In Tricycle’s first issue, writer Spalding Gray interviewed the Dalai Lama, covering subjects like doubt, fear, and dreaming. Since then, the magazine has featured a number of teachings from His Holiness that range from introductions to the Buddha’s teachings to advice for countering stress and depression. In honor of his 88th birthday today, here’s a collection of the Dalai Lama’s teachings from Tricycle’s archives.

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A Brief Teaching on the Purpose of Meditation from The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Wisdom
“Buddhism explains that our normal state of mind is such that our thoughts and emotions are wild and unruly, and since we lack the mental discipline needed to tame them, we are powerless to control them. As a result, they control us. And thoughts and emotions, in their turn, tend to be controlled by our negative impulses rather than our positive ones. We need to reverse this cycle.”

An Introduction to the Buddha’s Teachings and Their Place in Tibet 
“Buddhism has flourished for centuries in many countries, but it was in Tibet that all three paths, the Shravakayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana, were preserved completely. . . Moreover, Tibetan scholars never ignored the practice aspect, and experienced practitioners did not neglect to study. This seems to me a very good way of doing things.”

Why the Inner Enemy Is the Most Dangerous One
“One of the best human qualities is our intelligence, which enables us to judge what is wholesome and what is unwholesome, what is beneficial and what is harmful. Negative thoughts, such as anger and strong attachment, destroy this special human quality; this is indeed very sad. . .A person gripped by such states of mind and emotion is like a blind person, who cannot see where he is going. Yet we neglect to challenge these negative thoughts and emotions that lead to near insanity. On the contrary, we often nurture and reinforce them! By doing so we are, in fact, making ourselves prey to their destructive power. When you reflect along these lines, you will realize that our true enemy is not outside ourselves.”

A Brief Teaching on Equality
“It’s true that in specific circumstances where you have the ability to alleviate the suffering of another person or to protect another person from suffering, there is, in that sense, an inequality. One person has a capacity that the other person does not. But there is no such sense of inequality, no feeling of superiority, in the actual mode in which compassion views the other sentient being. . . The other being for whom I feel compassion is just like me.”

Advice for Countering Stress and Depression
“If the situation or problem is such that it can be remedied, then there is no need to worry about it. In other words, if there is a solution or a way out of the difficulty, you do not need to be overwhelmed by it. The appropriate action is to seek its solution. Then it is clearly more sensible to spend your energy focusing on the solution rather than worrying about the problem. Alternatively, if there is no solution, no possibility of resolution, then there is also no point in being worried about it, because you cannot do anything about it anyway. In that case, the sooner you accept this fact, the easier it will be for you.” 

This article was originally published on July 6, 2021

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On the morning of Wednesday, April 19, upward of 400 Tibetans congregated for a “Truth Rally” outside CNN’s New York City offices. They were demanding a public apology from CNN to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people for what they argue was misleading reporting of a good-natured interaction with a young boy at the Dalai Lama’s temple in Dharamsala, India, in February. Detailing their grievances on an information sheet that was distributed at the rally, protesters asserted that CNN misled the public by airing only a heavily edited video clip of the interaction, failing to examine cultural context, and excluding crucial facts and informed voices in the conversation—namely the voices of Tibetans. 

On April 10, CNN broadcast a television report headlined, “Dalai Lama Apologizes After Video Goes Viral: Clip shows spiritual leader asking boy to ‘suck his tongue.’” CNN anchor Julia Chatterley introduced the clip by pointing to the tension between the “outrage” across the internet and the widely-held view of the Dalai Lama as a “joker.” CNN reporter Vedika Sud then emphasized the “‘severe backlash” against the Dalai Lama that had spread on social media since the viral clip emerged. She read the response from the Dalai Lama’s office and called attention to the office apologizing for his words, not his actions. She added, “Clearly for a lot of people across social media this is more than just teasing. It has upset huge sections of people on social media, on Twitter, that have called it, like I said, absolutely disappointing, absolutely disturbing, and absolutely inappropriate behavior by the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.”

A collective of four Tibetans organized the protest in response: Dr. Tenzin Mingyur Paldron, a trans artist and educator; Chemi Youdon, the founder of a nonprofit Tibetan nanny agency; Tenying Yangsel, a housing justice organizer; and Chonyi Gyatso, a youth educator. Their overlapping experience in trauma-informed education, intersectional activism, and youth empowerment converged at the common place of providing resources and accessible tools to the community and media.

Tibetans of all ages and ideological backgrounds traveled from their offices in Manhattan, homes in Jackson Heights, Queens, and school drop-offs around the city to protest the damage they said established news outlets like CNN inflicted on their community. They gathered in song, prayer, and chants, declaring that the “truth would come out.” Most people held one of three protest signs: the white dove, symbolizing peace; Four Harmonious Friends (Tib. Thunba Punshi), symbolic of living harmoniously; or the three wise monkeys to communicate the teachings of right speech to the media. 

An organizing principle of the demonstration was a request for global accountability for disregarding the voices of Tibetans, a community that has endured genocide and continues to experience colonization and exile.

“We’re asking people to listen to us, and people are choosing not to listen to an entire community,” said organizer Chonyi Gyatso. 

According to the organizers, Tibetans have experienced increased acts of daily discrimination and hate speech since the April 10 report. “The media has caused an extreme amount of pain to our community, and it’s at a daily level,” said youth educator Tseten Tsering. “There are kids in New York City having to sit in classrooms hearing terrible and vilifying comments about His Holiness.” 

“What happened to cultural sensitivity? What happened to talking?” Paldron asked. “This video came from the Tibetan community. The journalists could have asked more questions to the Tibetan community. What makes them believe they don’t have to interview a single person from that community to know what happened?”

In its address to CNN, the group provided resources mapping its stance on how the media participated in the misrepresentation of the Tibetan people and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. These resources include:

1. Voice of Tibet’s post-event interviews with Dr. Payal Kanodia (a trustee of the Indian M3M Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the real estate company M3M Group) and her child on YouTube and Instagram
2. Radio Free Asia’s post-event interview with the child and his grandfather, Basant Bansal, M3M chair
3. The unedited video of the interaction with cultural context provided by Jigme Ugen, a Tibetan American (unedited video starts at the 15-minute, 15-second mark)
4. A video of respected educator and engineer Sonam Wangchuk of Ladakh, India (“Ice Stupa Project”) explaining the cultural context of the interaction

Younger protesters considered the demonstration an opportune time to renegotiate their relationship with the Western world, which upholds the dominant narrative on Tibet and the Tibetan people. A student who wished to go unnamed said that the current Tibetan experience is widely misunderstood thanks to “static” portrayals of Tibet that have created “damaging, unrealistic expectations” of the Tibetan people in popular culture. She and other protesters feel that the media imposes a one-dimensionality on their contested identity as exiled people. “I encourage Tibetans to consider the harm of these outside characterizations and reflect on the power dynamics at hand,” an environmental educator named Yuthok added. 

A Tibetan Equality Project member who also wished to go unnamed stressed: “We are a diverse people. We all have different perspectives on different issues. We’re not one single hive mind, right? We all have different ways of thinking, and they might clash with each other. But if there’s one thing to say, it’s that this issue is so upsetting in its lack of nuance that people from all ideological backgrounds within the Tibetan community have come together and unified.” 

