people would be in favor of a specific religion, but really he doesn’t seem to favor any one religion or even any religion at all. In fact, his talk, somewhat strangely, reminded me of an article by Sam Harris, who is one of the anointed “new atheists,” a silly designation if you ask me, but I won’t go into that. Here is that article if you are interested: http://www.samharris.org/media/killing-the-buddha.pdf

So, he wasn’t particularly dogmatic in his talk, but he did have a point that he wanted to get across: A calm mind is very important. He told a story about how he was in the hospital to get his gal bladder out and the nurses and doctors where surprised that he was always laughing, jokinging around, and teasing them from the time he got to the hospital, until the time he went under for surgery. They were even more surprised that, at his age, he was able to leave the hospital so soon after the surgery. Ho contributed this healing time to nothing more than a calm mind. His ideas that a calm mind can affect the physiology of the brain are echoed in this recent NY Times article: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/how-meditation-may-change-the-brain/?src=me&ref=homepage

Another interesting religious/spiritual figure who has been around is a guy I call Swamiji. This guy is pretty groovy. He is about 70 years old and he is a monk who walks around in bright orange clothes all the time and is better shape than most 19 year olds I know. We were at lunch the other day and a friend of mine asked him what he meant when he referred to, “God.” You could tell Swamiji enjoyed this question, or rather that my friend had asked this question because he immediately giggled and asked him, “Well what do you mean when you ask me what God is?” He then went on to tell a story:

Many years ago I wrote a book. I had always wanted to write a book on this topic, but I could never think of the right title for it. Regardless, I decided that I would go ahead and write it, but then I would give the book two titles and release it under both names. After the publisher had agreed to my plan and the book was released, I decided that I would go to the bookstore and watch the people who came in to peruse the two books . This particular book store had put the two differently titled books in opposite windows so that you could see both titles from the street. As I watched the people come in from the street I noticed that some people would go directly to one side and the others would go directly to the other. Once more, unfailingly, the people who would go to the right side of the store would look to the left side with disgust as they were picking up the copy of my book that looked interesting to them. The exactly same thing would happen with those who went to the left side and picked up that copy. What these people didn’t know was that they were both reading the exact same book. The titles:

"God: who, what, when, where, why" and "The origin of the Cosmos"

Then Swamiji proceeded to tell us that he just thought of that story as he was taking a leak in the bathroom a few minutes before. I will let you take whatever you want from that story.

I will leave you with a quote from one of my favorite authors that I happen to come across this week:

"I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle." – Kurt Vonnegut

I certainly don't claim to be one of the people Mr. Vonnegut is referring to above, but thank you for meditating anyway...

Until next time, don't forget to keep a calm mind.