Dalai Lama: Smart does not mean happy
The Dalai Lama spent yesterday in Cambridge; I covered his visit to Harvard, and my colleague Jim Smith covered his visit to MIT. Here's our dispatch, from today's Globe:
CAMBRIDGE - Arrayed before him were deans and doctors, professors and pupils, and the full range of scholars who populate the hallowed halls of Harvard.After the Dalai Lama slipped off his shoes, crammed his crossed legs into a too-narrow chair, and unceremoniously blew his nose, the world's most revered and honored Buddhist monk offered a bit of wisdom for the sages: Being smart doesn't make you happy.
During a day of high-minded events at Harvard and MIT, the 73-year-old spiritual leader repeatedly showed that he was not interested in the pomp of his surroundings.
When the crowd rose, in complete silence, as he entered Memorial Church, he said, abruptly and simply, "Sit down."
At a tree-planting in his honor in Harvard Yard, he made it clear this would not just be for show. He chastised the president of Harvard, Drew Gilpin Faust, for shoveling too little dirt on the birch sapling's roots, and once the dignitaries had done their thing, he grabbed his shovel and smoothed out the ground, and then took a plastic water bottle and liberally sprinkled its contents over the sun-drenched green leaves.
At Harvard, he flipped through a program while a group of Tibetan girls performed a dance for him; at MIT, as the Buddhist chaplain delivered closing remarks, the Dalai Lama busied himself putting on his slippers.
His day had two major events - a talk at Harvard about the importance of educating people to be compassionate, as well as intelligent, and a fund-raising event for a new institute in his name, the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values, at MIT.
At Memorial Church, after being welcomed by Tibetan dancers and musicians, the Dalai Lama posed a rhetorical question, "whether education, intelligence, can bring inner peace," and proceeded to conclude that it cannot. He joked about Harvard's reputation, saying: "Some of my friends in the East once told me Harvard is so famous, even just to walk in that place is something sacred. That is too much, I think. Foolish people, or silly people, can walk [through] easily."
At another point, he observed: "There are very smart scholars, professors . . . full of feelings of competition, full of jealousy, full of anger. . . . I don't mean disrespect."
He said, as he often does, that compassionate feelings appear to be a biological component of human beings - he cited the early connection between children and their mothers - and said those feelings need to be cultivated, not only by families, but also by schools.
He noted that Buddhist monks have weathered imprisonment in Chinese prisons with less apparent psychological damage than that experienced by veterans of the Iraq war, and said, "More compassionate persons, in spite of traumatic experiences, their mental state is still calm." And he attributed some youth violence to a lack of "compassion, or affection, in family, or society."
But he suggested that "Warm-heartedness" is difficult to teach.
"How to teach, I don't know," he said. "I often express these things. But how to implement, it's up to you."
At MIT, the Dalai Lama offered a mix of provocative ideas about promoting ethics in a secular society with banter and jokes that he chortled at himself.
After entering the nearly full Kresge Auditorium, where some guests had donated $1,250 or more for a pair of tickets, he kidded a Catholic monk in the front row that his head was less than perfectly shaved, unlike the Buddhist monks in the hall. Sitting cross-legged on a sofa, he recalled that he had visited a homeless shelter in San Francisco recently and told a man there that he, too, had suffered the same fate after going into exile in 1959. "I said, 'Me too, homeless.' "
His talk centered on how to achieve genuine compassion - not the kind that people easily muster for friends who share their views, but compassion for those they don't agree with.
The Dalai Lama also said the new ethics center should search for ways to help secular people build ethical values, arguing that most of the world's 6 billion people are nonbelievers who won't get ethics through religion.
He asked the Catholic monk whether secularism means rejection of religion, to which the monk replied, "that depends on your experience of secularism."
"Very wise answer," the Dalai Lama told him to laughter. "We need to promote secular ethics through education."
The Dalai Lama had some imaginative ideas for MIT scientists to work for peace.
"You could invent an injection for compassion," he said. "I would want that."
And maybe commerce could contribute: "You could have shops selling compassion. In a supermarket, you could buy compassion."
A student asked about ethics and the weapons industry. The Dalai Lama, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his nonviolent campaign for Tibetan rights, said he hoped this would be the century for global demilitarization.
But a good start, he said, would be for institutions like MIT to invent a bullet "that misses ordinary people but hits the decision makers," waving his arm in the path of a wiggling bullet to laughter and applause. "That kind of bullet needs to be developed. Wonderful."
(Photo above, by Mark Wilson of the Globe staff, shows the Dalai Lama at Memorial Church at Harvard on 4/30/09.)
