After spending three days listening to His Holiness the Dalai Lama teach in Oregon, the Venerable Thubten Jampa, of Sravasti Abbey, is still processing the experience.
“What I really found amazing,” she said, “was when he went to leave, then turned back, and said ‘I’m the same as you. You have the same potential I have.’”
That’s how the Dalai Lama concluded his 3-day visit to Oregon, hosted by Maitripa College.
He spoke in Portland and Eugene during his trip, in which he focused mainly on environmental issues. His appearances included lectures as well as public forums.
“I always love to see how His Holiness relates to all these people. He said himself that he is not an expert, he has no profound information to add, but what I was thinking was just the fact that he exists and with his presence he enables all these other people to come together and talk. If he hadn't been there this conversation (on the environment) wouldn’t have happened,” said Venerable Thubten Chodron, founder of Sravasti Abbey.
Over and over again the Dalai Lama emphasized that the world’s population is increasing rapidly, and natural resources are struggling to keep up. He said people need to start living differently now, emphasizing that all things interrelated. A healthy planet leads to a healthy society, he said.
On Saturday afternoon, though, during his concluding remarks at Veterans Memorial Arena in Portland, he chose to speak on a different subject — affection.
He said affection is innate, but is easily replaced with greed and desire, as one grows older and more independent. He encouraged the 10,000 people attending his lecture to practice true loving kindness, which he described as the desire for others to be happy, which can lead to unbiased love and infinite compassion.
“Affection even the animals have,” he said. “But infinite compassion … it’s a unique human ability.”
With it comes deep satisfaction and joyfulness, he said, which he called “hygiene of emotions,” or a happy physical body and a happy mind.
The Dalai Lama said a truly compassionate or truly affectionate person is sincerely gentle “to all their neighbors.”
He added that children who are nurtured and showed affection are more likely to be kind and compassionate. He said he considers himself richer than a rich friend he once had, because as a child his mother carried him on her shoulders while she worked in the fields. Youth who aren’t shown affection grow up to be suspicious, he said.
Ven. Jampa said his lecture struck a chord in her.
“It emphasized how important it is to show youngsters this affection and how we can start at this point and it can influence our whole society to have a healthy mind and a healthy body,” she said. “It can influence the health system, the economy and social and political levels because people will have more capacity to develop love toward others, they don’t have to protect themselves all the time.”
View photos of the Dalai Lama’s visit on our Facebook page.
Thank you so much for going to this and sharing with all of us.
It was an honor to be there!