The controversy surrounding the Dalai Lama is informed by perpetuated histories of Orientalism, argued some protesters. “No one would care if people didn’t have such high expectations of what Tibet is,” the Tibetan Equality Project member attested. “His position in the public eye doesn’t allow him the space to exist in his humanity. I feel like a lot of the West think of him as some sort of higher deity or being and that’s why their expectations are so high. He’s a human being and he’s an old human being.” 

Protesters emphasized that Tibetans’ affinity toward the Dalai Lama varies across generations. Many shared how the Dalai Lama’s central position in the Tibetan cultural landscape feels like a “familial bed of comfort and safety” for Tibetans across the diaspora whose nationless identity is shaped by fractured narratives of home.

Still, “a lot of people think that the Tibetans have blind faith in the Dalai Lama, and it’s insulting because [they’re] saying that an entire people are not thinking critically for themselves,” remarked organizer Chonyi Gyatso. “It’s an insult to our intelligence, and I’m pretty sure that’s racist.”

However Tibetans regard His Holiness, protesters made clear that the outsized recognition of the Dalai Lama across the rest of the world as synonymous with Tibet means that any attack on him is deeply felt. As Chonyi Gyatso put it, “When people are talking negatively about the Dalai Lama, it does feel like an attack on me being Tibetan.” 

Although most Tibetans at the Truth Rally had spent the week “crying, sleepless, with loss of appetite,” as organizer Chemi Youdon described it, protesters spoke to the palpable sense of unity and relief to be in community, even as passersby yelled slurs from across the street. 

“Seeing everyone come together this early in the morning, in the cold, is inspiring. My heart feels lighter after having the space to let out what I was holding inside, including all the frustration,” Yuthok said. 

Throughout the three-hour demonstration, ten self-elected community members sported red bandanas on their sleeves to spotlight their role as community stewards, directing traffic across the busy intersection and translating across cultural and linguistic barriers. Others distributed snacks and water bottles between the clusters of young children, elders, and domestic workers, largely nannies, attending the rally. Everyone else was singing in harmony to the Words of Truth Prayer (Tib. Den Tsig Mon Lam).

Across the many intersecting identities present at the Truth Rally ran an undercurrent of belonging, supported by what Paldron named as “trust in each other.” The protest served as a compelling reminder that when interdependence and community care are prioritized, people have an extraordinary capacity to transcend mental and physical obstacles. 

“Don’t expect external remedies to give you peace of mind,” urged Tenzin Choeyang, an elderly, devout practitioner in the community. “You have to rely on what we’ve always been taught in our culture and religion: to realize that what we need is within us.”

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The recent controversy surrounding His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been a sharp reminder to Tibetans of the precarity and powerlessness of the life of a refugee. It’s not a lesson we needed. Ours is the inheritance of loss and dispossession. As a people, we know what it’s like to lose our land, our home, and our inheritance, to be robbed of our language, our culture, and our future. Stripped thus of any protective cover, we are completely exposed to human nature, vulnerable to the kindnesses and cruelties of the people around us. In our host nations, this vulnerability puts intense pressure on us to be the perfect refugees. Tibetans have risen to this challenge: we have been the great refugee success story. The Dalai Lama has not only been one of the greatest moral leaders that the world has ever seen, he has made the world a genuinely better place with his teachings and his presence. In other words, he has been the perfect refugee. Until last week.  

At a public event in February at Tsuglagkhang Temple in Dharamsala, a young Indian boy approached the Dalai Lama onstage. The boy asked for a hug. It seems to me that this was probably in the program and scripted. What happened next was not. The Dalai Lama did not know what the boy meant. English, which he started learning in his twenties, in exile in India, has been failing him in his older age, as our stranger languages do. His aides explained the boy’s request to him but it wasn’t enough. Then the Dalai Lama’s secretary, his nephew Tenzin Taklha, tells him that the boy is asking if he can give the Dalai Lama a “hug.” Tenzin Taklha says the word “hug” to His Holiness in English. Traditionally Tibetans didn’t use the hug as a loving social gesture; we touched our foreheads together in a forehead kiss or forehead bump. 

The Dalai Lama gives his assent and says, “First here” pointing to his cheek. The boy gives him a kiss on his cheek. Then the Dalai Lama says, “Here” pointing to his lips. The Dalai Lama gives the boy a kiss (a peck) on his lips. People clap. The Dalai Lama laughs, and others laugh as well. The Dalai Lama then tells the boy, “Suck my tongue.” I know how it sounds but he clearly didn’t mean it literally; he’s being playful and familial. Both smiling, young boy and old monk, they touch foreheads. It is a genuine moment of connection, of love and compassion. 

This innocent interaction has now been perverted beyond belief with the help of Chinese whispers, clickbait charlatans, and well-meaning furious first responders of the internet blinded by moral panic. This last group, the only one acting in good faith, has applied their hypersexualized lens to an innocent exchange, criminalizing a social gesture as sexual and manufacturing a crime where there was none. I’ll be honest. I watched the maliciously edited video first, and even though I understood in my bones that the Dalai Lama meant nothing sexual, that anything approaching violence and abuse would be anathema to this icon of peace, I felt uncomfortable. But later I watched the original longer clip and all I felt was grief. The original video has a quality of innocence that is entirely missing from the manipulated video that’s being shown, with the boy’s face blurred out in a performance of protection.  

For that’s what this blurred-out video is doing, performing protection rather than enacting it. And it is this very performance that heightens the impression of wrongness, because of course the blurred face invites a tautology; this child’s face is blurred, so he must be a victim, and therefore there was a crime. It also obscures what actually happened; the Dalai Lama and the boy both stick out their tongues, but there is no tongue action, only a simple forehead touch. This manufacturing of crime, this false allegation—of child sexual abuse, just about the most horrifying accusation there is—has been an unforgivable smear and slander against the Dalai Lama; an unthinkable violence to the boy and his mother, who are being told that contrary to their experience, he was violated and abused; and a new trauma to the Tibetan people.

This was a public event for both Tibetans and Indians, and there were plenty of people on stage, including the boy’s mother and his grandfather. Each and every one of those people on stage and in the audience are being told that they did not experience their reality in the right way. That the furious first responders of social media, who were not there, who saw only the out-of-context clips maliciously edited to manipulate and incite outrage, know what happened. But what they know is a gross misreading of what actually happened. We have created a sort of palimpsest of our own basest instincts, out of the very real acts of sexual violence that we have suffered and the sexual exposures that we have seen, and misconstrued and misread a completely social gesture as sexual. And the accusation has become a judgment. 

Some have even wondered what might have gone on over the years behind closed doors. There’s been nothing. For two and a half years in my twenties, I worked as special assistant to the Dalai Lama’s representative to the Americas at the Office of Tibet, US. I worked all US visits during that time and was part of his staff entourage on the East Coast. It’s one of the great blessings of my life. Once I traveled with him cross-country for almost a month and I got to know his other staff very well. They had worked for the Dalai Lama for years, in some cases twenty or forty years. They knew him intimately, behind closed doors, away from the cameras, and they loved and revered him. No one, unless they are profoundly pure, can inspire and sustain that kind of devotion for decades. And for all that the Dalai Lama has been scrutinized for by the international press since the ‘70s, for Tibetans, the Dalai Lama has been the focal point of our worship, and our watch, for over eighty years. 

