Then Americans in recent time, at the dawn of the third millennium, according to the Western calendar, I jumped in instinctively and a little incoherently; not even Americans, the dominant people of the modern era, can avoid the curse to grow into a mighty power and then to go around the world destroying and killing other people. Since my youth, I have believed that Americans would lead the world toward peace and happiness because they consist of all of us, all peoples of the world. But instead they use the most modern weapons against people everywhere. In today’s world they do not have a rival, so it would be most natural for them to offer the world recipes for peace and happiness, not for war and hatred. In their fight against other people only they have used the most terrible weapon of mass destruction – the atomic bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And those bombs were not directed at military targets but at civilians. They, like those before them, try to decorate their warmongering with the aura of a humanitarian mission and the attainment of happiness for other people, but they mercilessly kill around the world. Now, when civilization is entering the third millennium, the Americans, with their vaccines for happiness and peace for all, block United Nations’ resolutions aimed at preventing the militarization of the universe so that they can place their weapons of mass destruction above the Earth. Is it, asks Noam Chomsky, because through the doctrine of hegemony over our planet, they want to ensure their survival? In his powerful nation Bush Junior has even succeeded in institutionalizing the perpetual right of the United States to militarily eliminate any challenge in the world directed against American global hegemony. Bush’s modern pirates went to Iraq with a mighty military power to plunder its riches and to secure dominance in that part of the world for the sake of profit and energy resources. For this purpose they lied to their own people and to the rest of the world that they were against terrorism and against weapons of mass destruction. Very similar to Slobodan Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia.
I realized that I had been ranting, but felt the Dalai Lama was satisfied. And he was so direct in replying:
dalai lama: I would like to embed in the human spirit automatisms for being good to other people, a mechanism to oppose bad leaders, regardless whether people chose them freely or were forced to accept them. The human mind can do that if each individual thinks about it and gives it precedence over petty selfish interests. People can choose the good and reject the evil if they want.
I had something to add. In general, human society through history has abounded in revolutions. Its development has not been organic, but revolutionary. When a system swells and stretches its coating to the maximum, an explosion ensues that destroys interactions and creates the conditions for a new system on a different foundation.
dalai lama: But those revolutions are only in the material world: economical, technological and social phenomena. The real revolution of human society results from the changes within the human spirit. If people could really understand that each man’s task is to take care of the happiness of others, and if each individual would behave in such a manner, it would create a genuine feeling that each man is useful and welcome. Instead of hatred and fear for survival, human society should cherish a good heart in people. When each individual considers all human beings equal to him/her, and recognizes their desire for happiness and their right to it, he/she will automatically feel sympathy for and closeness to others. We have to learn to work not only for ourselves and our families or nations but also for the well-being of all others. Universal responsibility is the best foundation for the happiness of each individual and for peace in human society.
I tried to follow the Dalai Lama’s thoughts. Does that mean the lack of spiritual revolutions leaves individuals at the mercy of material revolutions, that it constantly forces them into the struggle for survival in which all people are the same? The basic problem of civilization so far has been the insecurity of the individual. That state of human spirit leads man to losing faith in himself, so a person’s mind starts craving for a leader and defender and reaching for God
dalai lama: In the past religion and morality were closer. Nowadays many people believe that science defies religion and lessens the human need for God. I think that science illuminates the path for people, but it does not reduce human fear. If all religions were now to disappear, human society would find itself in chaos. If each human being had his/her own philosophy, if there were no generally accepted beliefs and moral norms, chaos would be inevitable.
Does it mean that religions are indispensable in human society and that without these systems of beliefs there would be no happiness and security?
dalai lama: Although I am a high priest of one religion, I think that it does not matter very much whether a person is religious or not. It is more important to be a good man. I am first a Tibetan and then the Dalai Lama, and I am first a human being and then a Tibetan. As the Dalai Lama, I have a special responsibility for Tibetans, and as a human being, I have a much bigger responsibility for the entire human family where we all belong.
If we all were thinking like that, there would not be hatred and killing in those sanctuaries down there. We could say that we were the progeny of God’s creation. But, as it looks now, it seems that the Bosnian Heretics were right when they said that Satan had created men.
dalai lama: People are people. It is not important what we think about who created people. What make us unique in the living world on Earth is our mind and feelings. We do not have to accept religion as a source of morality, but there must be some means that would teach people the difference between the good and the bad, the honest and the immoral, and that would show what stimulates a positive and what a negative attitude. For the human race, it is essential that we know that the aggression toward others is wrong exactly because every human being wants to be happy and to avoid suffering. We all desire a good life, but it does not only mean to have good food, clothes and protection. That is not enough. We need good motivations: compassion without dogmatism, without a complicated philosophy; a simple understanding that other people are our brothers and sisters, and a sincere respect for their rights and human dignity.
