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Robert Thurman: Why the Dalai Lama Matters
Appreciations:
“I’m Robert Thurman, and I’m having a lovely time on Living Dialogues with my friend Duncan Campbell. I learned a lot today from Duncan about America and about the Persian poet Rumi, about many things, about even Tibet.
And I shared with Duncan the insights and inspirations in the book I have written, which is my tribute to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, called Why the Dalai Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World. And this book is to inspire us and lift us out of our depression, that “NO we can’t”, which is what we’ve been hearing much too much of, from the world and media and everything.
And luckily now we are hearing “YES we can”, and we have to even hear that and say that to ourselves all the time. We must never accept that something is impossible and is hopeless. With despair comes violence, internal violence of depression, external violence between people. But out of hope comes love, friendliness, heroism, and that’s what we need today, together today, and that’s what we can manifest. And it is what together we are manifesting in this dialogue. All the best to you.” -- Robert Thurman
“In your book you’ve collected from your 45 years of deep friendship with the Dalai Lama many stories of how the Dalai Lama is really, we might say, the great practitioner of what I call ‘the art of dialogue’, the art of communication, both inner dialogue with himself and understanding with great compassion and truthfulness, his own, we might say foibles as well as merits, and those of others…And what you brilliantly illuminate here is why the Dalia Lama matters at every level. This is not just the “nice man’ who’s talking about being spiritual and kind. He has a profound and pragmatic understanding of the nature of the planet, including our human hopes and desires, the crises we are all in, and very practical ways to deal with them.
And I will introduce this dialogue by saying that in it, Bob, you also compellingly describe your own analysis and five-part plan, from what we might call a global political perspective of how and why the Dalai Lama and China together could be a key to avoiding World War III. And so I want to honor you for your life work and for this particular work, but also say what a deep pleasure it always is when you and I come together in these dialogues, and to acknowledge the role of the deep listening audience which is virtually present here that contributes to what has been evoked here in this dialogue. As you say, “we are all one ocean of dialogue”.
And that is why we are inviting everyone into this dialogue, including the Dalai Lama’s virtual participation as well (whose name ‘dalai’ literally means ‘ocean’, while “lama” means ‘developed person’), since he does not proclaim “listen to what I say”, but rather: “if you listen to what’s in your own heart, you yourself will have this inner dialogue that will show you and energize you and inspire you to right action”. And it’s in that spirit that we celebrate this dialogue by honoring the ‘Dalai Lama’ in all of us.” – Duncan Campbell
“Duncan Campbell, I heard about your podcast a few months ago, and have been deeply listening to all the dialogues with your fantastic friends/guests. Your words, ideas, and wisdom are truly inspirational. You have evoked a new appetite for knowledge in me that I hope to share with a starving younger generation. Thank you for doing what you do, and creating a unique space, void of boundaries and classification. A breath of fresh air! Much love and respect.” – Amit Kapadiya
Episode Description:
In furtherance of creating and maintaining the planetary dialogues now required in the 21st century, I will be featuring a special series of dialogues on this site with myself and other elders in the next few weeks during and after the 2008 Olympics hosted by China and the U.S. election season. These dialogues will address various specific political aspects of our planetary crisis, with its dangers and opportunities for a visionary and evolutionary shift. (We remember that the Chinese character for “crisis” is often described as meaning both “danger” when visioned from a fear perspective, and “opportunity” when visioned from a wisdom perspective.)
Following last week’s dialogue with Ted Sorensen, counselor to John F. Kennedy, and this week’s dialogue with Robert Thurman on the Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World, other elders who will join me in coming weeks include Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss on Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World, former Senator David Boren on A Letter to America, George Lakoff on The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st Century Politics with an 18th Century Brain, and others.
In my preceding dialogues I have talked in various ways about the need to generate dialogues across generational, ethnic, gender, and national boundaries -- building bridges of understanding and wisdom in the cooperative spirit and reaching out required by our 21st century realities, and the essential roles that we all are called to play in our evolution for it to take place.
In this particular dialogue, Bob Thurman describes the world-affecting drama that China is currently engaged in with the Tibetan people and the associated environmental destruction imitative of our own Western past. I bring in parallels with the European settlers of Australia, and of North and South America, and the conscious and unconscious genocide of the native peoples that took place in that settlement, the karmic effects of which are still with us, partially but not entirely expunged, and the restorative efforts recently being made by Australia and Canada -- as well as the issues of New Energy and what’s at stake in the U.S. and elsewhere to make dramatic changes in our energy habits and relationship to the natural world.
