A Gift to Myself: A Spiritual Day with the Dalai Lama
The line was around the corner and down the road behind the Wang Theater when we arrived, apparently due to security checks and protesters who had a mantra all of their own…”False Dalai Lama – Stop Lying.”
Check out this short video and experience what happened outside the Wang Theatre.
As we waited in line to meet his Holiness, protesters handed us leaflets stating, “Dalai Lama, the worst dictator in this modern day.” They went on to say the Dalai Lama has falsely banned the worship of the enlighten deity called Dorje Shugden; he has forcefully removed all Tibetan Shugden practitioners from their own Tibetan communities; and he is continually performing various actions to expel all other Shugden practitioners from Buddhist communities throughout the world.
This private event with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama for his “Eight Verses of Mind Training,” along with a special transmission on Enlightenment Mind in Boston, was a 6 hour event with over 3500 attendees. The energy shift was truly amazing when his Holiness entered the stage. I experienced this amazing feeling of love and compassion in his presence.
His Holiness explained the ‘Eight Verses for Training the Mind,’ (http://www.dalailama.com/teachings/training-the-mind) which is the basic formula of the Buddhist path to enlightenment laid out as the Four Noble Truths. That description of suffering and its origin, cessation, and the path to it, are two sets of causes and effects – karma. Suffering arises as a result of causes and conditions. Cessation, which refers not to ordinary pleasure, but to lasting happiness, also comes about due to causes and conditions. The instructions contained in the Four Noble Truths are common to all schools of Buddhism.
The Heart Sutra says, ‘form is empty, emptiness is form,’ does that mean form or matter does not exist? His Holiness said, “No, because form is something we experience; it exists by way of dependent origination. When we investigate form, we don’t find it, because it doesn’t exist the way it appears; it’s empty of true existence. It exists only by way of dependent designation. Phenomena exist through dependent origination, form is empty.”
The Dalai Lama said that a more effective understanding could be achieved by substituting ourselves for phenomena, thinking, ‘I am empty, emptiness is me’. He said, “Emptiness and phenomena are not different things, they are aspects of the same reality,” and that there is, “a resemblance to the understanding of quantum physics.” I was thrilled to hear him say this because we now have scientific proof – science has caught up with spirituality.
We were then led by His Holiness in a ceremony to generate the awakening mind. When he mentioned the importance of putting this into practice in your day-to-day life over the coming months, years, decades and eons, in life after life, we starting applauding and laughing with him and his big belly laugh. He’s a funny guy. Meanwhile outside, crowds of Tibetans cheered His Holiness’ presence and prayed for his long life.
The Boston Police did a great job of keeping things in check. When I came out of the theatre one of the cops said to me. “Are you enlightened?” Another funny guy!
Apparently the protestors had been in full form for the whole day. Six hours…chanting their mantra and banging their drums.
I’m not a religious person myself…I’m a spiritualist who accepts all religions. I am truly grateful to have experienced this amazing event.
As I headed home via the T, I thought to myself, it doesn’t seem to matter what the religion, there is always disagreements, radicals, protestors and non-believers. If we can’t coexist within our own religious beliefs, will we ever have peace on earth?
An amazing day of enlightenment and spiritual healing.