A high percentage of people belong to one of the religions. All great religions of our civilization emphasize that the foundation of human existence is peace. However, people, those religious people, have been raising arms against each other, now as in the past, and have been killing each other. I like Erasmus of Rotterdam’s words about war: “War is such a cruel thing that it suits wild beasts better than people; such mindlessness that poets imagine it came from the Furies; such a plague that it leads to a general corruption of customs; such injustice that it could be waged only by the worst bandits; and such a godless affair that it has nothing in common with Christ and his teaching.”
dalai lama: I know, and I am a leader of one of the world’s great religions. People have been praying to God for thousands of years, and haven’t come closer to peace even for one smallest unit of time; on the contrary, sometimes high religious priests take a lead in waging wars, regardless of how contrary that is to the basic laws of their religion. Because people are like that. There hasn’t been a great spiritual progress in human society. We all need peace. But we need an honest peace based on mutual confidence and the realization of the truth that we, brothers and sisters, need to live together, without attempts to destroy each other. And also when a nation or a society is different from another one, there is no alternative but to live with one another. And it is much better to live together in happiness. People will always have different views and interests, but the only intelligent way to negotiate interests and different views is real dialogue. Promoting the culture of dialogue and non-violence for the future is the fundamental revolution in our civilization. World peace depends on the peace in people’s hearts. War is like fire where people serve as fuel. One example is the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. We could see how a relatively minor quarrel quickly set the whole region on fire. That
is because people have failed to learn that the nature of war is cold cruelty and suffering … Yes! Very sad is the truth that religions have been the major source of conflict in human history. It is like that in our time too. Religious fanaticism and hatred leave behind killed people, destroyed communities, and destabilized societies. How to prevent that? It seems banal, but religious institutions need to retreat from political institutions and to occupy themselves with instilling spiritual values in people such as LOVE, COMPASSION, PATIENCE, TOLERANCE, FORGIVENESS, and HUMBLENESS. That will certainly help people to become good human beings.
The Dalai Lama had enclosed his thoughts in a circle of happiness, whispering not ten new commandments but comments on how people can enhance their spirit. I was not in the mood for comparing the whisper of the Buddhist monk with the commandments revealed to Moses. They were spoken in different times, at different stages of the development of human society, but are very similar. Why did the Dalai Lama speak like that at the dawn of the third millennium? For a couple of thousand years, between Moses and this 14th Dalai Lama, have people not learned to respect the Biblical God’s commandments? Why is a Buddhist monk on the sacred mountain fighting for a spiritual revolution of human society? For the same goal our God’s commandments have had? Instinctively I looked at the monk’s face and discovered a trace of uneasiness in his gracious eyes. I supposed that he had had enough of the conversation with me and that I somewhat tired and bothered him, and involuntarily I let a protest slip my tongue:
It is easy for you, having grown up on your heights, on those unreachable heights of the Himalayas. From there you have been giving advice to the rest of the world. You are like Moses, who climbed Mount Sinai and gave advice to the Israelis. And you have climbed the much greater heights of the Himalayas and have given advice to the whole world. It is easy for you because those in your south have given you a spiritual joy, and those in your north a strange patience from the past. It is easy because they entrusted you with the symbols of the good that adhere to the reincarnations of Chenrezig, heavy with gold and wisdom. It is easy for you, Dalai Lama, because you are not troubled by the question why the boats from the heights of the Andes, with the mystical descendents of the alien Oryana, have chosen to come to your Tibetan slopes of God’s mountains. Because on your back you do not carry the Balkans’ unhappy triangle, where the square on the hypotenuse is not equal to the sum of the squares on the two shorter sides, or simply: What if man has profaned the spirit woven into the gardens of his body?
