Ask The Lama

What can we learn from this frightening, challenging year? How to be better prepared for next time, whatever form an unexpected crises may take, and put humanity and science first, rather than business and politics? Systemic change as well as personal transformation seems required. If we find ourselves with time on our hands, news-junkied out, or perhaps bored and restless, in transition without a clear path or direction ahead---....What a tremendous opportunity to reflect, to self-inquire and contemplate, to prepare yourself for death as well as to truly and authentically live-- and to unstintingly embrace and love this life and all that lives. In this anxious, contentious moment, a lot of us --- myself included --- are feeling doubt, uncertainty, and grief. And a lot of us, I suspect, could use some help managing those difficult emotions and thoughts. Myself, I have taken the backwards step, as the mystics say. First of all, I've learned to breathe, relax and smile, and stop hurrying---enjoy a serene moment of mindfulness, or three---before responding to things that might ordinarily push my buttons. Savor a moment of contemplative sweetness, take a mindfulness break, to calm and clear mind and heart, body and soul. 

This is the essence of Mindful Anger Management.

Let me share a personal secret: I too can get to wondering about what good is just sitting and meditating when so much needs to be attended to in this world. The age-old koan of contemplation versus and/or action; balancing doing and being. Yet I know as soon as I stop, step off the treadmill of events and turn the spotlight inward, deeper, even for a few deep breaths and relaxation, moments of mindfulness-- all will be well and all is better than well, at least for the moment.

Sometimes I work from inside out, and other times work from outside in through social action and compassion in action, to help a better world while becoming a better person. While it can be painful to recalibrate ourselves in this new reality, it can also be profoundly transformative. With the right tools, this challenging period can lead to a more insightful, positive, and sustainable future for ourselves and our communities. Rooted in the wisdom that the outer world is shaped by our inner world, awareness and purification techniques taught by the Buddha were designed precisely for a moment like this. Mindful awareness and meditation practice is the foundation of true happiness and contentment, self-knowledge, inner peace and relational harmony. These practical tools to help develop self-awareness and mental stability can empower us to deal with hardship and to conduct ourselves in a way that is ultimately beneficial to those around us.

I feel grateful, and fortunate to be among the lucky ones, in so many ways. No one has their knee on my neck or is racial profiling me and my look-a-likes, at least at this moment, though it has happened before.

We all wonder how to help, to contribute, to protect and guide the young'uns and those less fortunate. Let me tell you what I have discovered: when I get clearer, everything becomes clearer. This is a universal law. Mind training, attitude transformation, truth-seeking, questioning, meditation and prayer help immensely in this wisdom-developing consciousness-evolution endeavor. Here we also have ratcheted up donations, provided more free counseling and other forms of support, and do more beaming and streaming, holding large, free group zoom-meditation sessions online twice a week and offering similar sessions through other nonprofit learning institutions.

Let this imposed collective retreat time help you loosen the ties of old habits and reflect upon what you might choose to be different, if and when things return to normal---now, soon, or at least when the emergency is over and we have a hand in co-creating the new normal. It's all too easy to simply fall back into the same routines, the same ruts, when we suddenly have an unexpected chance to clear the field and start with an open and level playing field again, perhaps even creating life anew and as if from scratch. One can actually do that; it's called spiritual rebirth or reinvention. A quick and direct reinvention hack could be to let go of name, body, mind, daily preoccupations and expectations, comparisons and even your current identity (self-concept); die to oneself; and possibly be reborn to life eternal. Take time to appreciate and cherish the true touchstones of your beautiful, blessed human life, no matter how large or small they may be.

I still remember the open window of camaraderie, mutual assistance, friendliness, and patient tolerance which surged during the difficult weeks immediately following the terrorist attacks on 9-11. Like then, we need to pull together now or we'll be pulled apart. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has reminded us, "As we face this crisis together, it is imperative that we act in a spirit of solidarity and cooperation in order to provide for the pressing needs, particularly of our less fortunate brothers and sisters around the world. I hope and pray that in the days ahead, each of us will do all we can to create a happier and healthier world."

Please join me in prayer for our troubled earth:

May all afflictions outer (physical), inner (emotional and psychological), and secret/subtlest (mystical) be removed, and goodness, wellness and virtue prevail. Let us strive to serve and help, be useful, give all we can, accumulate good karma through compassion in action and share it with others.

With love and blessings, 

We suddenly find ourselves in a worldwide moment of pause, an unusual time-out. The earth has presented us with an opportunity to reflect on life as usual and to consider our unmistakable interconnectedness. Talk of freedom, liberation, and independence is fine, as far as it goes, and nothing new; perhaps now we can begin to genuinely understand that self-knowledge and inner self-mastery is the key, and we realize autonomy within interdependence and interbeing.

History has taught us that when the astronauts first saw our planet from space there was a shift in consciousness due to that greater perspective. There is one Earth, one planet, utterly precious. We are all inter-related like kin on this beautiful blue marble. One destiny, one heart & soul.

But decades later we as humanity find ourselves caught even more in an afflicted mindset of separation, extreme partisanship, xenophobia, and world-dominating tendencies, yet are interconnected in ways we do not realize and may have even completely forgotten. Interconnected, of course, over the whole planet: not merely as consumers or as multinational corporations, or  mammals, squawking bipeds; but as vulnerable human beings on a vulnerable Earth amidst the endangered species amidst the abundant green flora and fauna of our home planet.

There are many ways to respond to this emergent crisis. The virus brings sickness and even death, and miserable suffering. If we allow for actually feeling and experiencing the pain reaching us, instead of quickly contracting in fear, anxiety, and despair, we will feel it in our hearts and be able to grok it. And then, with the dawn of awakened awareness, we may be able to choose how to respond, not just blindly react---hopefully with warm empathic compassion, generosity and unselfish love. As my late great teacher, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche taught, “Obstacles can arise from good as well as bad circumstances, but they should never deter or overpower you. Be like the earth, which supports all living creatures indiscriminately, without distinguishing good from bad. The earth is simply there.” Remember, the same clear light is shining through each and all of us. So much is actually subjective.

I’m coping by social spaciousness or spacing, and not just distancing or isolation; noble silence, noble solitude, noble self-care, noble Netflix and exercise; moderation; noble facetime and Skype; and staying attentive and informed, without becoming a news junkie.

One reason for the present state of the world is that we have focused on the material world in a way that we have forgotten the immaterial, the inner worlds, and how matter and spirit belong and co-merge together, like yin and yang. In other words: We as humanity have become consumers and human doers at the expense of our very human and extraordinary Being, and forgotten how to rest at ease and just be amidst it all. The light, the soul, pure spirit: mystics know and experience that we can 'meet in the night' -- which means not in our physical bodies. We are not separated through space, nor through time. Join us, in spirit if not physically and in place. To live inseparable from this knowing can and will heal and transform us in these times of self-quarantine.

Humans are social animals, and coronavirus threatens those connections. Human beings evolved to feel safest in groups, and as a result, we experience isolation as a physical state of emergency. If stress is a certain pathway by which fear and loneliness damages health, then even beyond its direct dangers, coronavirus is a dual-threat and anxiety can spread like a pathogen.