Wednesday, November 1, 2023

World's kids visit Dalai Lama in Himalayas

But you prefer us, your donors and supporters, right, Your Holiness? - Make me One with...

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Antisemite: "Someone Jews hate" (G. Atzmon)
We were curious, as we're sure many people are, where the Dalai Lama (the "pope-king" of Tibet in exile in the India's Himalayas, Dharamsala in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh) stands on the Israel-Palestine divide.

The Jewish JAO flag
He wouldn't take sides, certainly not against JuBus (Jewish Buddhists) and/or their symbols (and nothing is more symbolic than a state and homeland of their very own ever since they rejected that other state given to them, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Far East rather than the geopolitical Middle East).


Why do people hate us for being Jews? (AM)
It was a hippie dream kibbutz kind of commune vibe, but the CIA and MI5 didn't like it or back it: Jews were needed in the Middle East to be the spear point of American imperialism for the West's control of Islam and oil-rich lands). All we found is that "his holiness" back in 2018 had a conversation with the children of Woodstock. Not the good Woodstock of the 1960s, where a pack of hippie Jews held a really far out festival that became an iconic symbol of peace and hedonism. Then as now many Jews were Buddhists, or "Jewish only on their parents' side," like his interaction with Jews from USA and Israel.

With students from Woodstock School
The Dalai Lama addressing students from Woodstock School at the meeting room next to his office in Dharamsala, HP, India on October 11, 2018 (photo by Ven Tenzin Jamphel).
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(Oct. 11, 2018) High in the Himalayas, Thekchen Chöling, Dharamsala, HP, India - The happy chatter that filled the meeting room next to the Dalai Lama’s office fell silent when he walked into the room.

He scanned the faces of the students waiting for him. He smiled broadly, wished them “good morning,” and sat down.

[It's like going to see jolly Santa Claus]
The Dalai Lama loves to get a laugh.
There were 51 students belonging to Classes 11 and 12 from Woodstock School, visiting the Dalai Lama's Himalayan enclave (and government in exile) during their extracurricular “activity week.”

He first made friends with Woodstock School at the beginning of his life in exile, when the Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader lived in Mussoorie, the Indian hill station where the Woodstock School is based.

Are there any Palestinians here?
After asking how many Tibetans and Bhutanese there were in the group, he wanted to know where the rest of the children came from. The majority were Indian, but among a total of seven nationalities there were also students from Palestine, Syria, and [and formerly Buddhist now Muslim] Afghanistan.

Woodstock School student stands up to ask the Dalai Lama a question (Ven Tenzin Jamphel).
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He reported that he had just been talking to a group from Indonesia [home of the magnificent Borobudur Buddhist Temple] about how sad he feels to witness friction between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

To him it is unthinkable that people who worship the same Allah [God] and follow the same Quran [Koran or Islam's Bible] should fall out as they seem to do.

“However, I’ve never heard of such quarrels between Sunni and Shia adherents here in India,” he told them. “Indeed, India is unique in that all the world’s major religions, those indigenous to the country, as well as those that came from abroad, all live here happily together.

“India’s long-standing tradition of inter-religious harmony is exemplary, and now the time has come to share this practice with the rest of the world.”

Israeli Jews and Americans visit the Dalai Lama in his home in Himalayas

The first of several questions from the students concerned the Dalia Lama’s pastimes. “When I was a boy,” he replied with a laugh, “I used to enjoy taking things apart.

“I examined my toys and watches to see how they worked. I dismantled and reassembled a movie projector that had belonged to [my predecessor] the 13th Dalai Lama to make it work. Since I was young, I’ve also enjoyed growing plants.

“I grew beautiful tulips in the Norbulingka garden [the Jeweled Park around my palace] in Lhasa [the capital of my former Himalayan empire]. These days, however, as I get older, I have less interest in these things.”

Who decides what’s moral?
Always bring the Dalai Lama a gift.
Another student wanted to know who decides what’s moral. He told her that all the world’s major religions teach about love, compassion, tolerance, and self-discipline.

Some traditions, like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam [the Abrahamic faiths], believe in a creator God and regard us all as children of that God.

Other Indian [Dharmic] traditions like Jainism and Buddhism see beings themselves participating in creation, so responsibility for change rests on our shoulders.

“We should not let ourselves be dominated only by sensory awareness,” he advised, “we should also pay attention to mental consciousness, develop a single-pointed mind, and use it to analyze the nature of self and the nature of reality.

Karma: One day we'll learn. Until then...
“What we experience is the result of our own actions. If it brings joy, we regard what we’ve done as positive; if it leads to misery, we think of our action as negative.

“Just as we can’t say that one particular medicine is the best on all occasions, we cannot say that one religious tradition is best.

“We need our different traditions because of people’s different dispositions and therefore we need to treat all religious traditions with respect.

“Many problems we face we bring on ourselves because we are prey to destructive emotions. We tend to think in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’ with little sense of the oneness of humanity.

“And yet, climate change, for example, because it affects us all, means we have to take a more global view. We can’t neglect it. We are interdependent...” More
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