My notes from hearing the Dalai Lama on May 14, 2010 – Indianapolis, IN

The Dalai Lama was in Indianapolis to speak on Facing Challenges with Wisdom and Compassion.

It was at the Conseco basketball arena. Just like a basketball, the sound bounced around making it hard to hear clearly.  It reminded me of the acoustics when we heard Thich Nhat Hanh in Chicago.  Too much echo.

Still, I picked up a lot and I’d like to share it with you with the understanding that any misconceptions are on my part, and not on the part of the Dalai Lama.

All people want to achieve, and have the right to happiness and inner peace.

Should there be more Buddhism in America? No.  He said Americans already have the answers for finding true happiness and inner peace by way of the religions we already practice.  Practicing common sense is another viable path.

Different religions rely on different qualities and pathways  to achieve happiness and inner peace.  Some rely on faith, others promote surrender, while compassion is the path for others.  All these qualities, and religions, have the potential to take us to true happiness and inner peace.  We should do our best to respect the different religious paths and know that each has its own benefits that reach out to various cultures, temperaments, and times.   It’s about having respect for all religions.

All humans, no matter the color, culture, sex, or age, have a common connection to compassion that is biological and instinctual. The love of a mother and the instinct of protecting the child are good examples.  Even a mother bird may sacrifice her life for the sake of her baby.  Compassion is instinctual, however, it gets covered up and overruled by the thinking mind.

• Rely on common sense.
• Respect and have compassion toward all.
• We all want and deserve true happiness and inner peace.
• Rely on truth, trust, love, and compassion to lead to inner strength, peace and happiness.
• Practice unbiased compassion – this is compassion that can even reach our enemies.
• A negative mind causes suffering for the self and others.
• Fear and hate interferes with health.
• Compassion has actually been shown to lower blood pressure and stress.  Wounds heal quicker.  For example, a wound on a rat heals faster when it is affectionately licked by another rat.
• The minds ‘intelligence’ can overrule our compassionate, instinctual, intrinsic nature.
• Look for new opportunities and changes that come from things that anger us.
• Have a global interest.  To have global disarmament, we have to start with inner, personal disarmament.  To have global peace, we must have inner peace first.  Go with truth, love, trust, unbiased compassion and inner beauty.  This is lasting.
• He said that everything is/or can be good, very good.  This includes such things as money, technology, and divorce.  It’s the motivation and intent and how these things are used that makes the difference.  Are they used with compassion, openness, acceptance or not?
• Money, objects, technology can be good – very good – if they are used with right motivation and intention and put to good use.
• Put your affections where affections can be returned .
• Don’t put affections toward objects as these things cannot return affection.
• When we are affectionate toward objects, it leads to jealousy and greed for objects.  Objects cannot return affection.
• Inner beauty is higher than outer beauty as it lasts. Rely on truth, trust, love, and unbiased compassion to bring inner peace and happiness.

Teach this triple truth to all:

A generous heart, kind speech,
and a life of service and compassion
are the things which renew humanity.

~  Buddha