A day of mindfulness in the heart of Hollywood
Bhuvan Lall
On 11 September 2006, the extraordinary meeting between the two leading lights of the Buddhist faith—His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the celebrated Zen Master Thich Nath Hanh—at an event in Los Angeles showcased the wisdom of the East to the high and the mighty of the West.
On the warm morning of 11 September 2006, a simple Buddhist monk — His Holiness the Dalai Lama — came out to address a special ‘World Peace through Cinema’ event in Los Angeles. It was an opportunity to present the wisdom of the East on the west coast of America.
The fourteenth Dalai Lama was born on 6 July 1935, in the northeastern Tibetan province of Amdo. Named Lhamo Thondup by his parents, he was renamed Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso after monks discovered him at the age of two and proclaimed him to be the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama. In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Giving the reason for bestowing the honour, Egil Aarvik, the chair of the Nobel Committee, said: “First and foremost for his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people’s struggle to regain their liberty.”
His Holiness the Dalai Lama said in his acceptance speech stated, “I accept the prize with profound gratitude on behalf of the oppressed everywhere and for all those who struggle for freedom and work for world peace… I accept it as a tribute to the man who founded the modern tradition of nonviolent action for change — Mahatma Gandhi — whose life taught and inspired me. And, of course, I accept it on behalf of the six million Tibetan people, my brave countrymen, and women inside Tibet, who have suffered and continue to suffer so much.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama is perhaps one of the most in-demand personalities in the world. The organisers had earlier approached him to honour them with his presence at the exclusive World Peace through Cinema event in Hollywood. After looking at his extensively packed calendar of events around the world he suggested 11 September 2006. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who had earlier been granted honorary citizenship of Canada, flew in from Vancouver on that day and was received on arrival by the American State Department Diplomatic Security Service officers and Geshe Tsultrim Gyaltsen-la. His Holiness dressed in flowing robes of burgundy and orange was taken straight from the aircraft to the cars waiting below and escorted as a state guest to the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.
On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, the highlight of the amazing event was the extraordinary meeting between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the celebrated Zen Master Thich Nath Hanh (affectionately referred to as Thay Vietnamese for teacher). The Patriarch of the Plum Village International Community of Engaged Buddhists in France, Thay is also a global spiritual leader, revered throughout the world for his powerful teachings and bestselling writings on mindfulness and peace. Despite government denunciation of his activity in Vietnam in the 1960s, Nhat Hanh founded a Buddhist University, a publishing house, and an influential peace activist magazine. Exiled from his homeland, he travelled to the United States where he made the case for peace to federal and Pentagon officials including Robert McNamara. He may have changed the course of US history when he persuaded Martin Luther King Jr to oppose the Vietnam War publicly, and so helped galvanise the peace movement. The following year, life-long efforts to generate peace and reconciliation moved Martin Luther King Jr to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. Subsequently, Thay led the Buddhist delegation to the Paris Peace Talks. When not travelling the world to teach “The Art of Mindful Living”, he taught at a Buddhist monastery for monks and nuns and a mindfulness practice centre for lay people in France. He is considered by many to be the father of mindfulness in the West and has sold over three million books in America alone. And his teachings have brought happiness to millions.
It was a historic morning as the two leading lights of the Buddhist faith had met only once before decades ago. During the past decades, wars in Asia had an indirect, yet profound impact on world peace. Exiled Buddhist scholars, like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh among many others, have become important teachers, writing and lecturing, spreading knowledge of Buddhism. They are also the global icons of peace with the courage to speak out against social injustice and the violation of human rights.
The energy in the small hall at the Hotel Peninsula was overwhelming. One could sense the change in the temperature in the room and for a moment the silent calmness of the audience as the two world-renowned spiritual leaders greeted each other. That morning the audience was an exclusive group of seventy-odd eclectic, intellectual, and creative people from Hollywood. Among those who had accepted the lunch invitation were Goldie Hawn, Sharon Stone, Carol Mendelsohn, Laurence Fishburne, Victoria Principal, Jeff Skoll, Marc Shmuger, Chris McGurk, Blair Westlake, and Stephan Davis. Hollywood actor Robert Downey Jr arrived unpretentiously and noiselessly took a random seat — listening to the words filling the hall — later speaking in bits he described his religious beliefs as “Jewish-Buddhist” and said that in the past has been interested in Christianity and the Hare Krishna ideology. At that stage after five years of substance abuse, arrests, rehab, and relapse, Robert Downey Jr was finally ready to work toward a full recovery from drugs and a return to his career. And subsequently, he became the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, earning roughly $75 million a year. Although there were a handful of practising Buddhists in the gathering, most were simply people who had come to pay their respects to the philosophy. They gave a standing ovation to the two revered guests.
