Dalai Lama

I had the honor of seeing the Dalai Lama today at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA. A friend of mine told me yesterday that she thought I would have a spiritual awakening today. I don't think I quite had that, but I did get some take home messages.

The first take home message was "grow where you are planted." I've heard this message before but it was reinforced to me when I was waiting in line to get some food. The woman who was standing in line ahead of me asked me if I've ever seen the Dalai Lama before and I told her that I hadn't. Then I asked her if she had seen him before and she nodded and said "Oh yes." Then she told me a story about how she was a teacher's assistant for a teacher who asked her if she would mind cutting up watermelon and making sticky rice for the Dalai Lama's visit to the monastery where she also worked. She said that the year was 1978 and they had to work really hard to get 500 people to attend the event. She said that the green room was the same kitchen where she was cutting up the watermelon, so she got to see a lot of His Holiness, and got to talk to him about about her religious journey. She asked about whether she should become a Tibetan Buddhist or whether she should remain a Christian. He said that she wouldn't get the full essence of Tibetan Buddhism since she wasn't born one and that she should stay in her own tradition (grow where you are planted). Then he said that if the Christianity wasn't feeding her she should look to the mystics and she would find what she needed. Then he gave her a list of books to read. I asked her if she found what she needed, and she said that she did.

In addition, to the grow where you are planted message, she told me a story that made my heart smile. The 2nd time she saw the Dalai Lama was when her twin daughters were 6. She and her husband took the daughters with them and they sat out on the lawn and picniced while he was speaking. She noticed that one of her daughters was looking sad, and so she asked her what was the matter. Her daughter said "You told me that the llama was going to talk, and there is only a man up there."

The second message is that being in His Holiness's presence could have a positive impact on how I see the world. During the break, a woman came up to us and said that she was writing an article for New Awakenings magazine. She asked if she could email us in a week and find out whether seeing the Dalai Lama would have an impact on us. I told her that I wasn't sure that I was the right candidate for her article because I had trouble hearing what he was saying, and she told me that she once went to see him and had trouble hearing and he still had an impact on her because just his presence was enough. So now, I am expecting some kind of impact to happen to me in the next week. I will try to remember to blog and let you all know if it's true.