Trey Smith
I'm a great teammate when it comes to games like Trivial Pursuit. My head is cram-packed with more useless knowledge than the average person! The breadth of my knowledge is breathtaking and tends to elicit oohs and aahs wherever I go.
Come on now, I'm being facetious!
While it is indeed true that I know a lot about a wide variety of topics, there are just as many that I know little, if anything, about. For example, the first time I heard reference to the Dalai Lama, I thought my colleagues were talking about a particular kind of llama!
I have several cohorts who have gone to see His Holiness in person and have read everything he has written. I know little about the man. I know he is exiled from Tibet and that he's some kind of Buddhist spiritual figure. That's about the extent of my knowledge concerning him.
Lately, I've been working to expand my horizons a tad, so I purchased one of his books, Ethics for the New Millennium (1999). One of the things that jumped out at me in the first few pages was the statement, "I am only an ordinary human being."
That caught me a bit off guard. Spiritual leaders tend to bill themselves as extraordinary individuals and yet this fellow is stating that he's nothing more than a regular guy.
If you think about it, all humans are ordinary by definition. We share so many things in common. With the possible exception of those with some type of physical injury, limitation or deformity, we each pick our noses, relieve ourselves, belch, sneeze, eat, sleep and make love much the same. We breathe the same air.
In our "me first" society, we're told to think of ourselves and/or to strive to be extraordinary. While we may well be born with or develop extraordinary skills and abilities, this doesn't change the fact that we are ordinary human beings.
When I run into people who pompously tell me how extraordinary they inherently are, I tell them it will take a lot to impress me. I ask them if they have
- five brains instead of the standard equipment of one?
- fourteen hearts to better feel compassion and devotion with?
- twelve foot long arms or legs?
- a tongue as wide as the Strait of Gibraltar?
- the mental capacity to know everything there is to know?
You see, while we like to focus on trivial differences, we neglect the myriad of variables that we share in common. The most important of these variables is death -- all form and being eventually dies. There is no extraordinary escape route.
We find this knowledge to be unsettling, so we create myths of superhuman beings who we bestow with the special capacity to cheat death. It is an emotional illusion we cling to because it somehow makes us feel better to "know" that there are a few people -- certainly not you or I -- who genuinely ARE extraordinary.
I have a ticket to see HH when he is in Hawaii in mid-April. I'll post something on my impressions of seeing him in person, although I already know a lot about him. While he regards himself as an "ordinary human being" (he was literally cultivated into his position by others), of course, most of his devotees do not. And many of them believe sincerely in reincarnation and that he is the reincarnation of previous spiritual leaders of the tradition. Surely you have seen "Seven Years in Tibet" and Scorcese's "Kundun" Both, a bit romantic and political (but his story is both.) At the time of his exile, he was regarded as a "god-king", but it has been to his advantage to back off from such positioning in his attempt to garner some autonomy for Tibet, a task he seems largely to have given up on, focusing more on the world at-large. (He is an ordinary person with extraordinary common sense who knows how to choose his battles: martydom is not his style, I think.) In any case, in HH's case, his humility and emphasis on kindness probably demonstrate that he is in fact a truly spiritual leader.
ReplyDeleteAs you are most certainly aware, China has the new line of succession for the spiritual leadership of Tibet firmly in its control. (In much the same way the leadership of Hong Kong is determined by Beijing.)