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I love his ideas and love Tibet. Tibetan people are the best people in the world. I have been there for many times.
Is this guy scamming everybody. Every time I hear him speak or read quotes, he sounds like Mr. Rogers from PBS
What's wrong with sounding like Mr. Rogers?
silence- you sound like one of those smart people he is talking about.
I have read many blogs that have made me shake head but silence dogood has finally impelled me to retort for the first time-the quote "It is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
I have great respect for the Dalai Lama, and his contributions to the world. At the same time, I applaud the Globe for its honest reporting about the less than glamorous moments during the Dalai Lama's visit.
Reminding us that the Dalai Lama human like the rest of us is important, not because it takes him down a notch; because it shows how all of us are capable of creating profound change through extraordinary compassion, should we choose that path.
Mr Rogers has lightened the hearts and minds of so many millions of American children and put them on the road to making them good citizens. There is hardly any middle aged American who doesn't recall Mr Rogers fondly and who didn't grow up watching him on TV.
Well, we know where you are coming from....
Fred Rogers was a great man who spent his entire career, from college graduation to his death, finding ways to communicate important human values to children, first through radio, then through television. If you have a chance to get your hands on it, there is a fantastic documentary about his life that was originally broadcast on PBS. It might be available on tape or DVD somewhere.
I hope this center will make engineers understand the power they have to create and the tough choices they will face in their careers. So many engineers will use their knowledge to create weapons of mass destruction or weapons that randomly destroy innocent people using remote sensing technolgies. I agree if only we could create bullets that kill decision-makers. Wonderful!
And until then, the movie, Mindwalk should be mandatory for all engineers since it deals with the same subject. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindwalk
In the movie one of the characters states that she gave up her job as a physicist because, as she states, “I got tired of seeing my work fed to the U.S. Defense Department.” Most scientists would not opt out of the system as Sonia did. Is there a more realistic way for scientists to address concerns such as Sonia’s?
She also states that, as a physicist, she feels responsible for the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima – and more directly for the military uses of her own discoveries in physics. Jack responds that neither she nor other physicists were responsible for such consequences: “scientists are supposed to figure things out; its up to the rest of us to figure out what to do about it.” Is Jack right?
In defense of her view that scientists are responsible for the consequences of their discoveries, she notes that some Native American tribes made all of their important decisions with the seventh generation of their descendents in mind. This, she believes, is how scientists should think about their work, instead of simply as pure research. As with utilitarianism, doesn’t the Native American perspective fall prey to the problem of omniscience, namely, that we need to know a lot about how the future of the world would be affected by our various choices?
If you have the wisdom to see your true nature and manifest total compassion in your life -- not to mention have Tibetan as your native language -- you might sound like Mr. Rogers, too.
What a fraud! This monk was paid $180,000 yearly by the CIA to leave Lahsa voluntarily, in 1959, and lie about China. His two elder brothers are, were both paid CIA agents, as well. I don't know any homeless people who were paid thousands of dollars yearly to become homeless. How truely outrageous his speech is! Being smart does not guarantee happiness? Neither does the CIA!
Shame, shame, shame.
Selling water by the river!
You are all trolls. Thank you and goodnight.
I love the Catholic priest's response: "that depends on your experience of secularism." From a Buddhist perspective, "that depends" is the best and easiest way out of any question, but beyond this it also seems to suggest that secularism is ultimately unsatisfying, a very valid viewpoint shared by all the world's religions. Great response and great article!
The Dalai Lama...a great man of dignity and peace. But wait...isn't this the Articles of Faith blog??
Where is the usual vitriole about the evils of religion in the world in the same fashion as when Catholicism is mentioned here?? Where are you usual hatemongers clammering catagorically for religion being the enemy of reason, science, etc? Why aren't you same people decrying that Harvard shouldn't allow a religious leader even on its campus??
"Well, because Catholicism is corrupt and is totally different from Buddhism." Oh really, than why did the Dalai Lama and John Paul II collaborate on spiritual understandings of suffering and interreligious dialogue?
Don't believe me, check Amazon.
The Dalai Lama is quoted here as saying "How to teach, I don't know." I think the first lesson comes directly from Gandhi. " Be the change you seek." If you seek to be received as you are with all your strengths and weaknesses, receive others with theirs, including the Dalai Lama. We create heros, place them on pedestals, and expect them to rise above us. If they demonstrate fallibility we criticize them and criticism perpetuates. Then mutates into all manner of descending behavior. So, how to teach compassion? Be compassionate. One person at a time!
Compassion can be purchased in the form of MDMA....It's amazing that the government can make compassion illegal. There certainly wouldn't be as many pro-war people.
