A Seed in the West

A Seed in the West

By Tim Cooney

(page 1 of 3)

Ever since James Hilton’s 1933 novel “Lost Horizon,” wherein Westerners survive a plane crash and find the idyllic and timeless valley of Shangri-La deep in the Himalayas, there’s always just been something about Tibet. The Dalai Lama in particular intrigues us. As the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people and the head of the Tibetan state-in-exile, he appeals to an afflicted world’s better judgment.

In coming to the Aspen Institute Celebration of Tibetan Culture symposium last July, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, brought the seeds of compassion and kind-heartedness as an antidote to humanity’s deep troubles, even while his unadorned teaching of non-violence, patience and civil dialogue finds few patches of international ground. To speak at the Institute at such an unprecedented juncture in time—as the Gordian knot of Tibet untangles, the great dragon of China emerges, and the Olympic torch casts a penumbra of tension—was a true Buddhist moment built on myriad causes and conditions.

While bringing the Dalai Lama to Aspen required some advance work, Aspen Institute president and CEO Walter Isaacson says it was His Holiness who expressed interest in coming here, and that though there are many politically charged topics at hand, his visit is nonpartisan.

“The Dalai Lama has been to the Aspen Institute in Washington before, and he very much wanted to come to Aspen to talk about Tibetan art and culture—it’s not a political visit,” Isaacson says. “In the summer at the Aspen Institute, there [are] a lot of people who are interested in the cultural and intellectual underpinnings of meditative practices. When he was in Washington, the Dalai Lama expressed interest in meeting with thought leaders here.”

Born Lhamo Dhondup in a mud hut in a remote Tibetan village in July of 1935, the two-year-old Dalai-Lama-to-be was identified by a delegation of monks from Lhasa as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, in a lineage dating back to the 14th century.

Believed to be the Tibetan Buddhist form of an enlightened being of compassion, Chenrezig, “He who Hears the Outcries of the World,” His Holiness has a tall order to fill. Yet wherever he speaks in his worldwide travels, his basic themes gain traction, and in his physical presence hardened skeptics are said to soften. The English explorer Thomas Manning, who reached Lhasa in 1812, wrote in rhapsodic words of the seven-year-old 9th Dalai Lama: “The lama’s beautiful and interesting face engrossed all my attention. I was extremely affected by this interview with the Lama. I could have wept through strangeness of sensation.”

The current Dalai Lama attained a Geshe Lharampa degree (comparable to a Ph.D in Buddhism) in Lhasa before fleeing the 1959 Chinese invasion of Tibet. He was awarded the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize and, in 2007, a Congressional Gold Medal by President Bush. The Dalai Lama has attracted a vast following, ranging from celebrities to academics. His stature has such universal appeal because it offers inspiration and hope not only to dispossessed Tibetans but to all oppressed people. His prescription is a simple plea to change our point of view from self-centeredness to thinking of others.