He has also been the focal point of an endless Chinese watch, of course. Remember that time it came out that the Dalai Lama’s office was being hacked, almost certainly by the Chinese, for months and for years? A Private Office staff told me that they could literally see the files being copied and sent across the ether. That the Chinese were spying on the Dalai Lama in his office and his residence, and clearly had access to everything. If there were any skeletons in the Dalai Lama’s closet, the Chinese government would have celebrated Halloween every day. 

In fact, they have been sharing this maliciously edited video all over Tibet. But in an unexpected turn, Tibetans on the plateau are rejoicing over this video, because they are finally able to see their spiritual leader whose image has been banned for the last half-century. This underscores how little the Chinese government knows Tibetans, and also the fact that many cultures do not share the same sexual vocabulary. When I was growing up in Dharamsala, young men and young women held hands not with each other but with their friends. There was nothing sexual or romantic about it. And any sort of sexual or romantic kiss in public was verboten in the traditional Tibetan culture—it was simply unthinkable. The problem with the Dalai Lama is that after a lifetime of adapting so much to exile, he has still not adapted himself completely to the tyranny of Western norms.

This was the Dalai Lama’s mistake. But after all, the refugee can never be perfect. His very state is a state of being in the wrong. Throughout history, the refugee, the exile, has often been a scapegoat. 

In particular, the burden of perfection is a problem that has bedeviled Tibet from the beginning. Our problem was not being an independent nation in the right way, or not being invaded in the right way, or not engaging in nonviolent protest in the right way. What I slowly learn is that these issues are only raised in cases where there’s no will to act, only the faintest half-hearted impulse toward justice that’s quickly squashed because it’s more convenient. 

The psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott talked about the “good enough mother,” the mother who fails her child in manageable ways so that the child can learn. The perfect mother, after all, is an impossible illusion. So I ask, why can’t the Dalai Lama be a good enough refugee? Why can’t he fail us in manageable ways? After all, we fail him often enough, and this latest failure is one of epic proportions. Can we relieve the pressure on each other to be the perfect refugee, the perfect exile, the perfect immigrant, the perfect person? Can we just fail each other in manageable ways, and can we forgive each other for being human?

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When I first heard about the Dalai Lama’s recent encounter with a young boy, my heart dropped. At first, I couldn’t bring myself to watch the video. I thought about what the boy must’ve experienced, and I knew this would be devastating for the already vulnerable Tibetan community.

I’m a doctoral candidate in Buddhist studies and masculinity studies at Northwestern University and a practicing Buddhist. I speak Tibetan and have lived, researched, and practiced in Dharamsala, where His Holiness the Dalai Lama lives. Throughout my life, I’ve deeply valued the Dalai Lama’s impactful work for peace, nonviolence, religious tolerance, and environmental justice.

The idea that the Dalai Lama had harmed a child conflicted with everything I knew about him, but I also knew the incident required serious examination. Since the news broke, I’ve been reflecting on what happened, and I’ve decided that it’s important to unpack its nuances for an Anglophone audience in a measured way.

Before doing so, I want to acknowledge that the Dalai Lama’s actions in the video were downright weird and deeply uncomfortable to watch. He made a child uneasy, and the significant power differential between the two made this episode especially troubling. Simply hearing that “the Dalai Lama asked a boy to ‘suck his tongue’” was enough to make my stomach turn.

However, after watching the video myself—the full 1:59 version, not the widely circulated edited one—I also believe that what transpired resists easy categorization and comparison to instances of sexual misconduct among Western religious leaders, which no doubt leaped to the minds of many readers.

In interpreting what happened, we need to take a slower approach that incorporates Tibetan voices, avoids reducing what happened to a familiar script without thinking holistically about who the Dalai Lama is in context, and elevates the stories of survivors of sexual misconduct in religious settings more broadly.

Western media regularly disregard Tibetans’ own views and interpretations of their community. This story was no exception. Coverage followed a predictable format, with most stories outlining the incident in brief, salacious terms before elevating decontextualized voices of moral outrage.

Some pieces did offer up paltry explanations of Tibetan cultural context, but these often had the effect of furthering the neo-Orientalist presumption that Tibetans are unthinking and uncritically religious while implying that the “secular” West is intellectually and morally superior.

This is obviously not the case. Sexual misconduct is a deeply human problem, tied to hegemonic masculinity and the perverse manipulation of asymmetric power imbalances. It happens everywhere. Recently, both Tibetan men who are survivors of sexual misconduct in monastic settings and Tibetan Buddhist women have been bravely telling their own survivor stories.

In the West, we’ve been inundated with scandal after scandal of priest and youth pastor sex abuse in Christian contexts, which created an opening for a too-easy comparison in this case. One of the many problems with such a straightforward comparison, however, is that this was a singular event in a public setting, which is atypical in cases of sexual predation on children.

Numerous studies have shown that child abuse overwhelmingly occurs over a longer period of time, often in the context of a relationship. Predators typically build trust and then remove children to private settings to commit abuse, which is not what happened in this case.

One of my Tibetan friends observed that shameful desires are rarely, if ever, enacted in a televised setting broadcast to countless viewers; we tend to hide our prurient desires behind closed doors. It’s worth noting that the Dalai Lama has evinced a playful personality consistently throughout his life. In the video, he is laughing and smiling, displaying no embarrassment or shame.

I do not mean to erase or dismiss what unfolded in the video, or to suggest that elderly people aren’t capable of abuse. But I do think that the context reveals clues as to the Dalai Lama’s intention: in my view, this was not a man acting out of a perverse desire, but a non-native English speaker who, in trying to be lighthearted, made a mistake in judgment that crossed vast cultural horizons.  

That said, as generations of gender scholars have pointed out, the long history of senior men abusing their power necessarily raises suspicions about patterns of behavior. A single event can signal a more expansive environment of abuse behind closed doors, and I acknowledge this wholeheartedly. Vigilant attention is necessary to protect children from abuse.

But to me, this video is not evidence of a child abuser driven by a craven desire. True to his longstanding playful character, he was being jocular, following a Tibetan cultural script between grandparents and grandchildren that begins with a hug, moves to a kiss, and ends with a tongue grab. He clearly knows he made a mistake in discernment and has issued an apology. We should not jump from the display of one weird, inappropriate, or objectionable event to the imputation of an entire problematic character.

I also want to highlight the importance of context in interpreting the Dalai Lama and his actions. Countless Tibetans and other Buddhists encounter him as a living Buddha, who has diligently strived over the course of many lifetimes to purge his mind of all sensuous desires (‘dod chags) and attain boundless equanimity. For people who understand him this way, it is unthinkable to consider him as acting out of a craven desire.

When others see this video, however, they witness an elderly religious titan violating the boundaries of an innocent boy. I cannot appeal to Buddhist discourse or Tibetan history to speak to this audience, but I can point to two things. First, the boy’s and his mother’s comments afterward were joyful.

