Lama Surya Das

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
~ Albert Einstein

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Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening
by Ken Wilber, Terry Patten, Adam Leonard, Marco Morelli

This is the best book yet to synthesize the work of Ken Wilber into a practical, accessible program. Plus, the lead writer is my great friend and soul brother, Terry Patten. Not to be missed.

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I find that Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the most inspiring of world leaders. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, daughter of one of Burma’s founding hero’s, leader of the pro-democracy movement in her country, nonviolent activist and a Buddhist meditator; Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Myanmar (formerly Burma), has been under house arrest for 13 out of the last 19 years under the draconian military junta ruling that backward country . Now she is being tried on trumped up charges for a minor incident of giving an American who swam across a lake to her waterside home under the cover of darkness shelter for one night. Learn about and support her cause and read her book “Freedom From Fear“. She is truly a light-bearing Bodhisattva (spiritual warrior, edifier and awakener).

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“It seems odd that we spend so much time in schools on such matters as simplifying radicals, learning about the War of 1812 and identifying the parts of speech and so little on the personal quest for meaning. “  –Noddings (1984)

I have been thinking and writing lately about what would constitute a truly Higher Education system — a wisdom-for-life leadership, learning, and empowerment process — which integrates ones upbringing, schooling, and life experience into a meaningful whole. Higher ed today seems to have become, for the most part, mere vocational training, although jobs in this economy are scarce and college graduates such as my goddaughter — Bowdoin College, 2009 — tell me they are pessimistic about going forth into this new world. I personally would rather learn more than earn more.

What philosophy class teaches us how to find ourselves? How to inquire and come to our own conclusions and eventual convictions regarding life’s Biggest Questions, such as how we shall live our lives, what is our true work, why we are here-where we come from — and where are we going (to quote Gauguin), who am I, how shall I love, what is Higher Power (however we may conceive of it), why bad things happen to good people, how to get my hands on the steering wheel of my life in order to attain happiness and fulfillment,  inner peace and well being, the end of existential anxiety?
Where can we learn and integrate these things today, in order to benefit ourselves as well as for the betterment of the world and to pass it on to future generations?

I think our current economic and sociopolitical crisis provides us with a real chink in the armor of complacency which has obscured American originality and imagination in past decades, leaving us in a learning moment for the genuine light to shine through. Let’s each together be part of that shining.

Lama Surya Das, Concord Mass. 2009

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This morning at our Meditation & Psychotherapy Conference in Boston, cosponsored by Harvard Medical School which included 1200 participants, the Dalai Lama of Tibet said:  “Something that seems impossible to alter and transform even in a 100 years can suddenly become very close to you and surprisingly change quite easily, since everything does change sooner or later– so
there’s always hope”.  “

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I was reflecting upon time, loss and death, the passing of the generations last week as I performed the Jewish unveiling ceremony for my recently deceased mother’s gravestone in our family plot in Long Island, New York, next to my father’s, aunts’ and uncles’, and grandparents’ too. All things pass. The good news is that, in our nuclear family at least, the generations pass in correct order, and parents don’t have to bury children and so forth. The bad news is that life is like a river and time its current, continuously moving on — forward , if you like, although it seems more cyclical to me personally, given the greater ecology of being, life cycles, species evolving — civilizations as well as families rising and falling, coalescing, flourishing, and disintegrating — fauna and flora and the like…
The psalmists of old, from the ancient books of Moses collected in the Old Testament and the Vedas and Upanishads of ancient India and the Taoists of China until the poets, bards, and rappers of today — all echo the same timeless, poignant music, our raw hearts and spoulful inner ears missing the whispering sounds of our deceased loved, the first music we ever heard and learned to love and love through — our parental voices — and the subliminal message ubiquitous within it all: survive, grow, evolve, endure, enjoy and appreciate, give thanks, live truly, spirit prevails.

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I’m excited about this O-naugeration today. In a year of little but bad news, this is a real ray of hope. I have been amazed at how, wherever I go around the country–and even in Europe and Japan, Nepal, and India, my usual beat–the young people are absolutely enthused, inspired, and increasingly engaged,  something I haven’t seen at this near fever pitch since the Sixties.  I’ve been surprised and delighted to see the number of young people—students, mostly—who’ve headed to D.C. for the big events this week. A number of my peers and colleagues have gone too. I’m meditating on this.

