Lama Surya Das in Seattle, January 2012
Blesseatitudes
Holiday Prayers & Wishes from Lama Surya Das
Winter Solstice, December 2011
[dropcap]Blessed are the flexible[/dropcap], for they shall not get bent out of shape.
Blessed are the patient, for they shall be waited on and attended to.
Blessed are the generous, for they shall receive abundantly.
Blessed are the grateful, for their life shall always be bountiful.
Blessed are the wise, for they know not in excess.
Blessed are the lovers, for love is theirs for the asking.
Blessed are the healers, for their world and they too shall be healed and well.
Blessed are those who listen, for they shall be heard and understood.
Blessed are those who choose to be kind rather than right, for they shall have long-lasting beautiful relationships.
Blessed are those mates who have made two lives as one.
Blessed are the open-minded and warmhearted, for they shall receive all they need.
Blessed are the learners, for they shall be edified and fulfilled.
Blessed are those who know how to receive as well as to give, for inexhaustible richness is theirs.
Blessed are the goodhearted, for they shall live long and harmoniously.
Blessed are the curious, for wonderment is theirs.
Blessed are the awakeful, for they shall see things as they are.
Blessed are those who don’t know it all, for they shall discover truth through doubt and inquiry.
Blessed are those without many expectations and appointments, for they shall not be disappointed.
Blessed are the content, for they have arrived and shall be completed.
Blessed are the underdogs, for their loyalty and purity shall be rewarded in all walks of life.
Blessed are those who need little for they shall find simplicity and ease.
Blessed are the forthright, for they shall right the world and speak truth to power in love.
Blessed are the altruists, for they shall usher in the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the leaders who inculcate leadership instead of followership.
Blessed are the servants, for they shall be served and attended to.
Blessed are the pray-ers, for life is fragile, fleeting, precious and needs to be handled with prayer.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall find peace and well being.
Blessed are the joyful for joy and happiness is theirs.
Blessed are the co-meditators, for they shall arrive together.
Blessed are the first rays of the morning, for they bring the gift of awakening.
Blessed are those who notice, for they shall find small delights around every corner.
Blessed is the reader who brings the writer’s creativity alive.
Blessed are the first light rays of each morning, for they convey the gift of awakening.
Blessed is this life we share together; handle with prayer!
Blessed be.
Blessed is.
Blessed does.
Words Of Wisdom From His Holiness the Dalai Lama
“Today the human soul asks the question: What can I do to preserve the
beauty and wonder of our world and to eliminate the anger and hatred and
inequality that inevitably causes it— in that part of the world which I touch?
What can you do TODAY, this very moment?”
— The Dalai Lama, Sept. 11, 2001
My Washington Post On Faith Article
On Faith, the Washington Post’s religion website (http://www.washingtonpost.com/onfaith) invited me, along with a diverse group of the country’s most prominent religious leaders, to reflect on the spiritual impact of 9/11, and share what we have learned about religion in the past ten years. 
REMEMBER TO REMEMBER
by Lama Surya Das
A wise Zen master once gave his meditation students the almost unanswerable koan, or existential riddle: “What is the most important thing?”
September 11, 2001 was such a Zen teaching moment, a fit koan for our time. As Americans sought answers and spiritual solace, church attendance across the country rose notably in the months following this national tragedy. That was a good thing, as questioning is the gateway to wisdom. But, ten years later, have we been asking the right questions? How many of those seekers actually became finders?
On that terrible day, when the buildings and airplanes – and our hearts — sheared open, we were offered an unprecedented moment of intimacy, of a new, shared vulnerability. Our mutual confusion and grief during those intensely felt days of shock created powerful solidarity and empathy.
We realized how interconnected and interdependent we all are, both at home and abroad. This is how heartbreak can evolve into openheartedness, how we can gain through loss.
Unfortunately, those moments of openness and vulnerability passed all too quickly. America seemed more humiliated than humbled. It was soon apparent that we, as a nation, lost little of our hubris and sense of exclusionism. Instead of identifying more closely with those, globally, who have suffered similarly, we fell once more into old habits: working hard and shopping, hurrying and complaining, competing and arguing in our partisan and self-centered dogmatic ways. As we sought desperately to regain our footing and sense of security, both outer and inner, in this new world, fear and anxiety replaced openness, caring, kindness and curiosity.
As a teacher and mentor, over the decades I’ve learned to recognize extraordinary learning opportunities like 9-11. They leave plenty to build upon, so long as we maintain our clarity and goodhearted aspirations. And 9-11 was a wakeup call, above all.