Second, I suggest looking at the strange timing of this disclosure—fully two months after the event, and not by the boy’s family or friends. The Dalai Lama is a highly charged political figure, subject to decades of attack and slander by the Chinese government. It’s worth querying who might have a stake in defaming him—and strategically editing the video.

As a scholar of masculinity and religion, I devote myself to uncovering the ways that male power becomes entangled in practitioners’ sincere religious aspirations, cultivating environments in which men eroticize and abuse that power in perverse and nauseating ways.

Though the recent incident was unsettling, it does not rise to this level. Instead of leaping to the conclusion that the Dalai Lama is an abuser, we could be taking this opportunity to listen to the many, many voices of women coming forward to speak about the pervasive problem of sexual abuse by Vajrayana Buddhist teachers—including right here in the US—voices that are routinely dismissed.

I conclude this reflection with a call for patience. My plea is to look at the Dalai Lama not in the narrow frame of one mistake, but in the wider frame of his countless contributions to the world, with an awareness of how context filters our understanding of events.

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His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama apologized on Monday after a video circulated on social media of the spiritual leader kissing a boy on the lips and telling him, “Suck my tongue.” The interaction took place in late February at the Dalai Lama’s temple in Dharamsala, India, with about 100 young student graduates of the Indian M3M Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the real estate company M3M Group, in attendance. 

In the video, a young boy approaches the microphone and asks if can hug the Dalai Lama. The 87-year-old points to his cheek, saying “First here,” after which the child kisses his cheek and hugs him. The Dalai Lama then points to his lips and says, “I think here also” and pulls the boy’s chin and kisses him on the mouth. He then tells the boy “And suck my tongue,” sticking his tongue out, forehead to forehead with the boy. The Dalai Lama then laughs and pulls the boy in for another hug. 

As the video went viral, many condemned the spiritual leader’s actions, calling it “inappropriate,” “pedophilic,” and “disgusting.” Others have decried the criticism, arguing that the Dalai Lama’s actions have been misinterpreted. Sticking one’s tongue out is a traditional greeting in Tibet, according to NPR. 

In response to the backlash, the Dalai Lama’s office issued an apology to the boy and his family, “as well as his many friends across the world, for the hurt his words may have caused.” The statement did not mention the kiss or extended tongue, only that the boy asked the Dalai Lama for a hug. It continues, “His Holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras. He regrets the incident.” 

The spiritual leader has drawn criticism for public remarks in recent years, including in 2015, when he joked in an interview with BBC that any future female Dalai Lama should be “very attractive.” When pressed about the comments in a later 2019 interview with BBC, the Dalai Lama reaffirmed his belief that a female Dalai Lama “should be more attractive.” His office later issued an apology for the remarks. 

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Tibetan Buddhist who becomes a monk or nun leaves home and takes vows to lead a life of contemplation, meditation, renunciation, and simplicity. Many move to monasteries or nunneries to study and practice as part of a sangha, or monastic community. Others, especially in places where there are no abbeys in their lineage, live among lay dharma practitioners, but in principle they are meant to return periodically to a monastery. Monastics—and less frequently, lay practitioners—also may choose to go on retreat and spend months or years in isolated hermitages or caves. Tibetan monastics, as a general rule, do not marry. One exception is the Sakya school’s lineage of married monk-teachers dating back to the 11th century. (In several Tibetan lineages, revered teachers do not necessarily hold formal monastic ordination, and they therefore may be married and have children.)

Lama is the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit guru (“teacher”). Like the Sanskrit term, lama is loosely defined, and historically, it has not been conferred as a formal term or title on a practitioner, although in more recent years the practice of bestowing lama as a title is not unheard of. In its more traditional usage, lama especially refers to one’s personal teacher, and by extension it therefore can also be used to refer to any Buddhist practitioner or teacher who is worthy of respect. In this more general usage, lama is reserved for persons of some renown, or who have completed a notable practice such as a long-term retreat. But it can even be used just to refer to an ordinary monk or nun, or an ordinary lay tantric practitioner.

The title Rinpoche, which means “precious one,” is used in much more precise ways. Reincarnated teachers, or tulkus (described below), are invariably given the title Rinpoche, as are other revered figures such as abbots of monasteries and teachers who guide long-term retreatants. Like a lama, a rinpoche can be either a monastic or a layperson.

Leaders of Tibetan Buddhist lineages sometimes recognize a person as a tulku—the reincarnation of a great master of the past. Tulkus are believed to have made a conscious choice to be reborn (rather than to escape the cycle of rebirth and enter nirvana) so that they can benefit other sentient beings and guide them toward enlightenment. The Dalai Lama is the most famous tulku, as he is believed to be the incarnation of the first Dalai Lama, who lived six centuries ago. Tulkus are usually identified as young children, sometimes through elaborate rituals and tests, and then go to their predecessor’s monastery to be educated by private tutors. A tulku can be male or female and can live as a monastic or a lay practitioner. Many tulkus serve as the abbot of a monastery, and tulkus often inherit property from their previous incarnation.

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“When there are problems, we must be able to provide help, because the purpose of [the Tibetan Children’s Village] is to serve the Tibetan children,” says Jetsun Pema, younger sister of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in the opening sequence of Amala. Filmmaker Geleck Palsang’s graceful, succinct documentary about Jetsun Pema’s life and work is currently touring film festivals and will soon be available to wider audiences.

Alternating between historical footage and recent interviews with Jetsun Pema and the children of Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV), the organization serving Tibetan orphaned and refugee children in India that she ran from 1964 to 2006, the film recognizes Jetsun Pema’s decades of work on behalf of the Tibetan people. The message of the documentary is clear: without Jetsun Pema’s remarkable leadership, the Tibetan Children’s Village would not be what it is today. 

The majority of the documentary consists of engaging, original interviews with Jetsun Pema’s friends; her older brother Gyalo Thondup; teachers from Tibetan Children’s Village who also grew up there as children; and Jetsun Pema herself. Fascinating details about Jetsun Pema’s life as the sister of the Dalai Lama abound. As the first sibling in the family born after her brother was enthroned in the Potala Palace, Jetsun Pema was also the first child whom the Dalai Lama named, following the Tibetan tradition where parents request a lama choose the name for their child. His Holiness was 6 years old at the time. He later personally guided his sister’s education: after she graduated from Catholic boarding school in India, having been described as a “sober” young woman by her friends, she went to study in Switzerland on His Holiness’s specific advice. He told her that she would be better able to serve the Tibetan community if she had additional education. In 1964, he gave her the special task of directing the Tibetan Children’s Village.

In the process of depicting the personal trajectory of Jetsun Pema’s life, Amala also documents the development of the Tibetan Children’s Village. Beginning as a nursery for orphaned refugee children, it grew over time into a network of schools organized around a unique family model in which groups of 20 to 25 children live in homes cared for by foster parents assigned to each house. The schools became a critical agent of preserving Tibetan language and culture by educating the children in both. Cognizant that the children living in exile have both the opportunity and the responsibility to maintain the language and culture denied to their counterparts in Tibet living under the rule of China, Jetsun Pema personally translated textbooks into Tibetan and eventually helped open the Tibetan Language Institute for higher learning.  

