People have asked me, “How did you become interested in Tibetan Buddhism?”
It is and isn’t a difficult question. My exploration into Tibetan Buddhism has been long. Sometimes in great leaps, sometimes precariously slow.
I have had two opportunities to share the same ground with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And I assure you that if you have ever read someone’s account of meeting him, his great compassion will touch you even in a crowd of 100,000. After experiencing HHDL presence, it is difficult to accept that this man is only a simple monk. He is only a simple monk, but he is also the Buddha of compassion.
But the answer to the question? I did have a trigger. There was a place in my life when I was apparently ready to be introduced and it was then that I happened to watch KUNDUN, the Martin Scorsese film about the life of HHDL and the invasion of Tibet.
At the end of that film, I felt like someone had reached in and touched my heart to its farthest depths. I was so deeply offended by the actions of the Chinese and saddened by our human capacity to harm, even in the presence of the greatest source of wisdom and compassion, that I immediately set out to research and discover Tibet and try to understand the position of the Tibetan people.
It appears by the reaction of some people that I have met, that they find this story difficult to accept. Sometimes, I sense an unspoken questioning of how could a movie launch such a fundamental shift in the way I live my life?
Why not? We are a culture obsessed with films, DVDs and the Internet. One of the most successful subjects to transfer to these mediums has been Buddhism. We often attribute negative and harmful behavior to music, movies and video games. Why are we reluctant to believe the opposite could be true?
With this in mind, do not think I am trite when you ask me about Tibetan Buddhism and my first response is a question.
“Have you ever seen KUNDUN?”
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