The world has changed since then, but I’m not sure we have. The word religion originally comes from the idea “to unite”. Yet today, religious beliefs have become a divisive and even belligerent force in our turbulent world. I feel quite certain that this is not what the original founders and prophets, sages and saints intended! I see little evidence that we’ve learned much that is useful about religion and spirituality since 9-11. Many of us have learned a little more about Islam and that the word itself means peace, something many of us long for. But we still have much to learn about tolerance, and how to meaningfully integrate true spirituality into our daily lives.
Until recently, American wealth, power and prestige – providing us with a false sense of progress and security —grew by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, countless others in foreign lands suffered from terrorism as hideous as our experience of 9-11. The Dalai Lama has dubbed this recent period “a century of bloodshed” while calling repeatedly for “a new century and era of dialogue”. Worldwide, others still face genocide and ethnic cleansing, war, poverty, hunger, epidemics, and environmental degradation.
We need to keep our hearts open, not only to one another, but to those far away from us, those who practice different faiths. This is the Diamond Rule.
Since September 11th, we’ve also learned that vast numbers of people adhering to other religions face their own internal struggles between extreme and moderate believers. They, too, struggle with modernity, science, reason and faith, and have their own brands of courage, and faith. We still know very little about other peoples and their beliefs – and 9/11 showed us the costs of that ignorance. Nor has our marginal newfound interest in global religion and cultures genuinely refined and deepened our grasp of the essence of transformative spirituality inherent in them all. We have not yet learned to turn the spotlight, the searchlight, inward, to help redress the imbalances caused in us, individually and collectively, by our extreme materialism, relentless outward orientation and lack of genuine self-knowledge.
Extraordinary learning opportunities like 9-11 aren’t always appreciated for their lessons. But we have plenty to build upon if we remember that original clarity of ten years ago, that extraordinary initial burst of empathy, cooperation, resilience, and our shared hopes for peace.
I believe we need to see the light, the divine, the buddhaness in everyone and everything, day-to-day and moment-to-moment.
We must ask ourselves what kind of people we really want to be. What sort of world will we create and leave for our children and the generations to follow? One important lesson of 9-11: it’s now or never. This is our time, our moment, to remember this timeless verity and act upon it.
How to extract meaning from memory? What is worth enshrining and memorializing in monument, verse and song? We Americans, hell-bent on deciding what to do, often forget why we do it, although intention is crucial. As global citizens we can and must choose to live mindfully and consider the implications and origins of all our actions: words, thoughts and deeds. It’s easy to mistake mere action for meaningful purpose and an authentic commitment to changing our ways. It is essential for our well-being and others that we forgive and remember, become better listeners, and learn the lessons.
Let’s use this weekend’s many memorial services as opportunities to awaken and open ourselves, to deepen and re-connect with one another, to reunite, to re-empower ourselves — and our good hearts.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”- Mohandas Gandhi
Note: Lama Surya Das will be in Washington D.C. on September 10 & 11 at the BuddhaFest 9.11 Remembrance: A Weekend of Peace, Compassion and Forgiveness, where he will join other prominent teachers in sharing his wisdom and compassion. For more information about the BuddhaFest 9.11 event please visit www.buddhafest.org.
How I Got Started In The Happiness Biz
Recently I was asked how I became involved in the happiness field, and what motivates me to help others. Although my memory can be taxing at times, I had no difficulty digging deeply into the begginings of it all. Here is my answer: Like most people, especially Baby Boomers—moi grew up to the tune of a song I call “What About Me?” by the Inner Voices. I probably got involved in the happiness field when my mother’s water broke, or even before, to begin my journey into the floating dewdrop sphere of this oh so sweet yet dream-like world. When my umbilicus was cut, it severed forever- or shouldn’t I say, more truthfully, severed temporarily— the oneness I no doubt experienced in the warm oceanly bliss of my mother’s amniotic fluid. AndI entered squalling and squirming, a feeling I can still relate to— though I definitely feel less afflicted by such basic angst today.
