On an unassuming Sunday morning, the
lobby of the CBS Canterbury Arena in Christchurch was looking something like the
half hour before a rock concert. Unless you're Leonard Cohen though,
there aren't too many dudes in their late 70s who could get a crowd
buzzing like this. There are even less soft-spoken Tibetan monks in
their late 70s who could do it.
Lhamo Dondrub, alias Tenzin Gyatso,
alias the 14th Dalai Lama, is one of those rare transcendent people
who you just know, whether
you know anything about them or not. It's not important if you've
studied the principles of the Buddhist faith, if you buy into the
idea of spiritual reincarnation, understand the role of the Dalai Lama, or even if you know anything about
the ins-and-outs of the tense political relationship between Tibet
and the rest of China, and how that led to His Holiness's exile to India in 1959. The Dalai Lama, with his shaven head, wide-rimmed
glasses, and saffron robe, is one of these iconic global figures who
stands for much more than the man himself – for peace, compassion,
and spirituality outside the confines of religion.
I knew
I was going to be heading into the city to hear him speak as part of
his tour of New Zealand, which is why I can't quite figure why I
waited until the day before to get a ticket. That's how I ended up in
the nosebleed section (the session sold out later that afternoon) –
the arena was partitioned though, so that the stage, adorned with
pillows for a monk entourage to kneel on as well as Oriental rugs and
decorations, wasn't particularly far from me. The Dalai Lama was
giving two different talks in Christchurch (his first stop, before Dunedin and Auckland) – I ended up in the
second audience, for “Compassion: The Pillar of Peace.”
A
procession of monks filled the stage before everything hushed and the Dalai Lama came out. All eyes were on this unembellished figure, decidedly significant beyond normal comprehension and yet decidedly human. He raised his hands to the audience, collected flowers from a small
group of children who welcomed him, and took his seat in a comfy
armchair centre stage. It was a bit of a bizarre juxtaposition –
the ancient ceremony and obvious importance of what you were seeing
on stage, running counter to those in the audience eating Subway,
texting on their phones, and the one monk on stage who had his
digital camera out before His Holiness emerged, to get some crowd
shots.
The
crowd went to their feet when the Dalai Lama stepped on stage, until
he waved his hands, as if to say, “Don't be so foolish, sit down!”
Sam Johnson, the impressive local guy who founded the Student Volunteer Army in light of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, acted as MC
for the event, welcoming the Dalai Lama back to the city. Sat alongside his translator
(he speaks English, but occasionally needed help with a word or
phrase) and Johnson, the Dalai Lama started his talk through a wireless headset, a slow rambling
of thoughts that eventually built into his principal message.
At no
point was he reading off a teleprompter. At no point was he
preaching. At no point was he saying, “I'm His Holiness, the Dalai
Lama, you would do well to listen to me.” He said it himself –
whether he was speaking to 10 people, 100 people, or 10,000 people,
it was all the same. He's just one of us. The fact that his whole
life has been in spiritual study, the fact that he was declared a
spiritual leader when he was just 15 years old, the fact that he was
the political leader of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile for more than
50 years didn't factor in. He said he was one of us, that we were all
just human beings, and that that's one of the most important things
we can remember, as the world's population continues to spike and the
gulf between the very rich and the very poor continues to widen at an
alarming rate.
People
are selfish, he said. And that's not always a bad thing – that's
survival, human nature. The key is to be wise selfish, rather than
foolish selfish. When we ignore the plights of others and turn a
blind eye to suffering, we're creating a broken society. Humans are
social beings, not creatures who live in bubbles – greed might have
some instant gratification, but the degradation on our world, the
fracturing of the oneness of humanity, is something that comes right
back to bite us in the end.
As
serious as the global state of affairs may be, the Dalai Lama was
reassuring by virtue of his presence. He admitted that the solution
isn't easy, that peace and cooperation needs to move on from just
being a nice slogan to a reality, but there was something in his
disarming humility that made you believe that maybe, just maybe, it
wasn't so out of reach as you might think sometimes. At no point was
it more obvious than when he laughed – something so simple, but a
nice reminder of warmth and humility. A healthy mind is crucial to a healthy body – not Buddhist philosophy but rather emerging science. He laughed often, usually at
himself (South African rights activist Desmond Tutu once called him
the Mischievous Dalai Lama, for good reason), and it was a nice
sound.
After
about an hour, the Dalai Lama turned to his translator, and asked him
what he was supposed to be here to talk about. “Compassion?” he
said. “Ah, good, I think I touched on that!” As he said, when he
goes for a speaking engagement, he's there to speak, not to read off
a script. He covered the topic pretty well for someone flying by the
seat of their robe – it all came back to people and the way we
interact with each other.
People
are good. For your own sake and for everyone else who's caught up in this wonderfully mysterious life, be
good to people.
Sam
Johnson had collected a couple of questions for His Holiness from the
public, so a half an hour Q&A session followed the talk. One of
the first ones that came up was, “Is there an Almighty God, and
what is our relationship to Him?” Nice and easy, to get things
started.
The
Dalai Lama had to think for a moment. “I'm a Buddhist,” he said
simply. “According to my faith, there is no Creator God. So I'm the wrong person to ask!” After the applause and laughter, he
was clear that he believed religious harmony was possible, and even
that belief in God was a great idea for those people dealing with
intense mortal traumas, like the earthquake.
He had
some words of advice for those people visiting Tibet (tell the people
there about the outside world, make them believe in it – and buy
Tibetan antiques and sell them for more money back home, so that you
can financially support your trip), and words of sincere praise for
one of his heroes and sources of inspiration, Nelson Mandela. If
compassion seemed temporally relevant in a city that has needed to
come together to rebuild over the last two years, the nod to the
former South African president by the Dalai Lama could hardly have
been delivered at a more significant time.
And
then, it was a thank you, a smile, and goodbye. The procession slowly
made its way off the stage, and the crowd into the brisk afternoon
air. It's unlikely I'll ever get the opportunity to be part of something like that, especially in a city like Christchurch, again in my life, and I was aware of that as I drifted in the flow of human traffic, which was still abuzz, but now with something else – not necessarily
with any clearer ideas of how to live this life, but maybe with the
sense that living it better is possible. Not because one of the most
important religious leaders of this era came out and said so, but
because this believable human being was so convinced of it that you
couldn't help but laugh along with him and know that, of course, he was right.
Cheers,
rb
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