The film also captures painful moments in TCV’s history, including early on when the organization lacked the facilities and medical care the children sorely needed. At one point, Jetsun Pema describes the year (1964–65) when 150 children arrived after walking to India from Nepal, all extremely ill. Swiss Red Cross doctors volunteering for TCV did their best, but in one night alone, four children died. In the days that followed, a child died every three to four days because of the lack of adequate medical facilities.

The documentary also covers Jetsun Pema’s leadership of the third fact-finding delegation to Tibet in 1980 that revealed horrific abuses of the Tibetan people by the Chinese government. “We spent 105 days in Tibet, over three months, and during all that time, I shed buckets and buckets of tears,” she says in the film. Personal tragedies, such as the death of Jetsun Pema’s husband and one of her daughters, are mentioned too, but only briefly. What is notable, however, in the representation of these personal losses, is that friends recount that even after the death of her husband, when her children were still young, and after the death of her daughter, she did not let her pain affect her work. 

Overall, Geleck Palsang balances heartbreaking moments with interviews by TCV graduates and teachers as they describe what the school has meant to them. A particularly moving and heart-lifting scene shows TCV alumni gathering to formally honor Jetsun Pema, and weeping as they sing to her and pray for her long life.

It’s no wonder that she is known as Amala, or “mother,” to the thousands of children who grew up at TCV. Indeed, Jetsun Pema’s own daughter says that her mother was equally mother to all of the children there as much as her own.

By celebrating Jetsun Pema in this documentary, Geleck Palsang honors both the accomplishments of an intrepid and resourceful leader, and the contribution of the Tibetan Children’s Village itself. Not only has the center provided a safe and loving home and education for thousands of Tibetan children over decades, but it has also helped preserve Tibetan language and culture for current and future generations. While viewers may leave wanting to know even more about Jetsun Pema’s personal story and fascinating life, it is likely that this film features her just as she would prefer: as a dedicated servant for the Tibetan people and the preservation of their unique culture in the face of a challenging and increasingly integrated world. 

The post New Documentary ‘Amala’ Pays Tribute to Jetsun Pema, Sister to the Dalai Lama appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In September 2022, the French-German public access channel Arte aired Buddhism: The Unspeakable Truth (Bouddhisme: La Loi du Silence), a documentary by French journalists Élodie Emery and Wandrille Lanos. The 90-minute documentary, which was cut to 52 minutes for an English-speaking audience, discusses Buddhist communities that have been embroiled in scandal, including Rigpa, the international organization founded by Sogyal Lakar (Rinpoche), and Ogyen Kunzang Choling (OKC), established by Robert Spatz (Lama Kunzang Dorje), weaving in the modern history of Tibet and that country’s main export: Tibetan Buddhism. 

When the filmmakers reached out to Tricycle and sent a link to the documentary, our New York City office watched it together. Other editors who work remotely, including me, watched from our home offices. It should come as no surprise that a Buddhist publication steeped in many of these issues for decades would find shortcomings with a documentary produced for a mainstream audience. One of us compared it to a 60 Minutes exposé that exposed but didn’t explain what attracts one to Tibetan Buddhism or the complexity of student-teacher relationships. Others noted that while the documentary makes the point that the Dalai Lama—who is a Tibetan Buddhist leader, but not the Buddhist-equivalent of the pope—is also a political leader, it falls short in exploring this dual role more deeply. A deeper investigation here would have added a lot to the film. 

But for me, the documentary is an important contribution because it puts faces and stories to the revelations we’ve heard for years, sometimes anonymously through organizations and projects like Buddhist Project Sunshine. (I don’t blame anyone for not going public, and those who have are very brave.) It illuminates that there are big problems when students are willing to buy their guru’s old glasses or underwear (as happened with Sogyal Rinpoche) or send their very young children to live at a remote Buddhist center (as happened with Spatz). And there are issues when Buddhist teachers have been asking the Dalai Lama to make a public statement that sexual relationships between lamas and students are improper, and when lamas accused of abuse continue to operate and receive visits from the Dalai Lama and other dignitaries. 

The documentary begins with aerial images of the mountains of southern France and photos of children at Château-de-Soleils, OKC’s center. “That’s me, in the photo. I was 5 when my parents abandoned me here,” says Ricardo Mendes. Now in his 40s, Mendes describes his childhood as an “endless cycle of prayers and prostrations,” and says he was subject to food deprivation, cold, and beatings. The girls, he said, had it worse, as they were raped. And it was all in the name of a religion that to Westerners is “above suspicion.” 

Mendes is the spokesperson for Initiative de Justice OKCinfo, a nonprofit organization working to bring legal action against Robert Spatz in Belgium and France. 

The film is framed around the trial of Spatz in a Brussels court. Spatz didn’t appear at the trial, and in 2016, nearly twenty years after law enforcement first searched Château-de-Soleils, he was convicted of child sexual abuse, taking children hostage, and economic crimes, and received a four-year suspended prison sentence. Both Spatz and OKC were ordered to pay more than four million Euros in restitution. That conviction was overturned in 2019, and in October 2022, Spatz was resentenced to five years in prison (also suspended), and ordered to pay a €5,500 fine. 

Spatz, a former TV repairman, spent six years in the 60s studying Tibetan Buddhism in India with Kangyur Rinpoche, who gave him the name Lama Kunzang Dorje and authority to open Buddhist centers in Europe. OKC was visited by high-ranking Tibetan Buddhists, and letters displayed at the centers declared Spatz as an authentic teacher. A news report by the European Academy of Religion and Sciences concludes it was possible that visiting teachers knew nothing about the abuse until 2010, when students began blowing the whistle on Spatz. 

The documentary also examines the inner circle around Sogyal Lakar’s Rigpa community. Lakar, who authored the massively popular Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and whose community has grown to 114 centers in twenty-four countries, resigned from Rigpa in 2017 after longtime students accused him of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, entering a “period of retreat and reflection.” Lakar died two years later.  

Weaved throughout is the story of Tibetans who fled by the thousands following China’s invasion and suppression following the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising. Tibetans of all social standings escaped through the highest mountains on earth to India, Nepal, and Bhutan. The Tibetan-government-in-exile was established in Dharamshala, India, with the Dalai Lama as a dual spiritual and political leader. Though the Dalai Lama relinquished his political title in 2011, he was and remains a political figure who, the documentary points out, tried to rally the world’s support behind Tibet’s cause. 

Meanwhile, as refugees, the Tibetans worked to rebuild everything from nothing and take care of their people. “Any kind of help from the outside was very welcome,” reflects Tenzin Geyche Tethong, who worked for many years as the Dalai Lama’s secretary and press liaison. As Rob Hogendoorn, an investigative reporter, independent researcher, and coauthor of Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche, puts it, the community-in-exile is a “beggars economy,” with a codependent relationship between wealthy lamas in the West and Tibetans back East. 

This important political backdrop to the abuses that were occurring at the time puts in context the two smoking guns that the filmmakers present. One is, who knew what at what point, and if large donations led Buddhist leaders to overlook teachers acting unethically. 