School and teen years were no less trying, punctuated by exquisite fits of joy; internally, resources began to gather in me to cope better with them, albeit for the most part only semi-consciously. Sports and a band of good guys helped a lot to bond and put me together as I grew up and became more intact and cohesive, as well as to push and pummel me into man-shape—for men are not born but made, to parse a saying. My father was a mensch. My sixth grade teacher helped, too. My college roommate became my best lifelong friend and compadre, even though we didn’t see each other for over fifteen years while I was in The East. My first real teacher & mentor was a radical professor in college, who lit my lamp and also started me writing. I never looked back. The Muses began to commune with me, and vice versa. I went beyond thinking it’s all one, and learned it’s not what happens to you but what you make of it that makes all the difference, a lesson that has helped raise my happiness quotient and sense of autonomy all my adult life. Lovely, generous girls and goodhearted women also became my teachers; I was an avid learner. When my nineteen year old college freshman friend Alison Krause was shot and killed on her own campus, Kent State, in May 4, 1970 by the Ohio National Guard, I had a rough awakening. It led me to conclude that fighting for peace via radical politics was a contradiction in terms, and I wanted to become peace and be peaceful. I discovered Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and the Dalai Lama. This realization led me to push past the Gestalt psychology workshops, creative writing and poetry classes, dream-journaling, consciousness expansion experiments and Zen meditation I’d started learning in college, morphing into increasingly serious Buddhist study and meditation practice. In mid-late 1971 I rebooted and began all this in earnest, including many ten day and longer silent intensive meditation retreats, India-ashram-living, various kinds of yoga practice, fasting, and living with my gurus in the Himalayas. These were halcyon days, guiding my path to the mindful life I now lead and strive to co-create with interested parties. I spent most of the Seventies and Eighties in The East, happy as a clam, seeking the inner peace and harmony, joyous love and fulfillment that the timeless wisdom traditions promised and occasionally seemed to actually produce. Happy, that is, except when challenged by a myriad of illnesses not uncommon to visiting aliens, and encountering first-hand birth and death in the raw while working in Tibetan refugee camps. I apprenticed for years and decades in India and Nepal under several living enlightened masters who seemed to exemplify and embody everything the mystics and sages throughout the ages spoke of and sang out. During the nine years I spent meditating in a cloistered Tibetan monastery retreat center, and undergoing lama training, I realized the secret reality that my guru’s great heart and radiant Buddha-mind and mine were one and the same. I found what I was searching for. In this close community I eventually came to understand that everyone wants and needs more or less the same things, suffers similarly at the hands of inner ignorance and similar afflictions— greed, hatred, fear, jealousy, pride and denial—and that at heart we are all united in such a way. I learned to love even those I didn’t like, and that the dichotomies of personality-based liking and disliking, on one hand, cannot hold a candle to big love on the other. This has served me well in life. I saw God, and the god, the Buddha, in me and it was good. I found the holy same in others as well. In 1989 I was asked to teach and lead meditation retreats, first in Europe and then in America, along with my Tibetan Dzogchen teachers. I wanted more than anything to lift us all up together and be a healing and helping force for awakening discerning wisdom and warm, empathic, loving-kindness and compassion in this beautiful but benighted, turbulent and endangered world. I gave myself and my life to this altruistic purpose and Bodhisattva mission. Contentment is the ultimate form of wealth— being there while getting there, every single step of the way. When I recognize myself in others and others in myself, who could I harm, exploit, not empathize with and be moved to help? I know we can’t do this great and destined happiness project without each other. My work for happiness, peace, harmony, and spiritual enlightenment reaches, I hope, all the way down to the authentic internal realization that everything we seek and need is available, is within. And that if and when we learn to look deeper and more incisively into the nature of things, including ourselves— turning the spotlight, the searchlight, inwards—each of us can definitely reach true satisfaction, fulfillment, meaning and purpose, bliss and delight through the life we are genuinely meant to live and enjoy. One winter in the early Seventies in Bodh Gaya, India, where the Buddha had sat beneath a tree and became enlightened, I heard the Dalai Lama himself say, “The purpose of life is to be happy.”
Joyous Reunions
HH the 17th Karmapa
Yangsi Kalu Rinpoche
I just want to share with you the joy and blessings of seeing the reincarnations of my root gurus His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa and the Venerable Kalu Rinpoche on their return to the United States this summer, teaching here and on the West Coast. They are known now as HH the Seventeenth Karmapa and Yangsi Kalu Rinpoche.
WORDS OF WISDOM
Lama Surya Das’ WEEKLY WORDS OF WISDOM
“Here is the essence of meditation practice and letting go, which implies letting come and go— letting be. Catching yourself before things catch you. I try to remember that I am the cause of all of my suffering, due to the habits and conditioning of my own mind; for it’s not what happens but what you make of it that makes all the difference.”
My Latest Article for The Huffington Post
Posted July 19, 2011
Empowering Our Nation: The Importance of the 2011 Kalachakra for World Peace
Last week I sat in front of the Dalai Lama of Tibet at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., where he was leading the 2011 Kalachakra for World Peace and heard him talk about the union of wisdom and compassionate action, and how being an honest and caring person is more important than mere external religiosity or parroting prayers and mouthing platitudes. He said:
We must be 21st century Buddhists, not just ritual faith and belief Buddhists — and live our values in our daily lives, combining the development of modern scientific knowledge with timeless wisdom understanding. Self-discipline is the real answer to bringing about a better society and more peaceful world. Hypocrisy and corruption have nothing to do with religion or the lives of we who strive to practice according to our own traditions.”