The private event began with a memorial service, in which each individual placed a candle in a fountain containing 2,973 pebbles, one for each victim of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. A New Yorkbased investment banker, Hanif Wally Dahya, with the mild afternoon sunlight across his face spoke to the guests about his anguish of losing several of his close friends on that tragic September morning. The monastic sangha of the 400- acre Deer Park Monastery, a mindfulness practice center and monastic training center in Escondido near San Diego, chanted, “May the Day Be Well” and the invocation to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
Then the world-famous superstars, studios chiefs, filmmakers, bankers, CEOs of top media companies, and tech billionaires took their seats in the hall to carefully hear the learned men from the East. The Zen Master Thich Nath Hanh, dressed in a brown robe, began his speech by saying nothing for many minutes. As he sat before them he managed to do something seemingly impossible. He made the entire group go quiet along with him to the point where any noise — a hand scratching, a clinking glass, or even the slight shifting of a chair seemed out of place. It was exactly what the Hollywood folks had come to see.
The small, slender man with an aura of stillness and a focus that commanded attention thoughtfully stated, “Each of us should live life in such a way for a future to be possible for our children and for our children’s children. Do the things that should be done to help with the collective awakening. Do something, and then the miracle will happen… Awakening must be collective in order for the world to be saved…”
Truth seekers, devoted fans, peace enthusiasts, and the merely curious were all disarmed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as he got up and with folded hand bowed before his speech. Once upon a time actor Richard Gere had introduced the Dalai Lama at the Central Park in New York as “one of the great beings ever to walk on this planet”. The man who heartbreakingly fled his land in March 1959 after the Chinese takeover and has lived in exile ever since in India spoke at length about interconnectedness, “Everything is interconnected. My interest is linked to everyone else’s. Our survival and future are linked. Therefore the destruction of your so-called enemy is actually the destruction of yourself.”
The Tibetan leader and Buddhist holy man spoke mainly in English that afternoon with the usual self-deprecation and soft tone that had made him a magnet for celebrities around the world. He punctuated his talk with his high-pitched laughter and completed it with a robust sense of humour. He came across as pleasant, friendly, and very knowledgeable about humankind. Nevertheless, he turned to sombre themes, including the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and his campaign to promote non-violence throughout the world stating that Hollywood had the power to affect the world through cinema and to inspire compassion, something sorely lacking but needed in society. His accent was a bit hard to comprehend yet people listened intently. The knowledgeable man specified, “To have an idea what genuine human compassion is like, look at children. Naturally open and honest, they don’t care about other children’s background, what their religion or their nationalities are, so long as they smile and play together.”
One had to be really hardbitten not to be taken with His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s charisma. Many of the guests were captivated and came forward to get their pictures taken with His Holiness. He came across as a pleasant and friendly human being who was very knowledgeable about humanity. At the end of the uplifting talk, he put around the necks of a few in the audience a white scarf in the traditional Tibetan manner of bidding a person farewell. A year later ignoring furious objections from China, the United States Congress bestowed its highest civilian honour on the Dalai Lama and President George Bush Jr called the Dalai Lama a “universal symbol of peace and tolerance” during a ceremony in Washington.
And Thay that day taught the audience the subtle art of walking meditation by focusing on the most important thing for the human body — the breath. “I am in the present. I don’t think of the past. I don’t think of the future… Peace is possible. Happiness is possible. And this practice is simple enough for everyone to do,” Thay explained as he walked away at the culmination of a spiritually fascinating afternoon.
Bhuvan Lall is the author of ‘The Man India Missed: The Most Subhas Chandra Bose’ and ‘The Great Indian Genius: Har Dayal’. His forthcoming book is ‘The Path of Gautama Buddha’.
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Bhuvan Lall’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."