It's even better not to be a fool in the first place.
I almost wonder if His comment about buying compassion in a supermarket was a subtle dig at Western consumerist culture, I mean, how can one buy a concept or feeling? I'm sure once we find that out though, that you will see aisles of compassion at your local Walmart though... X-D
What an interesting and inspiring person. We can learn so much from him, whether we are religious or not. He speaks the truth, and therefore it resonates with you, no matter which religious/cultural/philosophical background you come from.
dogood......CLEAN YOUR ROOM!!!!!
What's wrong with decision makers?
They're people too.
Show some compassion! ; P
And the fabulous news is, none of it is personal!
#11. Kathy,
The American government funding back when Tibetans first fled to exile (now described as being CIA funding) was never a secret as far as the Tibetans were concerned. With those fundings, they build schools, hospitals and basic infrastructure that today, Tibetans are considered "most successful refugee" community in the world. Since the governments did not want to offend China, everything was put in the name of the Dalai Lama rather than the Tibetan government in exile (which no one recognized). So look at the facts.
It should be noted that the Dalai Lama does not charge any fees nor accepts any honorarium for any invitation he accepts. His instructions to the local organizers is not to raise any funds on his behalf or from events with his participation.
His message is to promote "Human Values" which he believes to be inherently good - "as a love of a mother to the child".
I, too, have great hope for the MIT Center.
To address comment 14 by noname:
Buddhist followers can be just as irrational as people of any religion, however, as a whole, Buddhism is about a journey inward, and eventually a journey outward. Buddhism is not about controlling the world making money and telling other people how to live their lives. Buddhists offer advice and insight and do not tell you that you are going to be tortured for eternity when you disagree with them. There is some disagreement, but generally Buddhists do not believe in the supernatural (some certainly do) and not all Buddhists believe in re-incarnation. Buddhism is not anymore "true" than any other religion, but as a whole it actually practices what they preach, unlike many of the Christian religions which preach love and compassion but then turn right around and tell nonbelievers that they will be tortured for eternity by the most perfect being in the universe.
the mind that perceives phenomena and dissects them apart from himself will never find peace whether a sage or the most uneducated moron
This respose is for Kathy, who said "What a fraud?" to His Holliness! Kathy, you have to really do some homework on what happend in 1959 in Tibet when you can accused His Holliness now without having to face any consequences to yourself for what you have said in this blog. If you have said now like this in China, you are DEAD by the communist government. Tibetans in Tibet are living under fear and torture without any BASIC human rights to even speak (just as what you have said in this blog). So, you should be happy and feel lucky that you are here and not in China. So before you say any words against His Holliness or Tibetan people, please do some more homework....
Buddhism is not a religion. It's a way of life. You can be a Jewish Buddhist or a Catholic Buddhist etc. There is no conflict.
Take what you can and what is useful to you from this great man, leave anything you don't like. His influence is exactly for good... nothing more or less.
Norn on Comment 25,
While your comment on Buddhism not being a religion certainly has some currency, your selectivity about other faiths "being about making money and telling peopel how to live their lives" is being selectively and speciously critical.
You think the Dalai Lama in decrying consumerism, anger, jealousy and to practice a wider, deeper compassion, he is somehow NOT preaching to people about how to live their lives?
All things, by the way, that Christianity espouses. You think that Christianity doesn't espouse a journey inward than outward? Augustine? Aquinas? Thomas Merton? Heck, Dante?
His visit shouldn't be 'glamourous'. That's not what the Dalai Lama is about.
Pls. do some home work and then comment. We have no time to read stupid comments. When Dalai Lama promotes Human value and compassion...pls start practising it and then see the result or growth of gross human happiness and peace.
I can understand some of the confusion of some of the negative comments that some of the people here have stated. His Holiness speaks from the point of view of truth and compassion. For the people who have never understood this concept, the only way to respond is by deception. In the book the art of war, they speak about deception as a means of progressing ones goals.
What some of these people don't realize that the foundation of success is based upon morality. His Holiness holds the moral ground in any and all discussions. Stop relying upon deception in your discussion about His Holiness. Nobel Peace Prize is not given to just anyone.
Namo His Holiness Dalai Lama
Namo His Holiness Dalai Lama
As far as I am concerned, Dalai Lama is a terrorist endorsed by the US government, who pursuaded him to fled Tibet so that the US could have the advantage in dealing with the communist China.
To those who had ignorantly murmured 'Namo His Holiness Dalai Lama' - too bad the HHDL is not likely to help you reach enlightenment. Buddha lies within, if you give away the power to another, you will never find it within. Besides the HHDL is such a fraud.
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