The Dalai Lama seemed to be holding up fine, though the schedule was strenuous and the teachings and empowerment thorough and lengthy — along with public talks around the city and appearances, such as three hours on the steps of Capital Hill and a visit to the Senate. Always good at remembering to lighten up while enlightening up, one day His Holiness even demonstrated a small Tibetan yoga and energetic breathing exercise, usually done at the outset of meditation sessions, involving throwing the arms out and to the left and right. Instructing us to be mindful not to hit the person sitting by our side in such a packed crowd, he afterwards joked that, if we wanted to strike our neighbor, this would be a good excuse!
There was a great air of celebration, appreciation and optimism, with many Tibetan and Himalayan people there since this Kalachakra empowerment and Dharma-fest was sponsored by the local Tibetan Association of Washington. The feeling of joy leaped noticeably when His Holiness said he’s planning to be around and active for at least “20 more years before saying bye-bye.” In recent months he’s said he might be around till more than 100, adding that he’d “hope to see his people return to a better situation in their own homeland long before then.”
There was a great diversity there and a sense real friendliness and camaraderie. This is especially delightful when one considers the current state of the world, the economy and our violent times.
Visiting any of the local Starbucks or cafes one could see a smattering of all the variously colorful Buddhist robes of the world, not to mention exotic Himalayan outfits, jewelry and mala beads adorning the customers. At the teachings, the applause was longer and somewhat deeper than usual, revealing peoples’ genuine appreciation to be together with His Holiness and the assembled four-fold sangha (monastic and lay, female and male) in the name of peace, harmony and love, at that time and place, for so long, undisturbed in the sacred circle of Kalachakra and spirit of authentic Buddha Dharma.
The Kalachakra is an esoteric Vajrayana tantric teaching from Highest Yoga Tantra, an empowering initiation which introduces disciples to the Deity Yoga practice of the Kalachakra Buddha. Kalachakra means “The Infinite Wheel of Time,” including chanting, mantras, visualizations, samadhi, energy work, clear light meditation and the like. It is considered a blessing for world peace and harmony and is extraordinarily efficacious for developing the wisdom of enlightenment in our era. This is the 31st time that HH the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has given this important initiation in public during his lifetime.
Such advanced tantric Vajrayana (diamond path) empowerments and consecrations were traditionally given only for smaller groups of carefully trained, prepared and devoted disciples, although the Kalachakra has sometimes been an exception to that rule. And in modern days, most if not all Tibetan lamas have become more open regarding these transmission ceremonies and teachings. The large attendance at these Dharma teaching events was partly due to the Dalai Lama’s tremendous popularity as a wise and saintly spiritual leader and moral conscience, combined with his ongoing global efforts on behalf of human rights, peace and universal responsibility. HH himself is quite lenient about allowing people to participate just for a blessing, even if they’re not Buddhist practitioners, as he reiterated standing alongside Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Washington. He often says, perhaps only slightly in jest, that he offers these renowned advanced initiations partly as a pretext so people will come and thus allow him to present the basic Buddhist teachings he feels we really need to hear and take to heart, including the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. During this week-long teaching and transmission session he offered explanation on two important Mahayana Buddhist texts, “The Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva” by Ngulchu Thogme and Kamalashila’s “Stages of Meditation.”
This event is very significant as it took place in the heart of our nation’s capital during these decadent times (as Tibetans call the current age). But perhaps more important to note is that as Americans our right to freedom of religion allows for such auspicious occasions. During his evening presentation, Professor Robert Thurman, New York’s Mr. Tibet, commented that we should work together toward having this Kalachakra for world peace and harmony presided over by His Holines in Beijing and Moscow, as has occurred in other world capitals.
Throughout the week the Grand Lama, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, was present onstage at the right hand of His Holiness. Also present were Lodi Gyari Rinpoche, special envoy to the Dalai Lama, Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche, the past prime minister (Kalon Tripa) of the Tibetan Government in Exile and Dr. Lobsang Sangay, the recently elected new prime minister. There was also an unusually large and diverse transectarian gathering of monks and nuns, lamas, tulkus, khenpos and rinpoches as well as people from other traditions Buddhist and otherwise, including many learned and accomplished teachers — some of whom offered Kalachakra-related Dharma teachings almost every evening. Famous Hollywood faces of Buddhist affiliation were, as ever, present.
I personally feel very fortunate to have been at the Kalachakra for World Peace, and pray for the longevity and health of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet and all of his people
2011 Kalachakra for World Peace
Today I was very fortunate to sit in front of the Dalai Lama of Tibet here in Washington D. C. where he is leading the 2011 Kalachakra for World Peace. His Holiness spoke about the union of wisdom and compassionate action, and how being a fine person is more important than mere external religiosity and platitudes. He said:
We must be twentieth first century Buddhists, not just ritual faith and belief Buddhists— and live our values in our daily lives, combining the development of modern scientific knowledge with timeless wisdom understanding. Self-discipline is the real answer to bringing about a better society and more peaceful world.”
