What did you think of his talk?
I enjoyed it, of course. But, it’s always the same thing. Compassion.
His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama had just delivered a talk at a private breakfast reception at the Honda Center in Anaheim for his 80th birthday. I was there with my wife. Marty Krasney, our Executive Director, and Natalie Conneely, our resident shaman and Director of Resource Development, were also there.
Oh, and so was MC Hammer. He and I shared some Oakland Pride as we reminisced about the Golden State Warriors. George Lopez, the comedian, was at the table to my right. We made eye contact, but he quickly turned away, likely a knee jerk reaction from a man who has to shield his privacy from adoring fans and vulture-like paparazzi alike. Randy Jackson and Michael Franti were posing with fans at the opposite end of the room. And just ahead, to my left, was Kris Jenner. Yes. That Kris Jenner.
Chris, and his wife Jamie, at the Breakfast Reception for the Dalai Lama.
Despite the celebrity-sprinkled crowd, I found myself reflecting on the Dalai Lama’s talk. I’m from NYC. Born and raised. Pre-hipster Brooklyn, in fact. And while living in the Bay Area for the past five years has made me a bit “granola,” I still harbor a healthy dose of skepticism. When I hear compassion, depending on the messenger, I often roll my eyes. It can be such a trite word.
But when the Dalai Lama uses it, there is an authority that perks up my ears. I feel like I’m listening to a wise grandfather, a person who’s speaking not from a set of principles or the latest pop psychology post on social media, but from a deep understanding of lived experience, scars and all.
The Dalai Lama lost his home at an early age. He lost his country. His people live in exile or under colonial rule. The weight of that reality is so heavy for some Tibetans that the only avenue they find to voice their protest is to pour gasoline on themselves and set themselves on fire. As their religious leader, and for many years, their political leader as well, the Dalai Lama has carried their hopes and fears and tragedies.
And yet, he is not embittered. Or angry. Or hardened. He embodies love and kindness in a way that palpably changes the energy and tenor of a room. He has an infectious sense of humor that sends ripples of laughter throughout an audience. Anne Curry, the news journalist and that morning’s moderator, noted that the Dalai Lama had been up since 1 am so that he would have time to pray and meditate for four hours.
He works hard at walking his talk. Like athlete hard. So, when he speaks, I feel like it makes sense to listen.
The Dalai Lama enters the breakfast reception room.
That morning, and later during that afternoon’s public talk, the Dalai Lama spoke about two kinds of compassion. There is the biological compassion that we are born with and that is naturally extended to those in our family and tribe, as well as to those we have reciprocal relationships with, like friends. And then there is another level of compassion, one that requires training and effort. This is the kind of compassion that we can extend to those we don’t know very well, to strangers, and even, to enemies. (Admittedly, for me, an aspirational intention.)
In his discussion about compassion, he distinguished between feelings and action. He made sure to acknowledge that real compassion takes effort. He said: “To have a successful practice of love, you need a practice of forgiveness.” The use of the word “practice” is telling. It underscores that he is not talking about feelings alone. He is talking directly about what we do, about how we treat each other. Love and compassion are about action and effort. This is especially so with fallible human beings who make mistakes and hurt each other, sometimes unintentionally and sometimes not.
While the framework he laid out about compassion was helpful, so what? What relevance does it have for me? For us?
Forgetting - and Remembering - Interconnectedness
There seems to be something essential missing, either in degree or altogether, from our 21st century lives. The plethora of books on happiness points to this. They are a symptom of a deep unease. A dis-ease. Despite our technological prowess, our abundance of wealth, despite advances on so many fronts, there is a sense that we are not well. Or at least not as well as we should be given how far humanity has progressed.
About two years ago, my downstairs neighbor, Leslie, was the victim of a break-in. It was late at night, and she was home sleeping. The burglar entered in through her open bedroom window, creeping through the half open space and reached for the laptop on her desk. Luckily for her, she woke up, and after a frightful jolt, she ran out and called the police. It was terrifying to have the security of her home violated and while there alone. But, what stayed with me about her story, more than anything else, was that she never thought to knock on any of our doors. This despite the fact that we are in a small building with only 13 units. This despite the fact that she knows many of our names and we share friendly hellos and chatter when we pass each other.
