Nate and I had the amazing opportunity to usher an event featuring the Dalai Lama today. Listening to him speak was inspiring, calming, and unexpectedly funny, and I'm so thankful for the random chain of events that allowed me to spend the day listening to his thoughts on religion, life, responsibility and the environment. I could probably write a tome on the experience, but I'm pretty tuckered out right about now, so instead here's a small sample of what we heard. I'm unfortunately forced to paraphrase since today was one of the rare moments when I found myself without a pen or one of the five journals I typically carry with me everywhere I go, but I believe I'm still being pretty faithful to his original words, which, of course, were beautiful:
Our only true purpose in life is to be happy. It does not matter if you are Buddhist, Christian, or do not believe at all; use whatever philosophy you need to get you there...True happiness comes from having compassion, and having compassion means practicing altruism. If you are Buddhist, imagine Gautama. If you are another faith, imagine Jesus or Allah or Muhammad. If you have no faith, be altruistic. If for some reason you cannot do this, then at the very least do less harm.Amen to that.
3 Comments:
That's really cool that you got to listen to the Dali Lama! You lead such an interesting life with gators one post and the Dali Lama the next.
Although it is a little Harriet the Spy of you to carry around 5 journals.
Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that I carried them all at the same time! I'm just a sucker for pretty journals is all. :)
It's so awesome you guys went and did this. It's been a dream of mine since college to hear him speak. If only I had been more on the ball. I'm jealous, to say the least!
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