The Moonlighting Student

Engaging Wisdom and Compassion

April 20th, 2008 9:54 pm —  141 views

Today I spent two hours in the presence of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. There were thousands of people there. He is so balanced you could level a world with his perspective. I’m still glowing.

The in-laws were with us this weekend but were ushered out early1 so W. and I could head into Ann Arbor, find a parking spot, and make our way to our seats in Crisler Arena. We value our time with the units and felt bad we had to herd them out. We’ll see them next weekend though; maybe it isn’t such a bad thing.

The Dalai Lama conducted the last of three sessions on teachings of wisdom and compassion. It consisted of readings from Arya Nagarjuna regarding the idea that all phenomena lack intrinsic existence because they exist dependently. There is only dependent arising. My understanding of this is basically that no thing exists independent of any other thing. As a result, we are the result of all that exists up until this point. Perhaps you wonder why this is important? If you don’t exist independently but as a result of everything else, then you and I are a continuation of all things and don’t exist independently from each other. This is what it is…and will continue to be. We all matter and we’re all matter.

It was great hearing his teachings today. Most of what was covered I’ve read in various forms over that last twelve years2 but the experience of seeing and hearing these teachings with an audience of thousands was moving.

A special thanks to the couple next to me that gave me their book covering the three sessions. Apparently they gave these out yesterday but ran out of them today. They noticed I didn’t have one and offered me one of theirs. I made sure to hold it up so they could see the verses being discussed today. Thanks strangers.

The rest of this afternoon I relaxed and hung out at home with W. We had dinner, watched some shows then decided to call it a night. When I headed up to bed W. was writing in her old-school paper-and-ink journal so I figured I’d take this time to pound this out.

I still have a few pages to finish on my paper due Thursday but have reserved time this week to work on it. Besides that, this semester is done. No more classes until September. Lots planned this summer though, so stay tuned.

Image: While I normally don’t like to use pictures that I don’t take myself, I wasn’t allowed to bring my camera into the arena today and actually followed this rule. So I searched the web and found this image taken from this article regarding another visit of his.

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  1. B-Ma & The Duke…sorry about rushing you out. I know you understand though. It was the Dalai Lama after all! [↩]
  2. I’ve been studying Buddhism since I came upon it in college years ago. Though still an amateur, I’m very interested in the approach to living Buddhism prescribes. [↩]

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One Response to “Engaging Wisdom and Compassion”

  1. Ma on April 27th, 2008 8:49 am

    Thank you.

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