Courtesy: Bhuvan Lall and Daily Guardian: 11th September 2020
A day of mindfulness in the heart of Hollywood
Bhuvan Lall
On 11 September 2006, the extraordinary meeting between the two leading lights of the Buddhist faith—His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the celebrated Zen Master Thich Nath Hanh—at an event in Los Angeles showcased the wisdom of the East to the high and the mighty of the West.
On the warm morning of 11 September 2006, a simple Buddhist monk — His Holiness the Dalai Lama — came out to address a special ‘World Peace through Cinema’ event in Los Angeles. It was an opportunity to present the wisdom of the East on the west coast of America.
The fourteenth Dalai Lama was born on 6 July 1935, in the northeastern Tibetan province of Amdo. Named Lhamo Thondup by his parents, he was renamed Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso after monks discovered him at the age of two and proclaimed him to be the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama. In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Giving the reason for bestowing the honour, Egil Aarvik, the chair of the Nobel Committee, said: “First and foremost for his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people’s struggle to regain their liberty.”
His Holiness the Dalai Lama said in his acceptance speech stated, “I accept the prize with profound gratitude on behalf of the oppressed everywhere and for all those who struggle for freedom and work for world peace… I accept it as a tribute to the man who founded the modern tradition of nonviolent action for change — Mahatma Gandhi — whose life taught and inspired me. And, of course, I accept it on behalf of the six million Tibetan people, my brave countrymen, and women inside Tibet, who have suffered and continue to suffer so much.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama is perhaps one of the most in-demand personalities in the world. The organisers had earlier approached him to honour them with his presence at the exclusive World Peace through Cinema event in Hollywood. After looking at his extensively packed calendar of events around the world he suggested 11 September 2006. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who had earlier been granted honorary citizenship of Canada, flew in from Vancouver on that day and was received on arrival by the American State Department Diplomatic Security Service officers and Geshe Tsultrim Gyaltsen-la. His Holiness dressed in flowing robes of burgundy and orange was taken straight from the aircraft to the cars waiting below and escorted as a state guest to the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.
On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, the highlight of the amazing event was the extraordinary meeting between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the celebrated Zen Master Thich Nath Hanh (affectionately referred to as Thay Vietnamese for teacher). The Patriarch of the Plum Village International Community of Engaged Buddhists in France, Thay is also a global spiritual leader, revered throughout the world for his powerful teachings and bestselling writings on mindfulness and peace. Despite government denunciation of his activity in Vietnam in the 1960s, Nhat Hanh founded a Buddhist University, a publishing house, and an influential peace activist magazine. Exiled from his homeland, he travelled to the United States where he made the case for peace to federal and Pentagon officials including Robert McNamara. He may have changed the course of US history when he persuaded Martin Luther King Jr to oppose the Vietnam War publicly, and so helped galvanise the peace movement. The following year, life-long efforts to generate peace and reconciliation moved Martin Luther King Jr to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. Subsequently, Thay led the Buddhist delegation to the Paris Peace Talks. When not travelling the world to teach “The Art of Mindful Living”, he taught at a Buddhist monastery for monks and nuns and a mindfulness practice centre for lay people in France. He is considered by many to be the father of mindfulness in the West and has sold over three million books in America alone. And his teachings have brought happiness to millions.
It was a historic morning as the two leading lights of the Buddhist faith had met only once before decades ago. During the past decades, wars in Asia had an indirect, yet profound impact on world peace. Exiled Buddhist scholars, like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh among many others, have become important teachers, writing and lecturing, spreading knowledge of Buddhism. They are also the global icons of peace with the courage to speak out against social injustice and the violation of human rights.
The energy in the small hall at the Hotel Peninsula was overwhelming. One could sense the change in the temperature in the room and for a moment the silent calmness of the audience as the two world-renowned spiritual leaders greeted each other. That morning the audience was an exclusive group of seventy-odd eclectic, intellectual, and creative people from Hollywood. Among those who had accepted the lunch invitation were Goldie Hawn, Sharon Stone, Carol Mendelsohn, Laurence Fishburne, Victoria Principal, Jeff Skoll, Marc Shmuger, Chris McGurk, Blair Westlake, and Stephan Davis. Hollywood actor Robert Downey Jr arrived unpretentiously and noiselessly took a random seat — listening to the words filling the hall — later speaking in bits he described his religious beliefs as “Jewish-Buddhist” and said that in the past has been interested in Christianity and the Hare Krishna ideology. At that stage after five years of substance abuse, arrests, rehab, and relapse, Robert Downey Jr was finally ready to work toward a full recovery from drugs and a return to his career. And subsequently, he became the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, earning roughly $75 million a year. Although there were a handful of practising Buddhists in the gathering, most were simply people who had come to pay their respects to the philosophy. They gave a standing ovation to the two revered guests.
