Post 19--Dalai Highlights

An Exotic Visit

 I started that letter to the editor of the GS (see previous post) with the statement that Vancouver is an interesting place and exciting.  How many cities in the world bring together such interesting people as the Buddhist Dalai Lama from Tibet, the Muslim female human rights activist Shirin Ebadi from Iran and the Christian apartheid foe Bishop Desmond Tutu from South Africa?  Three races, three nationalities, three religions, three Nobel prize winners and three gifts of God to this one world.  Then our city joined them to Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a Jew, and to Jo-Ann Archibald, a BC First Nations leader.  And all of that crowd moderated by our own Vancouver Michael Ingham, the most controversial, though now retired,  Anglican bishop in the world.  The menu just doesn’t get more exotic than that!  His current 2014 visit is equally exciting, even if, perhaps, not quite as exotic this time.

The Warm Heart   

 As exotic and different as the actors on the stage were, they dealt with a concept that is central to the main institutionalized religion in Vancouver, i.e., Christianity, namely the “warm heart.”  The warm heart was the Dalai’s main message, but, unfortunately, at that time he confessed not to know how to achieve it. It was still in the conceptual stage. I am not sure whether, between that earlier visit and the current one, he has come to any conclusions on the subject. However, it is important for peace that we learn how to develop the warm heart. It is its absence that has led to the violence and terrorism that marks our time. 

As I emphasized in my GS letter, especially Christian schools and churches continue to emphasize the need for a warm heart and how to achieve it. If dialogue is to be a major element during these visits, I am utterly surprised that this Christian recognition has not bubbled up to the surface in the discussion. At least the reports in the print media have been silent on this score.  

Mind-Body-Heart Connection

The Dalai’s visit was apparently the trigger that motivated a Vancouver-based company, Lululemon Athletica, to help fund research into the connection between mind, body and heart at the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education, also based in Vancouver. I think it a great gain if the research will end up showing a close connection between these three sides of human beings, a subject that has been avoided in the public school system but, again, since of old emphasized in Christian church and education.  Within the Christian community, it is especially the Reformed tradition that has given much prominence to that connection. Hence, if the Centre is really interested in both dialogue and that connection, she should turn to the Reformed community and its philosophers and explore its vision on the subject. Again, they are right here in Vancouver; you don’t have to go to the ends of the earth for it. At the same time, I would encourage leaders in the Reformed community to reach out in dialogue and share their insights, in the process hopefully also learn something from the Dalai’s side, since genuine dialogue implies mutual sharing. Come on, fellow Reformed guys and gals, let’s pay them a visit and get the dialogue rolling.

Multi-Culturalism
During this time of multi-culturalism, there is a lot of back and forth discussion during which participants take opposite sides. The popular side tends to emphasize differences between peoples living together, while the more academic prefers to major on the similarities. The Dalai sides with the latter. During his visit he affirmed that the similarities should be emphasized, rather than the difference.

The discussion is an example of the tendency of people always to choose opposite sides. Not only individuals choosing opposite sides from each other, but even one side being the dominant school of thought in a given period of time, let’s say for a decade, only then to reject that position for its opposite. Now that one becomes the reigning common sense or the politically correct. Human beings are like a pendulum, always swinging from one opposite to the other.

This tendency is not just a matter of innocent opinion or academic theory; it shapes politics, a point we must save for another day. But let me state my own take, which is that both similarities and differences must be acknowledged and embraced together, for that is reality. They both exist; neither can be wished away. Again, this will receive more attention in another blog—some day. 

Enough heavy stuff for the day. Good bye, Dalai Lama. Thanks for honouring us with your occasional visits. As you have moved on, so will we.