I did not notice when a cloud above our heads descended between us. I had a thought that maybe it wasn’t the Dalai Lama I had been talking to; that I had been in some state between a dream and rapture, and that somebody much more powerful then a human being had entwined with my mind. Was it the ghost of Erasmus who had arranged my meeting with the Buddhist monk? Or was it somebody who did not care about our individual happiness or unhappiness that much but was interested in global questions about the human race; somebody who must have used a carriage beyond the reach of my eyes to land on that dry mountain top; somebody from some other world without the hatred among the beings on top of the life-ladder on Earth; or somebody who had come to check how Oryana’s descendents behave on this planet? But the voice of the Dalai Lama rippled the cloud between us, and I heard his parting words:
dalai lama: Man was given a mind to use: a mind of special quality. Creative and inexhaustible. The mind should dominate over man’s passions and prevent the mistreatment of others, especially when it brings evil onto other people. That is my true religion. In that sense, there is no need for a temple, a synagogue, a mosque or a church. There is no need for a complicated philosophy, a doctrine, or a dogma. Our very heart and our mind are the temple … The doctrine is compassion, love for thy neighbors, and respect for their rights and dignity regardless of who and what they are. Yes! That is what we need. As long as we practise this doctrine in our daily lives, regardless of whether we are learned or not, whether we believe in Buddha or God or follow some other type of religion or no religion at all, as long as we feel compassion and responsibility for others, no doubt we will be happy. In that case we would not need the verses: Do not say people deserve war / whence came such a grotesque idea?
The last words of the monk sounded like the shriek of an eagle. Instinctively, I lifted my head towards the sky and saw him circling up high. Truly, he was shrieking as if to warn us of something. When I returned my gaze to the speaker, he was not there anymore. Even the cloudlet that had been between us had moved to the side where the path to Jerusalem and Gaza led. I was surprised at his disappearance. Even annoyed. I hadn’t succeeded in finishing the conversation the way I had imagined at the moment I met the Dalai Lama. I wanted to provoke him to tell me if he was worried about humankind at the awakening of the third millennium. If he was worried that the biggest military power shamelessly marches in front of the Statue of Liberty because the leaders of America have turned it from the world’s hope into the world’s fear and into one of the world’s most hated nations. I wanted to confront him more seriously with Chomsky and his warning of the danger of unbridled imperialism. I wanted to ask him if he was afraid of the superpower in the hands of a sick and greedy mind and of a profit-blinded democracy. What has happened to the human spirit? Is the hope in a spiritual revolution of civilization self-deception? And how is it possible to achieve a balance between reason and passion? According to ancient legends, Jupiter is to blame. He gave man twenty-three parts of passion and only one of reason. If such is the disproportion between the material and the spiritual, then is it realistic to expect a spiritual revolution to lead humans to lasting happiness? Thus, without the Dalai Lama, on top of sacred Mount Sinai, I am left with my poems only. Hatred, like a terrible disease of the human psyche, is more devastating for the human race and life on Earth than all natural cataclysms, even more than the fluorescent teaching of Stephen Hawking that the universe came about in the beginning of time and will disappear in its end.
I SING IN THE RAIN
I sing in the rain
And do not mind that it never ends,
Streets are soaked in water born from the sea.
To me this rain is still warm from yesterday’s sun.
Through the tiny drops of rain I travel toward that sun.
Yes, I am happy!
My song climbs the arc of raindrops
Before they hit the watery streets.
In the fear-soaked moments
Up along the slant of their fall my clouded song
Finds in that stormy cloud
A glittering crack to the blueness of the sky
Bathed in sunshine.
Yes, I am happy!
I sing
And rain is dripping on my glasses
And the warmth of my eyes fogs the thick lenses.
Along my wet forehead wrinkles
Ridged with the past
Ripple,
But my gaze
Wins its battle with myopia
And through the foggy glass flows up
To the sun riding above the rain.
Yes, I am happy!
I sing that happiness is not a stifled candle,
Its life fading in the flame,
That gives light only so long as the flame burns.
Onto my happiness they wanted to shackle the past,
The stone biography of memory.
But happiness scaled the elevator shaft of their schemes
And poured down the paths of my gaze filling my eyes,
Like Phoenix born from cinders
Scattered over the sea.
To me the song is Cousteau’s barque
And carries me through each new life it sings.
MOMENTS FOR LOVE
They’d awaken him with a fragrance of garden roses,
Bringing memories of childhood
Under the window of his granny Persa.
The agony in the hallway of General Hospital …
Vancouver brushes up for the Olympics.
The Liberals compose the anthem!
Bato shuts both of his eyes.
Through the clenched teeth of his struggle for life
The verses of George Payerle rustle:
It is enough
Neither for the beginning nor for the end.
He isn’t glad of the end.
The beginning was closer to his feeling for life.
He reminds me of a Gypsy song
In the smoke-filled inn of my sentimentality:
Let us not rush toward Balkan fields of red peony,
Toward the unknown beyond our grasp.
The beginnings are permeated with hope,
The endings with desperation.
His struggles were Odysseus’s dilemma:
Footprints Page 8