advantage in part by learning about Western religions, and meditation practices in other traditions, as earlier Dalai Lamas could seldom do. And he’s also had to deal with a worldwide stampede towards a Buddhism for which the world may not be ready (to such a point that, more and more as the years go on, he tells Westerners not to become Buddhists, but just to stick to their own tradition, where there’s less danger of mixed motives, and certainly less likelihood of confusion). Listening to him speak everywhere from São Paulo to Chicago, Philip Glass says: “The word ‘Buddha’ never came up. He talks about compassion, he talks about right living. And it’s very powerful and persuasive to people because it’s clear he’s not there to convert them.”
Pragmatism, in short, trumps dogmatism. And logic defers to nothing. “Out of 5.7 million people,” he tells me one day, his eyes glittering with the delight of a student immersed in one of Tibet’s ritual debates, “the majority of them are certainly not believers. We can’t argue with them, tell them they should be believers. No! Impossible! And, realistically speaking, if the majority of humanity remains nonbelievers, it doesn’t matter. No problem! The problem is that the majority have lost, or ignore, the deeper human values—compassion, a sense of responsibility. That is our big concern. For whenever there is a society or community without deeper human values, then even one single human family cannot be a happy family.”
Then—and it isn’t hard to see the still-eager student playing his winning card—he goes on: “Even animals, from a Buddhist viewpoint, also have the potential of showing affection towards their own children, or their own babies—and also towards us. Dogs, cats, if we treat them nicely, openly, trustingly, they also respond. But without religion; they have no faith!” Therefore, he says triumphantly, kindness is more fundamental than belief.
Yet the deepest loss of all in the Dalai Lama’s often bright and blessing-filled life is that all the friends he’s made worldwide, all the presidents and prime ministers he’s won over, all the analytical reasoning with which he argues for compassion and responsibility have not really helped him at all in what is the main endeavor of his life: safeguarding the people of Tibet, and sustaining a Tibetan identity among a scattered population, six million of whom have not seen their leader for two generations, and the other 140,000 of whom have not, in many cases, seen their homeland. Many of those who see him flying across five continents in a year (in business class) and delivering lectures to sold-out halls don’t realize that he’s working with a staff drawn from a population smaller than that of Warren, Michigan, and with a circle of advisors who’d never seen the world, or known much about it, before they were propelled into exile.
Within the Tibetan community, he remains as lonely as ever, I think. His people still regard him, quite literally, as a god, with the result that even young Indian-born Tibetans who are fluent in English are too shy to offer their services as translators. And as fast as he tries to push democracy onto his people—urging them to contradict him and to make their own plans regardless of him—they push autocracy back onto him: most Tibetans believe everything the Dalai Lama says, except when he says that the Dalai Lama is fallible. None of this has been made easier by the fact that he is clearly his country’s main selling point, so that it can seem as if the destiny of a whole people rests on the shoulders of one decidedly mortal man.
Thus he’s obviously grateful for the chance to meet foreigners, who will more readily challenge and counsel him—even criticize him—and he’s lucky to have a large and unusually gifted family around him, two of whose members are incarnated lamas themselves. His younger brother Tenzin Choegyal lives down the road, and
Pragmatism, in short, trumps dogmatism. And logic defers to nothing. “Out of 5.7 million people,” he tells me one day, his eyes glittering with the delight of a student immersed in one of Tibet’s ritual debates, “the majority of them are certainly not believers. We can’t argue with them, tell them they should be believers. No! Impossible! And, realistically speaking, if the majority of humanity remains nonbelievers, it doesn’t matter. No problem! The problem is that the majority have lost, or ignore, the deeper human values—compassion, a sense of responsibility. That is our big concern. For whenever there is a society or community without deeper human values, then even one single human family cannot be a happy family.”
Then—and it isn’t hard to see the still-eager student playing his winning card—he goes on: “Even animals, from a Buddhist viewpoint, also have the potential of showing affection towards their own children, or their own babies—and also towards us. Dogs, cats, if we treat them nicely, openly, trustingly, they also respond. But without religion; they have no faith!” Therefore, he says triumphantly, kindness is more fundamental than belief.
Yet the deepest loss of all in the Dalai Lama’s often bright and blessing-filled life is that all the friends he’s made worldwide, all the presidents and prime ministers he’s won over, all the analytical reasoning with which he argues for compassion and responsibility have not really helped him at all in what is the main endeavor of his life: safeguarding the people of Tibet, and sustaining a Tibetan identity among a scattered population, six million of whom have not seen their leader for two generations, and the other 140,000 of whom have not, in many cases, seen their homeland. Many of those who see him flying across five continents in a year (in business class) and delivering lectures to sold-out halls don’t realize that he’s working with a staff drawn from a population smaller than that of Warren, Michigan, and with a circle of advisors who’d never seen the world, or known much about it, before they were propelled into exile.
Within the Tibetan community, he remains as lonely as ever, I think. His people still regard him, quite literally, as a god, with the result that even young Indian-born Tibetans who are fluent in English are too shy to offer their services as translators. And as fast as he tries to push democracy onto his people—urging them to contradict him and to make their own plans regardless of him—they push autocracy back onto him: most Tibetans believe everything the Dalai Lama says, except when he says that the Dalai Lama is fallible. None of this has been made easier by the fact that he is clearly his country’s main selling point, so that it can seem as if the destiny of a whole people rests on the shoulders of one decidedly mortal man.
Thus he’s obviously grateful for the chance to meet foreigners, who will more readily challenge and counsel him—even criticize him—and he’s lucky to have a large and unusually gifted family around him, two of whose members are incarnated lamas themselves. His younger brother Tenzin Choegyal lives down the road, and
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