Obama is the perfect man for the job, today, here on these shores; he is centered as well as savvy, reflective and decisive both, inclusive yet knows where he stands. He knows how to ally and listen to excellent diverse helpmates and sage counselors.  But Oy yoy yoy!, what a pack of problems he’s inheriting! He can and will accomplish a lot, I’m sure, along with his diverse team of allies.

Hope and expectation run high. Yet after all is said and begun, Barak Obama is a mere human and not divine. No one man or team can do much in effecting significant long-lasting and socioeconomic  progress without changing the political system, with its entrenched partisanship, vested self-interests,  lobbies and corporatocracy. This is a time for change and optimism, yes, and also for us all to step up and actively participate: become better informed and more thoughtful, take responsibility for the dire state of our world– and be the leaders we want to see in the world, making a genuine difference by contributing in any number of ways.

We’re all in the same boat, friends. We all rise and fall, sink or swim together. If we don’t pull together we’ll continue to fall apart.

Lama Surya Das
Dzogchen Center
Inauguration Day
Tuesday. January 20, 2009

P.S. It sure is nice and warm here in Laguna Beach, after frigid months at home in Cambridge. i went to a cool Onaugeration benefit gala (black tie) last nite, and hundreds of Laguna’s and Orange County’s finest (Dems) were there. One emcee joke was that “this is all the Dems in Orange County”. You know how republican O C is  reputed to be. I met one of the late great Saturday Night Live stars Gilda Radner’s best friends, and she was a hoot.
I borrowed black tie from Doctor Robin’s 84 yr old Dad, who said: “Last time I wore this was in the late Eighties, to the palace of my old friend (from American Air Force stationed near Delhi days of late WW II), the Maharaja of Jaipur. He was my bridge partner and used to take me tiger hunting and elephant riding too. A great guy, Harvard educated. You might need suspenders.”

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Last night I was looking through one of my favorite old books, Leo Tolstoy’s last major work, called “A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul”. Count Tolstoy, the great novelist and utopian thinker and community builder, spent fifteen years compiling it, beginning in the early years of the first decade of the twentieth century.

For January 1, to begin his tome, we find Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Better to know a few things which are good and necessary than many things which are useless and mediocre.” The book is filled with what Count Tolstoy intended to be “collected wisdom of the centuries in one book: a wise thought for every day of the year, from the greatest philosophers of all times and all people, about the Good Way of Life”.

Interestingly enough, the entire last page — the seven entries for December 31 — are about time — time, eternity, and the present moment. My favorite, culled from the Jewish wisdom scripture known as The Talmud, says: “‘Time passes by!’ we say. Time does not exist; only we move.”

Life is like a river.
Or maybe it’s not...

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Listen to Lama Surya Das talk about his book, Buddha Is As Buddha Does; The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living in an interview with Paul “Paulo” O’Brien of Portland, Oregon’s KBOO Radio.

The podcast is from a regular program entitled Pathways and is posted at the Divination Foundation website

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The Dalai Lama of Tibet is in the USA these days, speaking at universities and teaching publicly at venues including Radio City Music Hall in New York City. “Human intelligence is something of great potential,” he told a rapt audience of several thousand at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. “Education opens that potential, so it’s extremely important. Now I really like today’s three words: listen, learn, love.”

His hearty message is always one of peace and harmony, tolerance and reconciliation coupled with a constant call for and commitment for human rights and universal responsibility for our human family as well as the environment and all species. The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1989) often counsels us that, “This century must be an era of dialogue rather than of bloodshed. War is an outmoded form of conflict resolution.”

Although he is learned philosopher and a doctor of divinity, as well as a disciplined lifelong monk and meditation master, His Holiness is sharing personally his own feelings and pleasures. During a short question and answer session after one of his talks at University of Wisconsin in Madison, when asked what the source of his strength was in the face of trouble; his honest and straight-forward answer of “Good food, good sleep,” was met with many laughs and applause. This simple sense of humor was present throughout his entire speech, with several light- hearted remarks and playful gestures punctuating the two-hour-long session.

In NYC when asked what makes him happiest, the Dalai Lama replied: “Oh I don’t know (laughs), yes, I know, talking to you people, talking and talking bla bla bla bla bla!” People there just fell out laughing with him.

I think the moral of this story is that finding inner peace and the wealth of contentment makes one wise and happy, far beyond external conditions and circumstances. This is the joy of authentic inner spiritual being.

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