Dali Lama Teachings!!

This entry will focus on the notes and summary of His Holinesses teachings. It will also include examples and quotations from his texts. My grasp of Buddhist Philosophy and Religion is in no way comprehensive so I can merely put down the few things I understand. Also please comment, by bringing up questions, arguments, or personal insights. I believe dialogue and positive arguing will help further all our enlightenment. Also some of the writing is a little deep and murky but try to get through it.
The Dali Lama is the Bodhissattva of Compassion (Bodhissatva being someone who has reached enlightenment but comes back to help all sentient beings instead of breaking the cycle of re-birth) so it is no surprise that his teachings center around ways to cultivate this great virtue. He started the first teaching I listened to by talking about the end of suffering. One of the main tenants of Buddhism is that all beings want happiness and don't want suffering. In order to be released from Samsara (suffering) we must abandon ignorance. In order to abandon ignorance we must realize the dependence of existence. When we realize the dependence of all existence we see the connection among all beings. This is where compassion starts and samsara ends.
The knowledge of interdependence can be thought of philosophically as such: Everything lacks intrinsic nature. This means that things don't have a essence or soul that defines what it is. Instead what is does in relation to the rest of existence defines it. That is because nothing can exist on its own. All appearances are colored and skewed by our pre-conceptions and languages that are places on things by society and life. In reality everything is so connected and interdependent that in essence it is all one thing. The reason that we see the illusions of individualisation is because of individual causes and conditions. The next tenant of Buddhism is that all effects have causes and all causes have effects. Since all effects have causes they are dependent on each other. This is how Buddhist truly see interdependence.
Of course things are not just one thing. I see a chair, a lamp, a person and they are all separate. This lead the Dali Lama to speak about two types of wisdom. There is conventional wisdom which is the everyday view of the world. The view that differentiates, defines, and analyses things in respect to their form and function. Then there is ultimate wisdom, which views the philosophic and essential interdependence of objects. The best way to describe this wisdom is through William Blakes famous quote "When the doors or perception are cleansed, man will see things as they truly are, infinite." Of course this quote was used by Auldous Huxley in regards to a Mescalin trip, and by Jim Morrison for the name of his band, but what they thought you could learn from tripping, Buddhist say you can learn from meditating and enlightenment.
His Holiness used the analogy of a dream for how things that are essentially interdependent and not essentially real can be grasped by the mind. Even though a dream or a movie is not real, it causes very real emotions in your mind. And just as all these individualization's of existence are not essentially real they still cause very real things in your mind.
I know this is all very heavy jargon, and deep stuff, but he is merely trying to show why compassion makes sense on a philosophical level. It is important to realize that this is not taken for granted by everybody. Nietzsche did not think that compassion was the way to happiness. He believed that all living things have a 'will to power' and that all beings are constantly tyring to get more and more and more. Compassion for other beings would simply ditract from ones own power. His Holiness said that by studying these concepts of cause and effect and interdependence and truly grasping them, we would have such wisdom that we could not help but feel connected and compassionate towards all existence.
The next two concepts that I must attend to are Karma and Reincarnation. They are extremely important parts of Buddhism. According to His Holiness these are not just metaphors but real facts of life. One way to think of Reincarnation is to realize that we have an infinite number of past lives and so does everyone else. If this is true than every single person you meet has at one time been your mother in a past life. Your enemies, your friends, and people you have never met have all at one time or another been your mom. If you look at everyone this way how can you not have compassion. Also, if you look at Karma a small transgression in this life can effect you negatively in your re-birth or many life-times down the road. Also something that you did several life-times ago might be catching up with you now. This is how Buddhist justify bad things happening to good people but still accepting karmic laws of action and re-action. To me its just a bunch of gibberish that is simply metaphorical, but who the fuck am I.
Another day of teachings was centered on these discrepancies that I just mentioned. It started with all his talks do as he walks through the crowd, out of his gated compound, and into the temple. Seeing him from only 20 feet away left me with the indescribable warm feeling somewhere between mild anxiety and utter elation. I felt the same way when he laughed, which he often does. In this days teachings he spoke in English and discussed the connection between holistic medicine and scientific health. There are many studies on the connection between stress and health. Of Course the study of Dharma (Buddhas teachings) can definitely help lower stress.
His Holiness also made it clear that faith alone is not sufficient for enlightenment. Study and experimentation are virtues that the Buddha taught. This aspect of his teachings resonated with me most deeply. He then went on to separate Buddhism into three views; Buddha Science, Buddha Philosophy, and Buddha Religion. I realized that I fall into the first two categories but not the last one. Of course the Dali Lama has no problem with people accepting or rejecting any aspects of the teachings.
He also went on to talk about other religions and their often contradictory nature. He said that the Buddha taught contradictory things because it must relate to the many differences between people. What we learn from this is that the concept of God, Creator, and faith is a great path for many people to find compassion and happiness. But for others it not the best or necessary way to have compassion. Jess wrote on her facebook "I don't need God to be good" and it completely goes with this sentiment. Of course some people do need God to be good and that is ok too.
The last thing I will talk about is the idea of death and impermanence. We are all going to die and it is important to not waste our life now. If you believe in heaven than you need to do as much good now so that you have a good chance of getting in, if you are Buddhist you need to hurry up and understand all this nonsense so that you can reach enlightenment and help others, and if you are me you need to hurry up learn about the world, help people, sing, and be merry cause when I die its over. In "The Way to Freedom" by His Holiness there is a great quote on impermanence. "As the Seventh Dalai Lama said, young people who look very strong and healthy but die young are actually great masters teaching us about impermanence". Jason's death certainly taught me about the fragile nature of life. And just as he taught me to seize my own life he taught me about empathy and compassion for people that struggle in deep mental samsara. We can all learn a lot from people that struggle and hopefully we can all reach a point where compassion not anger is the first thought in our minds. I love you all.