dear zam,

it is not very helpful to compare yourself with anyone... h.h. is h.h., you are you....
when the buddha says we can all be buddhas, all human beings can be buddhas, he obviously meant it...

since we are all human, we can all be buddhas.

but it would be confusing to think that a buddha was like God in the Judaeo-Christian sense. nirvana is not about becoming omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, as if we could become God. it's just about getting free of suffering. this is surely possible to achieve.

i have heard that many Indians like to praise gurus and saints 'too much...' its a way of saying 'i don't really want to change or do anything to become a guru, enlighten myself, or meditate, and since there are so many competent and enlightened people already, 'let them change the world.'

i hope you do not waste my time....but even worse would be for you to waste your own life.

have you read ekhart tolle? he spent a couple of years shivering on a park bench, because he didn't want to live like others, and he didn't want to live one more moment without understanding himself. most people would probably think he was crazy to do that...
but in the end, he reached enlightenment.

i am not saying you should do that.. we should find our own way...

regarding my own achievements: i am a failure because i have done nothing to save the world except meditate, attend university, and talk to people. if we believe sri nisargata maharaj, then we can even be enlightened as tobacco sellers...

or do you think enlightenment should be special? at a distance from you?

can we be aware of ourselves or is this impossible? only for special people?

going back to your first note message:

1) global social workers are doing great work...but they should also be critical of the people who use them to make money out of the poverty...it's incredible that USAID, for example, keeps 99 cents for every dollar donated in the USA. only 1 cent goes to Africa... half of the AID money goes to Israel so Israel can use it to defend itself!
giving food and clothing is fine, but we should also give wisdom so that people are not greedy...trying to make money out of the desperately poor... if we don't criticize then it seem, some social work will happenned some good will come of it but then the good work will get canceled by the bad work done by your colleagues. i once talked to a greenpeace leader who told me that i was competing for my own ideas with other ideas. and when i asked him to clarify this, he said that all ideas were in competition with each other... when i said i stand for ' cooperation', he said that is just another idea that is competing with others! it was incredible for me to hear this!
so, it looks like we have to get enlightened or else we will all have a big war!!
2) if we are the world, then changing the world means changing ourselves....if you start by changing yourself, you will start to see the opportunities where you can be of service to others... without changing ourselves, we haven't got the energy. energy is wasted in fighting ourselves and other people, ideas compete inside us and there is a loss of energy when we fight the contradictions inside. we need to discover the way to inner peace before outer peace can be a true possibility....how can we cooperate to solve the problems of the world, for example, if we believe we should compete! Maybe we should compete to see who can be more compassionate? But we should ask what that idea is based on? is it compassion or competition for the image of compassion? like Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize....but for what?
3) universal compassion..
4) i would recommend doing a 'vipassana retreat'...it is 10 days and you can learn it for free...they also have some short books you can read about it....but the best thing is to learn how to meditate.....if you do it, you will gradually get the energy, you will learn to speak the truth, you will learn not to hate, generate no more anger.... you will become a compassionate human being... that is the revolution we have all been waiting for!! see: http://www.dhamma.org/

best wishes

k

thanks dear keni lynch

that was very helpfull !!!

wow! you know very good about all ignorance of human and life and world but i dont even know what will happen even today! its very good that now world has seen what you want to teach

but wish you tell us what buddhist book did you read untill today becaus its like you know so much about buddhist like already read 1000 book or like already know all about what world must do and wow! thats cool and did you writ any book ? if yes and then plz tell me beacus maybe i can read it

and it was very nice to fine you in here and you are very pure and good heart and thanks ;0) for open heart talking

i think world must need people like you beacuse i think you worry about world more then h.h. and tibet buddhist and you know what is best for world more then h.h. and tibet buddhist and you help world more then h.h. and tibet buddhist and i will feel sham today if i am god or buddha because you are already free from all ignorance..

i am not joking

Hi zam,

I dont think its helpful to rely too much on leaders. As soon as we are realize that 'we are the world' (as J. Krishnamurti says!), then I think we are on our own, free to think, do and imagine a different world.

But if you need some inspiration to get started, this Global Oneness website is good to begin with but then you might also want to look up...

a) the World Social Forum (WSF: 'a new world is possible')
b) read 'confessions of an economic hitman' by john perkins (especially the epilogue)
c) do a vipassana meditation course (vipassana according to S.N. Goenka...there are many retreat centers around the world running courses all year round)
d) watch helen caldicott on youtube....

if the above things dont work for you and you are still paralyzed by ignorance..

then i suggest you stay in bed, sleep, shake a little, watch some television if you feel like it, then shake some more with anger, incompetence, ignorance, and fear...

do that for two years...

and then come out a wise person...after that you will not need me to tell you what to do.. i am not a government, or the CIA, i do not give orders...

i tend to think this spiritual stuff is like riding a bicycle or surfing...no one can really teach you....and you need 'passion' most of all, you need to have love to start with...

if we don't do the world some or any good...what are we on this earth for?

many people answer that question with the way they live their lives... the easy way is to give up...for me, giving up is not an option....because of the realities of suffering and compassion.

best wishes

k

Dear keni lynch
I think you talk very open and strong but your heart is good and pure because you are talking about how to help and I love this!!!

And Wow! looks like you friends are talking about big stuff and forgive me to ask some stupid thing because I don’t know too much about world or religion like how much you friends knows but I need your help to know more about it and the things I want to know is

1-i think globle is all about human life and human life need more then globle even to help globle like how our body need more then brain even to help brain and now are you saying lik no need food or drink or eye or ear but just one brain only? Because the love and truth and feith and wisdom and rispek and good social work are like food and drink and eye and ear for brain but is it means nothing to globle?