Of particular interest is Bob’s metaphor of Tibet as a crucial environmental zone for a great part of Asia, the “water tower” of that part of the world, and his statement of the essential need to keep the water clean that flows down from there, what is often called the “roof of the world”, the source of so many great rivers.
In reference to this, I describe water being both external and an inner symbol, mentioning the words of the poet Rumi (honored by UNESCO in naming 2007 the “Year of Rumi”): “we all know the taste of pure water”, and going on to say: “We need to protect not only the water tower of Tibet on the high plateau in protecting the rivers and Lake Manasarovar, but also protecting what you Bob have called the “inner revolution”, what I see as that inner stream of ‘pure water’, consciousness that can literally water our psyche and cleanse us of what the historian Joseph Ellis has referred to as the ‘original sins’ of how peoples have dealt with other peoples, such as slavery and de facto genocide, of the fear-based psychic contractions we all have individually and as nations.”
On the eve of the Bejing-hosted Olympics, I mention examples from past Olympics illustrating these parallels between the history of the West and the East, and Bob describes in detail his five-part plan, inspired by the world-wide work of the Dalai Lama, for how China could accept the overtures for dialogue from the Dalai Lama and develop a multi-faceted cooperation, both political and ecological, that could be a model for the world as well, based on “treating gently those in our power” and ourselves.
Bob observes at one point: “It’s very hard for us to have faith that good things can happen, but if we’re more realistic, if we look at and follow the science as the Dalai Lama does, if we look at the reality and have faith in it, we will see that really there is only one way the planet can go and that we are rational beings and we do like our lives, and we like the lives of our children…so this approach, this kind of action, will sway realistic beings, which human beings basically are. We got our evolutionary power by adapting, by being realistic, we will adapt in this crisis moment, in the twenty-first century, and we will save the planet and ourselves. No question about it.”
Echoing that, we can conclude that kindness and altruistic outlook are not simply good things to embody, they are the truly wise and necessary practical tools of planetary co-existence – cultivating the deeper forces and energies that will lead us into a “kinder, happier twenty-first century”. As the Dalai Lama’s spoke in addressing the European parliament after 9/11: “In place of war, which is obsolete now on this planet, reconciliation has to come through dialogue.”
And there is much more in this stimulating and enriching conversation. Please join us.
This is the time for renewed dialogue, for visionary and inspiring discourse producing practical and innovative solutions together, to engage our own elder wisdom and youthful inspiration, and in so doing to experience and exemplify that “Dialogue is the Language of Evolutionary Transformation”.
And that is what we all do, in our mutual roles as host, deep listeners, and guests, when we gather together here from all parts of the globe in Living Dialogues.
Other programs you will find of immediate interest on these themes are the Dialogues I have had with mythologist and keeper of world stories Michael Meade `(Programs 48-51), world-renowned cross-cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien (Program 52), poet and translator of Persian poet Rumi Coleman Barks (Programs 3, 53-54), as well as Programs 13 and 14 with Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell (editor of The Enlightened Heart, which contains the poem The Swan by Indian poet Kabir which I mention in Part 3 of my Programs 55-57 with African teacher Sobonfu Some) and Program 58 with Ted Sorensen, counselor to John F. Kennedy. Also of directly related interest in terms of the founding and traditions of the U.S. during its tipping point 2008 election season, with its implications for global shifts, are my dialogues with historian Joseph Ellis, honored as “the Founders’ historian” by The New York Review of Books (see Programs 38 and 39).
After you listen to this Dialogue, I invite you to both explore and make possible further interesting material on Living Dialogues by clicking on the Episode Detail button at the top left of this program description, and by taking less than 5 minutes to click on and fill out the Listener Survey there (or click on the Listener Survey icon to the left of this column).
SUBSCRIBE HERE FOR FREE TO LIVING DIALOGUES AND IN THE COMING WEEKS HEAR DUNCAN CAMPELL’S DIALOGUES WITH OTHER GROUND-BREAKING TRANSFORMATIONAL THINKERS LISTED ON THE WEBSITE WWW.LIVINGDIALOGUES.COM. TO LISTEN TO PREVIOUS RELATED DIALOGUES ON THIS SITE, SCROLL DOWN ON THE LIVING DIALOGUES SHOW PAGE HERE -- OR CLICK ON THE NAME OF A GUEST ON THE LIST AT THE RIGHT -- TO HEAR DUNCAN’S DIALOGUES WITH DR. ANDREW WEIL, BRIAN WEISS, COLEMAN BARKS, RUPERT SHELDRAKE, LARRY DOSSEY, JUDY COLLINS, MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, MATTHEW FOX, JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE, DEEPAK CHOPRA, BYRON KATIE AND STEPHEN MITCHELL, CAROLINE MYSS, GANGAJI, VINE DELORIA, JR., MICHAEL DOWD (THE UNIVERSE STORY OF THOMAS BERRY AND BRIAN SWIMME), STEVE MCINTOSH, FRANCES MOORE LAPPE, STANISLAV GROF, RICHARD TARNAS, MARC BEKOFF AND JANE GOODALL, RICHARD MOSS, PAUL HAWKEN, PAUL RAY, JOSEPH ELLIS, DUANE ELGIN, LYNNE MCTAGGART, ECKHART TOLLE, MICHAEL MEADE, ANGELES ARRIEN, SOBONFU SOME. TED SORENSEN AND OTHER EVOLUTIONARY THINKERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.