One payment in question is the €100,000 donation that Spatz made in 1995 to Shechen Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal. Shechen is home to Matthieu Ricard, a French Tibetan Buddhist monk, best-selling author, “happiest man alive,” and one of Buddhism’s best-known figures. In the documentary, Jean-François Buysschaert, a former OKC member, recounts Ricard returning to him a briefcase that contained indictment documents against Spatz. Ricard, who participated in a two-hour interview with the filmmakers, later retracted his interview in a letter sent by his lawyers. He maintained in a blog post that he never knew about Spatz’s abuse, and also that the documentarians were misleading with the purpose of the interview. Separately, former Rigpa members recall Lakar giving empowerments in exchange for cash, and a monk, Michael Nolan, talked about smuggling €60,000 and gold into Delhi.  

Another smoking gun is the Dalai Lama’s knowledge of Tibetan Buddhist teachers having sexual relationships with students. The documentary includes a 1993 conference between the Dalai Lama and a group of Western Buddhist teachers, during which the Westerners asked his holiness to denounce teachers from having sex with their students. The Dalai Lama said that every effort must be made to “stop this situation,” but that “how” to stop would need further discussion. 

“We just said this is not right, teachers should not have sex with students,” said Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, codirector of the Rochester Zen Center, at the conference. “But if your Holiness could join in on that kind of statement, it would give enormous power to it. It would help enormously.… Teachers won’t listen, maybe … but the students, they’ll listen to you.”  

“Because you’re giving a standard, which people trust,” added Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, founder of Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in India. 

Conference attendees, some of whom have since revealed that they had sexual relationships with their students, signed an open letter outlining the meetings and presenting the findings, including the Dalai Lama’s guidance on sexual relationships. As Stephen Batchelor recounts, the letter was passed along to the Dalai Lama’s office for his signature, but returned with his name crossed out.

Why wouldn’t the Dalai Lama lend his name to this cause that is so important to warrant a series of meetings over two days? Bad guidance from his advisors? Or, as the filmmakers seem to imply, more nefarious and calculated reasons? 

In the film, we see the Dalai Lama say more than once that the responsibility of bad lamas should not fall solely on his shoulders. His office has released clarification on tantric texts that advise students to see all of their teachers’ actions as perfect. And when the Dalai Lama says people like Sogyal Lakar are not practicing Buddhism, he seems very sincere—but this sincerity doesn’t lay out the next steps for either a fallen teacher or his community.  

We may never know who knew about Lakar and Spatz’s abuse, and what happened along the way. We do know, however, that Tibetan Buddhist leaders were aware of Lakar’s behavior, and continued to support his centers, including a 2008 visit with the Dalai Lama and First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy to consecrate Lerab Ling. And that it took until 2018 for the Dalai Lama to denounce Lakar as “disgraced” and meet with a group of Tibetan Buddhist survivors. (The Dalai Lama made worldwide headlines following that meeting, when he said during a press conference that learning about sexual abuse was “nothing new.”)   

One of the main motivations of Buddhism: The Unspeakable Truth is to counter the naivety of Europeans and Westerners regarding abuse in Buddhism. It also serves to inform potential practitioners about the history of abuse in certain communities. Abuse in Buddhist communities has, indeed, been going on in the West for just about as long as the tradition has. I say this not to legitimize it—the status and treatment of women is something I’ve long grappled with as a practitioner and reporter who has covered the breaking news of sexual abuse and misconduct allegations over the past few years. But we still don’t have a clear answer as to what should happen when a guru or teacher is accused of misconduct, and what happens after accusations are proven.

What the documentary does show is that, although the Buddha’s teachings promote nonharm and an end to suffering, Buddhist teachers are fallible, and Buddhist communities are subject to the same dynamics—sometimes healthy, at other times abusive and toxic—of any group of people coming together. 

We’ve spent the last few years (decades, really) trying to understand why an abusive teacher does what he does, and where the community goes from there. In an attempt to understand and guide practitioners, we’ve published guidelines like “How to Heal After Your Teacher Crosses the Line,” and urge potential students to spend time thoroughly investigating anyone whose teachings they are attracted to before beginning a formal relationship. Indeed, we often hear that this skipped step is a reason why students are abused. 

And the age of social media has thankfully illuminated decades-old accusations and cases of abuse (in the case of Rigpa, Lakar’s victims even had their own hashtag: #metooguru). Buddhism: The Unspeakable Truth continues the momentum. 

Though Rigpa and Ogyen Kunzang Choling are still in operation—OKC’s website is scrubbed of all but the briefest mention of Spatz, while Rigpa’s website speaks glowingly of the late Lakar—now, the Arte documentary ranks on the first page of a Google search of his name.  

The first tenet of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics is to seek the truth and report it. By giving a platform to abuse survivors, the filmmakers shine a light on these horrible acts that were too long left in the shadows. In other aspects, mainly the lack of contextualizing the dual role of the Dalai Lama as a political and religious leader, what brings modern-day people to Buddhism (news flash: it’s been a while since the hippies followed the Beatles to India), and not separating Spatz and Lakar from the Tibetan Buddhism community as a whole, the documentary falls short. These are big issues, and a 2,600-year history, that can’t be synthesized and tied up in an hour and a half. 

Ultimately, it is good that Spatz and Lakar’s survivors are able to share their stories, which will, it is hoped, give them closure and warn others about what a dysfunctional community looks like. It can only strengthen the dharma when abusive leaders are held accountable for their actions. And perhaps this documentary is just another example in our ever-connected world that if high-ranking leaders know about abusive teachers and continue to support them or accept financial donations, that we’re watching.

The post ‘Buddhism: The Unspeakable Truth’ Elevates Victims’ Stories in Imperfect Documentary appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Fourteen years ago, when Jonathan and Diana Rose created the magnificent Garrison Institute, a repurposed monastery on the banks of the Hudson River, they asked if I’d cook a meal for the Dalai Lama, who was coming to visit. I declined. Maybe insecurity got in the way, but it felt more like fear. Although I was well known as a chef with a Zen-like approach to cooking, I believed that the honor should go to a practitioner of Buddhism or at least someone who would be more fully awake to the experience than I would have been. Ever since, I’ve had a recurring thought whenever I shop, cook, or daydream. “What would I have made?” Sometimes the question makes me smile; other times it triggers great anxiety. But in the end, I realized that the food itself was not at all what mattered. 

My search for a satisfactory answer to this question started with the Zen meal chant. I first uttered the meal gatha (a short verse for recitation) at the Garrison Institute not long after I declined the Roses’ offer. I fixated on the line “72 labors brought you this food; we should know how it comes to us.” It sounded so much like the contemporary value placed on “sustainability” and the goal to honor all the steps involved in getting a meal on the table. Where does it begin—with an embryo, a seed? Does it mean the farmer who plants the seed? The migrant who picks the grapes? The slaughterer who kills the calf? The trucker who hauls ingredients to market? The cook who washes grit from the field greens? The chef who prepares the soup? The artisan who crafted the bowl? The server who presents the food? The dishwasher who scours the pots? Yes, all of it. And so with every part of the meal, I would consider the source, and path, of each ingredient to fully sanctify its importance.

