Alarm a Lama Lama Duck

On May 2 I got to see the Dalai Lama. Hosted at Gillette Stadium by the Tibetan Association of Boston, tickets were not difficult to come by, since we ordered them early. Our contingent consisted of four people from CIMC (Mark, Shea, Erin, and I) and three friends (Annie, Andrea, Nancy).

I got up at 5:30am on a Saturday in order to catch a bus over to Central Square to meet up. The weather was light rain, with more precip predicted before it cleared up late in the day, so I rigged for wet weather. However, by the time we met up at 7:30am, the rain had stopped, at least for the moment.

The drive down to Foxboro was uneventful until we got off the highway and joined a large line of cars headed to the stadium, following mobile signs indicating “Dalai Lama ------>”.

We parked and joined a long line waiting to get in; and the line was growing longer at a rate almost as fast as a person could walk! Soon enough, we got through security and onto the concourse, where a bunch of Tibetan-themed vendors were set up. One of the vendors spoke to us about how the Dalai Lama didn’t want to use the throne the Boston Tibetans had fabricated for him, preferring a simple chair.

But there the throne was, set up on a stage at the fifty yard line on one side of the field. VIPs were seated in a small section on the field itself, while most guests were seated in the stands opposite the stage. Our seats were in two groups, at opposite ends of the field, but within the first three rows.

We were running a bit late, so we missed a couple of the preliminary bits, but almost as soon as we were seated a huge entourage of dignitaries and security thugs passed through an ornately-decorated gateway onto the field, including His Holiness, who climbed up to the summit of the throne and offered anjali to the crowd.

Full Photo Set

After a few more preliminaries, including a speech by Congressman Bill Delahunt, His Holiness began a two-hour teaching on the foundations of Buddhism, including the Four Noble Truths, non-self, and dependent origination. For me, most of it was familiar, but there were several bits worth noting.

He asserted that while mankind has made a lot of progress caring for our bodies, we’ve spent very little effort in caring for the health of our minds. He talked a lot about the Buddhist concept of non-self, and equated that to the Xist concept of submission to God. He also asserted that anything that arises solely as a result of existing causes and conditions must itself be empty.

I found it refreshing and inspiring to be in the presence of a major religious leader who could talk confidently about the Big Bang, Darwinian evolution, and religious pluralism without any sense of contradiction. However, I couldn’t help but feel that he was, like so many others, unable to successfully communicate the value of Buddhist practice to the average American. It also was kind of ironic to see his image shown up on the stadium Jumbotron, surrounded by tacky advertisements for coffee, automobiles, and credit cards.

His much-lauded sense of humor was demonstrated when he used his monk’s robes to cover his head to protect himself from the raw morning breeze, then bullied his fellow monks on stage to do the same. Later, he laughed when using his gall bladder removal as an example, showing that everything is impermanent and subject to change.

One bit that tickled me was his use of the term “Definite Goodness” as a synonym for enlightenment, liberation, or Nirvana. He used it repeatedly to refer to a very specific concept, so apparently “Definite Goodness” is something I should be aiming for!

The morning ended with a voluntary Bodhicitta ceremony, which includes the Refuges in the Buddha, dharma, and sangha, plus the Bodhisattva vow to work for the enlightenment of all beings. This was to take the form of chanting three verses that appeared on the stadium Jumbotron. Unfortunately, the phrases cycled much faster than anyone could read them, and what should have been one of the most inspirationally moving parts of the day devolved into chaos thanks to the ineptitude of Gillette Stadium’s staff.

The lunch break was two hours long, and rather than fighting 15,000 people for stadium food, I spent that time studying the crowd. It was an odd mix of lifelong Buddhist monks, lay practitioners, Tibetan exiles of all ages, local luminaries, secular progressives interested in the battle for Tibetan freedom from China, and Joe the Plumbers who just wanted to say they’d seen this famous Lama guy everyone’s talking about. We even saw one punk kid wearing a tee shirt that said, in blackletter: Meditate and Destroy. Huh. Since the Dalai Lama draws such a diverse crowd, it must be incredibly difficult for him to formulate a speech that doesn’t bore or go over the heads of 40 percent of his audience.

An hour later, I went a grabbed a tiny lunch: two french fries and a bottled water for nine bucks. While waiting in line, I was amused by the anachronism of a robed monk walking around with his McDonald’s bag and drink.

By 2pm, the morning’s rain clouds had burned off, providing an auspiciously sunny day. The Dalai Lama returned for another two-hour talk. The ornate Tibetan throne had been retired and replaced with a simple chair, no doubt as a compromise between His Holiness and the local Tibetans. With the sun in his face, he wowed the crowd by putting on a bright red New England Patriots cap, which he wore for the rest of the day. He also used an umbrella as a sun shade for a time, and bullied his translator into taking off his suit jacket.

In the morning session, while talking in detail about the Buddhist tenets, he’d relied on his translator about half the time, but the afternoon session was almost entirely in English, since it was less technical and directed at a more general audience.

The afternoon centered around the idea that there is a set of common inner values underlying all religions: refrain from bad, and do good if you can. He also asserted that this must also be at the core of any secular set of ethical values. That allowed him to skilfully promote inner values equally well, whether the recipient of his message was Buddhist, Christian, agnostic, or atheist, without deriding any one of those paths toward those universal moral truths.

He also addressed the alienation of modern society by reminding us that man is by definition a social animal, and the importance of warmheartedness in cultivating connections and relationships with one another. One practice to undertake in order to promote this sense is to perceive the people around you as friends and comrades, rather than the more common daily assumption that you are surrounded by enemies.

After taking a few prepared questions, the day ended on the strange note of an accounting of the event’s attendance, revenue, costs, and profit, which will be used to establish a Tibetan Heritage Center in Boston. That completed, the retinue filed off the field, but not before a final wave goodbye from the 74 year old man, still wearing his Patriots cap.

Our crew regrouped in the parking lot to debrief. I discovered I had a mild sunburn on my newly-shaven skull. We then drove back to Cambridge, where some folks split off and the rest of us made our way over to Amber’s for movie night (Enlightenment Guaranteed), but that’s another story.

Overall, I’d say it was a very interesting day. While both a foreign head of state and the leader of one part of a major world religion, the Dalai Lama is also an eloquent speaker, a Buddhist scholar and monk, a refugee and leader of a people without a home, and a very humble person. It was enjoyable seeing each of those in him, and doubly so given his limited time left with us. His teachings were meaningful and of potentially great value to all the different types of people who attended. It was quite a day, and one I’m certain I will always treasure.