The best way to reach me is through my website: www.livingdialogues.com. Many thanks again for your attentive deep listening in helping co-create this program. All the best, Duncan.
P.S. As a way of further acknowledging and appreciating your part in these dialogues, and since I cannot personally answer all of them, I have begun to publish from time to time in these pages some of the numerous (unsolicited) appreciations received from you.
View all episodes
By Duncan CampbellAppreciations:
“I’m Robert Thurman, and I’m having a lovely time on Living Dialogues with my friend Duncan Campbell. I learned a lot today from Duncan about America and about the Persian poet Rumi, about many things, about even Tibet.
And I shared with Duncan the insights and inspirations in the book I have written, which is my tribute to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, called Why the Dalai Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World. And this book is to inspire us and lift us out of our depression, that “NO we can’t”, which is what we’ve been hearing much too much of, from the world and media and everything.
And luckily now we are hearing “YES we can”, and we have to even hear that and say that to ourselves all the time. We must never accept that something is impossible and is hopeless. With despair comes violence, internal violence of depression, external violence between people. But out of hope comes love, friendliness, heroism, and that’s what we need today, together today, and that’s what we can manifest. And it is what together we are manifesting in this dialogue. All the best to you.” -- Robert Thurman
“In your book you’ve collected from your 45 years of deep friendship with the Dalai Lama many stories of how the Dalai Lama is really, we might say, the great practitioner of what I call ‘the art of dialogue’, the art of communication, both inner dialogue with himself and understanding with great compassion and truthfulness, his own, we might say foibles as well as merits, and those of others…And what you brilliantly illuminate here is why the Dalia Lama matters at every level. This is not just the “nice man’ who’s talking about being spiritual and kind. He has a profound and pragmatic understanding of the nature of the planet, including our human hopes and desires, the crises we are all in, and very practical ways to deal with them.
And I will introduce this dialogue by saying that in it, Bob, you also compellingly describe your own analysis and five-part plan, from what we might call a global political perspective of how and why the Dalai Lama and China together could be a key to avoiding World War III. And so I want to honor you for your life work and for this particular work, but also say what a deep pleasure it always is when you and I come together in these dialogues, and to acknowledge the role of the deep listening audience which is virtually present here that contributes to what has been evoked here in this dialogue. As you say, “we are all one ocean of dialogue”.
And that is why we are inviting everyone into this dialogue, including the Dalai Lama’s virtual participation as well (whose name ‘dalai’ literally means ‘ocean’, while “lama” means ‘developed person’), since he does not proclaim “listen to what I say”, but rather: “if you listen to what’s in your own heart, you yourself will have this inner dialogue that will show you and energize you and inspire you to right action”. And it’s in that spirit that we celebrate this dialogue by honoring the ‘Dalai Lama’ in all of us.” – Duncan Campbell
“Duncan Campbell, I heard about your podcast a few months ago, and have been deeply listening to all the dialogues with your fantastic friends/guests. Your words, ideas, and wisdom are truly inspirational. You have evoked a new appetite for knowledge in me that I hope to share with a starving younger generation. Thank you for doing what you do, and creating a unique space, void of boundaries and classification. A breath of fresh air! Much love and respect.” – Amit Kapadiya
Episode Description:
In furtherance of creating and maintaining the planetary dialogues now required in the 21st century, I will be featuring a special series of dialogues on this site with myself and other elders in the next few weeks during and after the 2008 Olympics hosted by China and the U.S. election season. These dialogues will address various specific political aspects of our planetary crisis, with its dangers and opportunities for a visionary and evolutionary shift. (We remember that the Chinese character for “crisis” is often described as meaning both “danger” when visioned from a fear perspective, and “opportunity” when visioned from a wisdom perspective.)
Following last week’s dialogue with Ted Sorensen, counselor to John F. Kennedy, and this week’s dialogue with Robert Thurman on the Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World, other elders who will join me in coming weeks include Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss on Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World, former Senator David Boren on A Letter to America, George Lakoff on The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st Century Politics with an 18th Century Brain, and others.