The “Five Contemplations” verse, as translated by the Soto Zen Text Project, presents a similar sentiment to that of the meal gatha: “We reflect on the effort that brought us this food and consider how it comes to us.” Considering, to me, goes deeper than knowing, for how can anyone really know? An alternate translation by Plum Village, the homestead of late Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, puts it rather succinctly: “This food is the gift of the whole universe—the earth, the sky, and much hard work… In this food I see clearly the presence of the entire universe supporting my existence.”

Seventy-two labors, then, symbolizes the infinity of conditions bringing us our food at any given time, representing all efforts that contribute to life (inside or outside the monastery), past or present. I also have read that the number 72 refers to the posts within the monastery, including those of the abbot, administrators, and the cook.

There are other, more complicated, explanations: that at age 72 the Buddha preached the Lotus Sutra, or that it’s related to the 72 devas, or to the 72 words with which Brahma saved the world. These references, too obscure for me, might be of interest to His Holiness. In any case, it is clearly an important number. 

I was familiar with the idea of oryoki and wondered if this style would appeal. Oryoki, meaning “just the right amount,” is the formal monastic ceremonial meal eaten during sesshin (Zen meditation retreats) and is one of the tradition’s most essential rituals. It is a precise and conscious way of eating—choreographed to the minutest detail. The meal is served in three to five bowls, with elaborate napkin folding, utensil placement, and frequent bowing. 

Lovely to watch, but I want my imagined meal for the Dalai Lama to be of a more casual nature. I will serve the main course in one beautiful bowl—preferably a bartered one—and design its contents to be eaten with chopsticks, and then, with his hands cradling the still-warm vessel, drink the remaining broth until the very vapor was gone. This preserves the sacredness of the bowl—the “miraculous utensil” (the 13th-century Zen master Eihei Dogen called it).

Daido Loori Roshi, the late abbot of the Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York, says “A meal is a state of consciousness that we receive with great gratitude. Whether it’s cabbages or cows, it’s life that we consume. That’s the nature of life on this planet. We nourish and sustain each other with our lives and the truth of 10,000 dharmas is revealed… Food is thusness. We begin by giving and receiving and in that process there is unity and perfect harmony. A meal is the dharma nature.”

I vowed to be fully awake to that idea as I planned His Holiness’s menu. Ten thousand dharmas in a bowl sounded good to me.

When preparing any meal, I always try to anticipate and consider the desires and priorities of my guests. I had assumed the Dalai Lama was a vegetarian but that is not the case outside of his residence at Dharmasala. I’m told His Holiness eats meat following doctor’s orders.  So I was free to choose whether to include “flesh” in my menu while remaining mindful of the Buddhist reluctance to “taking life.”

I initially had planned something vegetarian—a beautiful bowl of soup, the color of saffron, flecked with edible gold and brimming with the finest soba noodles. Then, Eureka! I happened upon a recipe in the New York Times for one of His Holiness’ favorite dishes—momos.  These Himalayan treats are juicy beef dumplings perfumed with ginger, onion, and cilantro and shaped like half-moons. In Tibet, finding beef (or yak) is not so easy, but finding grain to make the thin wafers of dough is even more difficult. Momos are generally made for Losar, the Tibetan New Year, a holiday that incorporates the comforts of food. 

The narrative for my menu was beginning to take shape. Resolving what to feed someone engenders awe and humility. It goes beyond verbal communication into a more sacred realm. It is intention, without words. A fragrant way to awaken. 

I n his Instructions for the Tenzo (the head cook of a monastery), Dogen Zenji wrote that a tenzo should have three important qualities: Joyful Mind, Great Mind, and Mature Mind. According to the Zen teacher Eido Shimano Roshi (1932-2018), “Cooking is not only the preparation of food but a practice of spirituality. It means not wasting even the stem of a vegetable.” (A new generation of American chefs has recently taken this value to heart unaware, perhaps, of the Buddhist practice.) “It involves an economy of movement, punctuality, and beauty of presentation. These are the elements that make our lives spiritually rich.” 

In addition, being fully awake in the kitchen leads to what is known as “spontaneous generosity,” an awareness about using everything and offering whatever food you have. 

The tenzo’s responsibilities go beyond cooking, to ensuring that all the ingredients gathered will become nutritional meals to sustain the monks during work and sesshin. My menu must be creative enough not to waste one morsel and substantial enough (“just the right amount”) to satisfy His Holiness until the early hours of the morning. As an ordained Buddhist monk, he does not have dinner. He does, however, take tea at 6 p.m. 

The Zen Monastic Standards (a 12th-century work by Changlu Zongze) states that the tenzo “puts the mind of the Way to work, serves carefully varied meals appropriate to each occasion, and thus allows everyone to practice without hindrance.” 

In the Zen tradition, the preparation of food is considered a sacred act. The cook’s intention is to handle each slice of radish, grain of rice, or leaf of mustard green as if it were the sixteen-foot golden body of the Buddha. My menu needs to fulfill this obligation. “The right qualities of heart and mind in cooking are just as important as a stove or a knife,” said the tenzo at the Dai Bosatsu Zendo perched high atop a mountain in the Catskills. I wonder what he would make. 

I recently learned the concept of takuhatsu—a traditional form of collecting alms by Zen monks-in-training who beg for their food. In return, the monks teach he dharma. In India this was the only way that monks were able to eat—from the food they were given in their begging bowls (“the miraculous utensil”). Later in China and Japan, monks began farming and growing all their own food, making takuhatsu dispensable—except for getting money or, perhaps, for more spiritual reasons.

There’s something here that I like! What if I engaged in takuhatsu and thereby gave everyone in the community the honor of participating in the Dalai Lama’s menu? I am happy with this notion! It feels organic and timely, locavore. I would go from farmer to fisherman, beekeeper to shopkeeper, baker to brewer, from home to hut, with a large basket in each hand. I would humbly say that I was cooking for the Dalai Lama. What would they like to offer? Needless to say, I don’t need their food, but in the spirit of giving and receiving and giving again, it feels that the whole sangha would be involved in this divine meal. At that moment, in a gust of spontaneity, I would create the menu around what I received. It is actually the way I most enjoy cooking. I value this idea because it leads to sanshin: that of magnanimous mind (by inviting everyone to participate); joyful mind (creating something out of nothing with whatever is available), and tender mind (a loving state of giving and receiving.)

By stripping recipes to their essence, I can fully appreciate the value each ingredient brings to a dish. When I inhale the sweet perfume of a ripe red pepper I can intuit the flavor it might add to the recipe; when I see the green-gold color of a first-pressed extra-virgin olive oil I can imagine its taste before it reaches my tongue. My menu will use seemingly prosaic ingredients treated with the same reverence and nuance of a sommelier sniffing the aroma of a rare vintage before finally discerning its myriad flavors upon the palate. This idea can be easily applied to fill our “miraculous utensil.” The ingredients for our menu would certainly be fresh and seasonal. There is a Japanese proverb I love that has always informed my cooking: “If you can capture the season on the plate, then you are the master.” 