So, maybe what’s missing is the recognition that we are interconnected, that we depend on each other. Despite the reality of this interconnectedness reflected to us every night in the news - cue images of the Greek economic crisis, or super storms due to climate change, or the latest viral video here - we seem to forget this reality over and over. And in forgetting, we neglect to act in a way that is reflective of that reality. We forget how to be with each other. And so we feel alone even when a stranger enters in through your window and people you know are only footsteps away.
I think this is why the Dalai Lama keeps repeating the same message. He understands the reality of human beings as creatures of forgetfulness. It’s interesting to note that the word mindfulness, in Tibetan, is not just about presence, but it has an aspect of remembrance in its meaning, as in remembering what is important.
The Dalai Lama greets a young girl who took part in a performance to welcome him on his 80th birthday.
The Dalai Lama also understands the urgency of his message. Thupten Jinpa, the principal English Translator to the Dalai Lama and advisor to Dalai Lama Fellows, laid out the urgency for compassion eloquently in his new book A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives:
“As our world becomes smaller - with our population rapidly increasing against finite natural resources; environmental problems that affect us all; and the proximity of peoples, cultures, and religions brought about by technology, demographic changes, and a global economy - we are being urgently called to foster the spirit of coexistence and cooperation. We actually are in this together. This reality of oneness of humankind is what compassion is all about.”
So, how might we remember more often this oneness of humankind so that we may act accordingly?
Why is compassion not taught in schools?
The Dalai Lama observed, as we do at Dalai Lama Fellows, and as others have, that while our education system has done a superb job of honing our minds and creating great material abundance, it has fallen short of equipping us with the values, skills, and tools to co-exist and thrive in an interconnected world. He called for “holistic education,” education that in addition to training scientists and lawyers and doctors and business people, also fosters values and skills that enable us to act in accordance with an interconnected reality. A successful education system would be one that empowers us to recognize our common humanity and fosters a sense of universal responsibility to each other, indeed, prepares us to take action accordingly.
The Dalai Lama, and 97-year-old oceanographer, Walter Munk, share a laugh on stage.
The time is now. In 50 years, population projections estimate that we’ll have an additional 3 billion people! That’s 10 billion people all needing to nourish themselves, to find meaningful livelihoods and work, and needing to coexist with less space. In about 30 years, if we don’t take significant action, the world’s poorest 3 billion people will suffer terrible consequences at the hands of climate change, something they had little role in creating.
That’s why Dalai Lama Fellows exists. Each of our Fellows - from the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, from Uganda and Ghana, from Brazil and the U.S. - take on the mantle of mindful, compassionate, ethical change-making to co-create a world that can work for all of us, now and in the future. That’s why we work with partners like Global Citizen Year that want to make the gap year experience standard in education so that the emerging generation of leaders are prepared for the global century. That’s we we partner with Ashesi University and African Leadership Academy, which look to a strong ethical core as essential for building trust, and thus stable institutions, across the African continent. And then there are friends like the Greater Good Science Center in Berkeley or CCARE at Stanford, that are using technology to scale and share the latest research and learnings about compassion with anyone who might have access to an internet connection. This, as well as the public commentary by writers like David Brooks, who recently wrote The Road to Character, point to an emerging zeitgeist that recognizes the importance of universal human values in education, and in all aspects of our lives.
There is energy building, and it is urgently needed. The hope is that one day compassion and patience and kindness will be as core to our education system as math and literacy are. That values such as those are also core to how we do business, to how we relate as nations, to how create and share wealth.
So, it is always the same message. Compassion. Again.
Dalai Lama Fellows (some of us at least) at the Dalai Lama’s birthday.
Now, what can you do? At Dalai Lama Fellows, we believe that there is a strong relationship between the change that happens inside of each of us and the changes that take place in the outside world. Given this, inspired by the Dalai Lama’s call to action, I would like to share a few resources that you can explore to learn more about how to cultivate and practice more compassion in the world.
A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives by Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D.
The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford
Greater Good in Action, from the Greater Good Science Center
21-Day Challenges on kindness, gratitude, and mindfulness
This is a guest post written by Christian Simamora, Program Director of the Dalai Lama Fellows.