The private event began with a memorial service, in which each individual placed a candle in a fountain containing 2,973 pebbles, one for each victim of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. A New Yorkbased investment banker, Hanif Wally Dahya, with the mild afternoon sunlight across his face spoke to the guests about his anguish of losing several of his close friends on that tragic September morning. The monastic sangha of the 400- acre Deer Park Monastery, a mindfulness practice center and monastic training center in Escondido near San Diego, chanted, “May the Day Be Well” and the invocation to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
Then the world-famous superstars, studios chiefs, filmmakers, bankers, CEOs of top media companies, and tech billionaires took their seats in the hall to carefully hear the learned men from the East. The Zen Master Thich Nath Hanh, dressed in a brown robe, began his speech by saying nothing for many minutes. As he sat before them he managed to do something seemingly impossible. He made the entire group go quiet along with him to the point where any noise — a hand scratching, a clinking glass, or even the slight shifting of a chair seemed out of place. It was exactly what the Hollywood folks had come to see.
The small, slender man with an aura of stillness and a focus that commanded attention thoughtfully stated, “Each of us should live life in such a way for a future to be possible for our children and for our children’s children. Do the things that should be done to help with the collective awakening. Do something, and then the miracle will happen… Awakening must be collective in order for the world to be saved…”
Truth seekers, devoted fans, peace enthusiasts, and the merely curious were all disarmed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as he got up and with folded hand bowed before his speech. Once upon a time actor Richard Gere had introduced the Dalai Lama at the Central Park in New York as “one of the great beings ever to walk on this planet”. The man who heartbreakingly fled his land in March 1959 after the Chinese takeover and has lived in exile ever since in India spoke at length about interconnectedness, “Everything is interconnected. My interest is linked to everyone else’s. Our survival and future are linked. Therefore the destruction of your so-called enemy is actually the destruction of yourself.”
The Tibetan leader and Buddhist holy man spoke mainly in English that afternoon with the usual self-deprecation and soft tone that had made him a magnet for celebrities around the world. He punctuated his talk with his high-pitched laughter and completed it with a robust sense of humour. He came across as pleasant, friendly, and very knowledgeable about humankind. Nevertheless, he turned to sombre themes, including the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and his campaign to promote non-violence throughout the world stating that Hollywood had the power to affect the world through cinema and to inspire compassion, something sorely lacking but needed in society. His accent was a bit hard to comprehend yet people listened intently. The knowledgeable man specified, “To have an idea what genuine human compassion is like, look at children. Naturally open and honest, they don’t care about other children’s background, what their religion or their nationalities are, so long as they smile and play together.”
One had to be really hardbitten not to be taken with His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s charisma. Many of the guests were captivated and came forward to get their pictures taken with His Holiness. He came across as a pleasant and friendly human being who was very knowledgeable about humanity. At the end of the uplifting talk, he put around the necks of a few in the audience a white scarf in the traditional Tibetan manner of bidding a person farewell. A year later ignoring furious objections from China, the United States Congress bestowed its highest civilian honour on the Dalai Lama and President George Bush Jr called the Dalai Lama a “universal symbol of peace and tolerance” during a ceremony in Washington.
And Thay that day taught the audience the subtle art of walking meditation by focusing on the most important thing for the human body — the breath. “I am in the present. I don’t think of the past. I don’t think of the future… Peace is possible. Happiness is possible. And this practice is simple enough for everyone to do,” Thay explained as he walked away at the culmination of a spiritually fascinating afternoon.
Bhuvan Lall is the author of ‘The Man India Missed: The Most Subhas Chandra Bose’ and ‘The Great Indian Genius: Har Dayal’. His forthcoming book is ‘The Path of Gautama Buddha’.
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Bhuvan Lall’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."
Courtesy: Bhuvan Lall and Daily Guardian: 11th September 2020