It has been said, “Imagination is the instrument of compassion.” There are many ways to interpret this but I believe that the creation of something “out of nothing” connects one human being to another—through art, music, literature, or cooking, and has the potential to heal or spark something divine in each. All this adds up to “mindfulness” says Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi, co-abbot of Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon, and the author of Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food. “Mindfulness,” she says, “is the most powerful tool for assessing the sacred aspect of eating.” And very imaginatively she adds, “mindfulness is the best seasoning you can add to food.” There are many ways to nurture and nourish. As I create my menu, I will use mindfulness as the predominant spice. And I will cook in silence, listening to the sounds of the kitchen for instruction. 

We usually think that cooking involves our five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste, but I’d add “contemplation” as a sixth. In planning my meal, I would consider the “seven hungers” described by Chozen Roshi—eye hunger, nose hunger, mouth hunger, stomach hunger, cellular hunger, mind hunger, heart hunger. And I would consider all the taste elements of sour, salty, bitter, sweet, umami, and astringency. Does the Dalai Lama like cilantro? An enzyme in it makes it taste like soap for many people. But it is an important component of Asian cooking and in his beloved momos, so I believe he does.  

Each bite would contain a bit of mystery and history; to paraphrase Lawrence Durrell when he spoke of olives—“a taste older than water.” And I would learn to make sepen—the fiery, blood-red hot sauce of Tibet, often used to accompany momos.  

While I begin preparations, I will check in with my emotions. At Zen Mountain Monastery, I asked Sankai, the head cook, whether he believed that his feelings were “revealed” in his food. “Absolutely,” he exclaimed. If he feels angry or agitated any time that he’s cooking, “he simply steps out of the kitchen until that mood passes.” 

At times I have been aware of my own emotions becoming infused into my cooking, unintentionally affecting the outcome of the food. Recently, a close friend, going through a terrible time in her marriage, made cupcakes that were inadvertently as salty as the sea, despite the fact that she has made them for us, buttery and sweet, for decades. Roiled by tears, her emotional state was unveiled. 

This idea is also expressed by the authors of Prince Wen Hui’s Cook, Bob Flaws and Honora Wolfe: “Like every other aspect of our phenomenal reality, food is affected by how we think about it. From this point of view one’s spiritual state directly affects the quality of the food which then affects one’s health for better or worse.” 

I would consider all of this as I prepare a meal for His Holiness. I was ready.

As my journey came to an end, I realized that the menu itself was not what was important. It was the numinous process of how to figure it out, and how to be fully awake to the experience.

So what would I cook if you asked me today? First, I would serve His Holiness three momos. Then, in the “miraculous utensil” I would pour a fragrant broth, the color of his robe, perfumed with saffron, lemongrass, holy basil, and earthy shiitakes. In it would be barely poached vegetables and the finest soba noodles imaginable. On top would shimmer bits of edible gold, to symbolize the golden Buddha. And for dessert? A sacred recipe of my own: Venetian Wine cake, flavored with lemon, rosemary, red wine, and olive oil, to be eaten with the hands, slowly and mindfully, until the very last crumb is gone. Once upon a time, this cake was made and sold by Greyston Bakery. Founded by the Zen teacher Roshi Bernie Glassman in Yonkers, the bakery is now known for its open hiring process offering transitional employment for people leaving correctional facilities. They are still the keepers of my secret recipe.

But, as the seasons change, and conditions change, and I change, I may yet opt for takuhatsu and beg for my ingredients. As a reminder of the interconnection of all life, I would share the honor with others, and spontaneously create a meal from what has been offered. In that way, I can return to a state of “not knowing”—which is where this all began.

The post 10,000 Dharmas in a Bowl appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Nothing is permanent, so everything is precious. Here’s a selection of some happenings—fleeting or otherwise—in the Buddhist world this week and next.

Dalai Lama Imparts Message of Urgency on Earth Day

On Earth Day, April 22, His Holiness the Dalai Lama released a message urging humanity to unite against climate change: “As human beings, living on this one planet, we must make an effort to live happily together. The threat of climate change is not limited by national boundaries—it affects us all. We must work to protect nature and the planet, which is our only home.” Click here for the full message.

Additionally, the Dalai Lama met with the participants of Dialogue for Our Future, a series of panel talks from various climate change activists inspired by the Dalai Lama’s plea for collective action. “We have to educate people about the factors that contribute to climate change. We have to pay more attention to ways to preserve our environment. This means making a basic understanding of climate change and its effect on the environment part of ordinary education,” the Dalai Lama said.

Tricycle Hosts a Week-Long Buddhism and Ecology Summit 

Over the past week, Tricycle held a series of live virtual events featuring leading Buddhist teachers, writers, and environmentalists exploring three dimensions of the ecological crisis: the spiritual and psychological roots, dealing with the difficult emotions that arise, and taking meaningful action. Events included scholar Stephen Batchelor speaking about embracing extinction; scholar David Loy asking if the crisis is also a spiritual crisis; Roshi Joan Halifax and former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres discussing our ethical responsibility to co-create the world we wish to live in; and Buddhist teacher and environmental activist Joana Macy on a path forward. Find a full list of the events here. Recordings of the events are available here. 

Medieval Zen Paintings on Display at Freer Gallery

Through July 24th, an exhibit titled “Mind Over Matter: Zen in Medieval Japan” is on view at the Freer Gallery of Art, part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. The exhibit features medieval ink paintings by influential Chinese masters and Japanese monks from 1200-1600 A.D. To provide additional education about key aspects in the history of Zen, an online interactive experience called Voices of Zen: Contemporary Voices – featuring audio from award-winning koto musician Yumi Kurosawa, Zen priest Reverend Inryū Bobbi Poncé-Barger, and curator Frank Feltens – will accompany the show.

Director David Lynch Launches $500 Million Transcendental Meditation Initiative Aimed at College Students

Twin Peaks director David Lynch recently announced his plan to launch a Transcendental Meditation training program for 30,000 international college students. Lynch, who has practiced TM every day since 1973, hopes to inspire the younger generation to become “peace-creating groups of meditation experts and leave a legacy of world peace.” The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace partnered with the Global Union of Scientists for Peace to establish the program, with plans to invest approximately $500 million in its first year. The initiative will fund meditation training for 10,000 students at Maharishi International University in the US, 10,000 students at the sister school in India, and 10,000 students at partner universities in 10 other locations around the world.

Buddhist Digital Resource Center Profiles Librarian of Tibetan Books at the US Library of Congress

The Buddhist Digital Resource Center, a nonprofit that provides digital research tools and provides digital access to Buddhist texts, published a profile of Susan Meinheit, the Tibetan and Mongolian Specialist at the Library of Congress, this week—spotlighting one of the people behind the preservation of 17,000 Tibetan monograph volumes, 3,600 volumes of rare books, and thousands more texts on microfilm. Read the profile here.

Coming up:

April 29: In a Zoom discussion at 4pm ET, Zen priest and a professor Kurt Spellmeyer discusses the doctrine of emptiness, which he calls the open door that lets us step into awareness of the true nature of reality. Register here.

June 17: New York Insight Meditation Society celebrates its 25th anniversary with the return of its in-person, annual Dharma Rhythms celebration, featuring a drum circle led by Batala New York, an all-women, Black-led, Afro-Brazilian samba reggae percussion ensemble. On June 18, the sangha will hold a virtual event with live music. Learn more here

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