2-people always say chang world and so tell me what it means chang world? dos it mean lik forever happy and never die? or lik all people is rich or all hous is like 6 star hotel?or like every people is 100% good and pur heart with 100% love and wisdom? or lik only no global worming and no war? Or like Must be too good to be true like sweet dream? and noooow!!!! i ask you agein what it means chang world and dos it really mean something very big?

3-tell me what means everything to you? can you tell me the name of just one people who did everything for world or who did change everything in world? can you show me just one strong country or gov today that don’t need help from other country or other people forever? Or what is the best can you teach today from life and soul to world and money?

4-today some people talk not nice about greenpeace and some people talk not nice about buddhist and some people talk not nice about musslim and some people talk not nice about Christian and maybe there is more reson that i dont know but the one reson i think maybe I know and it is [today if some bad people lik me in greenpeace do wrong and then people will say greenpeace is doing wrong but the truth is that greenpeace or Buddhist or Muslim or Christian is one name of truth or wisdom or path that need to learn for year if I am not wrong] and so it can be very big help if you can tell me the name of what book did you read about Buddhist and world and religion? or where did you learn all this fresh new wisdom?

Thanks for your time to read that far and I wish you can help me to learn about it.. because I am still stupid who can not tell all like know all.. like see all.. :0)

karmapa channo..

life is nothing to me... world is nothing to me... greenpeace is nothing to me...
if there is no search thing like love today.............................

[and so lets sing this for one and for all]

la ...la..la... i love you and you love me.... we will gon a be a big familly..
la....la...la... i believe and you believe... we will gon a believe our self ..

Hi Roisin Elder,

I am not sure you are right in saying Buddhism is not proselytising. If it wasn't proselytising, then King Ashoka's ambassadors of peace to Ceylon, Thailand, Burma and the later spread of Buddhism to China, Tibet, Bhutan, Korea and Japan never occurred. Its obvious the Buddha said, 'monks and nuns, go out for the benefit of the world, go out for the salvation of the world, to teach compassion to the suffering'. If, in our time, this does not happen, except in small doses as we see in the engaged Buddhism movements, this is not because of poverty but because of a lack of global intention.

Perhaps Buddhism has become so corrupt, nationalized and hypocritical that its teachings no longer actually work, or no longer actually work as they were originally intended. If so, this would explain the diffidence Buddhists feel to spreading their ineffectual teachings. If they worked, on the other hand, what would stop you from reaching out to the suffering? Since the world is so obviously suffering, and when the obviousness of this suffering is more obvious than
before as graphically displayed on television 24/7.

Poverty was never an excuse before. It should not be an excuse now. Why don't these Buddhist appeal to the rich, convert the rich, start monasteries everywhere, reach out, go out and do stuff, stop counting beads and start knocking heads together to change the world pacifically. Stop calling yourselves Tibetans, be human beings with a message and praxes to help suffering humanity, your brothers and sister across the world.

But you won't do it, because you are caught in your own self-adulatory activities, and your compassion has no more range than a bullet from a pistol. This is why nuclear ballistic missiles will continue to rule the world and you will do nothing but count your beads and whirl your prayer wheels...

Reply to Keni Lynch: Why don't Tibetan Monks do social outreach programmes abroad

I seems to me that are two main reasons why Tibetan Buddhist monks (and Nuns) don't tend to participate in social global outreach programmes:

The first is that they are refugees in a foreign country themselves, the Tibetan communities are generally terribly poor. They have no national status (no nationality, therefore no passports), are unable to own land, they have barely any work, in one of the poorest countries in the world. They themselves rely heavily on the political goodwill of teh Indian Government, and foreign aid. It is extremely difficult for the monasteries and communitites to do more than basically survive. On the other hand, NGO's (etc) are set up by well trained, well funded people from developed, wealthy countries. (Also don't forget, the people who run NGO's etc are very well renumerated for their valuable work, it's not PURE altruism).

The second reason is that Buddhism is not a proselytising religion. This may seem strange to Christian, Muslim or other monotheistic religions, but it really doesn't lend itself to the missionary type of work associated with trying to "save" people in the religious or colonial sense. Within Buddhism the monasteries were traditionally the "powerhouses" of spiritual work, and the monks and nuns would help those who asked them. That would be all the lay people in a Buddhist country. According to Buddhist belief and experience of the nature of the mind and spirit, this spiritual life of a monastic practitioner is ultimately the work of pure altruism.

The Buddhist practices and studies of "the mind" are now attracting a great deal of serious scientific research from eminent scholars at respected Universities in the USA and elsewhere. Try Googlng "Dalai Lama, Mind and Life Conferences" as a starter, you'll find many interesting links as to how their ancient knowledge may have very useful things to offer every human being on the planet, without necessaily lifting a spade.

I hope this information may help to broaden your viewpoint a little.

Nice words... I wished he would talk about the social programs you run though. Are they global, and if not, why not?
The American Peace Corps, as well as numerous AID organizations, NGOs, UNESCO etc seem to be on the news constantly when they seem to have a much humbler set of criteria for what helps (human rights for example). When I see Buddhist monks today talking about compassion and oneness while they do nothing for the world, my heart sinks. Why aren't you global? In Africa, for example, or even South America spreading the peace and love you so believe in. When they don't see you doing anything, cynics will only think you are weak hypocrites, deceiving the gullible with empty words.

Rinpoche u r only noe to serve for the innocent people who are in this samsara. i really love u n respect u la.