In my preceding dialogues I have talked in various ways about the need to generate dialogues across generational, ethnic, gender, and national boundaries -- building bridges of understanding and wisdom in the cooperative spirit and reaching out required by our 21st century realities, and the essential roles that we all are called to play in our evolution for it to take place.
In this particular dialogue, Bob Thurman describes the world-affecting drama that China is currently engaged in with the Tibetan people and the associated environmental destruction imitative of our own Western past. I bring in parallels with the European settlers of Australia, and of North and South America, and the conscious and unconscious genocide of the native peoples that took place in that settlement, the karmic effects of which are still with us, partially but not entirely expunged, and the restorative efforts recently being made by Australia and Canada -- as well as the issues of New Energy and what’s at stake in the U.S. and elsewhere to make dramatic changes in our energy habits and relationship to the natural world.
Of particular interest is Bob’s metaphor of Tibet as a crucial environmental zone for a great part of Asia, the “water tower” of that part of the world, and his statement of the essential need to keep the water clean that flows down from there, what is often called the “roof of the world”, the source of so many great rivers.
In reference to this, I describe water being both external and an inner symbol, mentioning the words of the poet Rumi (honored by UNESCO in naming 2007 the “Year of Rumi”): “we all know the taste of pure water”, and going on to say: “We need to protect not only the water tower of Tibet on the high plateau in protecting the rivers and Lake Manasarovar, but also protecting what you Bob have called the “inner revolution”, what I see as that inner stream of ‘pure water’, consciousness that can literally water our psyche and cleanse us of what the historian Joseph Ellis has referred to as the ‘original sins’ of how peoples have dealt with other peoples, such as slavery and de facto genocide, of the fear-based psychic contractions we all have individually and as nations.”
On the eve of the Bejing-hosted Olympics, I mention examples from past Olympics illustrating these parallels between the history of the West and the East, and Bob describes in detail his five-part plan, inspired by the world-wide work of the Dalai Lama, for how China could accept the overtures for dialogue from the Dalai Lama and develop a multi-faceted cooperation, both political and ecological, that could be a model for the world as well, based on “treating gently those in our power” and ourselves.
Bob observes at one point: “It’s very hard for us to have faith that good things can happen, but if we’re more realistic, if we look at and follow the science as the Dalai Lama does, if we look at the reality and have faith in it, we will see that really there is only one way the planet can go and that we are rational beings and we do like our lives, and we like the lives of our children…so this approach, this kind of action, will sway realistic beings, which human beings basically are. We got our evolutionary power by adapting, by being realistic, we will adapt in this crisis moment, in the twenty-first century, and we will save the planet and ourselves. No question about it.”
Echoing that, we can conclude that kindness and altruistic outlook are not simply good things to embody, they are the truly wise and necessary practical tools of planetary co-existence – cultivating the deeper forces and energies that will lead us into a “kinder, happier twenty-first century”. As the Dalai Lama’s spoke in addressing the European parliament after 9/11: “In place of war, which is obsolete now on this planet, reconciliation has to come through dialogue.”
And there is much more in this stimulating and enriching conversation. Please join us.
This is the time for renewed dialogue, for visionary and inspiring discourse producing practical and innovative solutions together, to engage our own elder wisdom and youthful inspiration, and in so doing to experience and exemplify that “Dialogue is the Language of Evolutionary Transformation”.
And that is what we all do, in our mutual roles as host, deep listeners, and guests, when we gather together here from all parts of the globe in Living Dialogues.
Other programs you will find of immediate interest on these themes are the Dialogues I have had with mythologist and keeper of world stories Michael Meade `(Programs 48-51), world-renowned cross-cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien (Program 52), poet and translator of Persian poet Rumi Coleman Barks (Programs 3, 53-54), as well as Programs 13 and 14 with Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell (editor of The Enlightened Heart, which contains the poem The Swan by Indian poet Kabir which I mention in Part 3 of my Programs 55-57 with African teacher Sobonfu Some) and Program 58 with Ted Sorensen, counselor to John F. Kennedy. Also of directly related interest in terms of the founding and traditions of the U.S. during its tipping point 2008 election season, with its implications for global shifts, are my dialogues with historian Joseph Ellis, honored as “the Founders’ historian” by The New York Review of Books (see Programs 38 and 39).
After you listen to this Dialogue, I invite you to both explore and make possible further interesting material on Living Dialogues by clicking on the Episode Detail button at the top left of this program description, and by taking less than 5 minutes to click on and fill out the Listener Survey there (or click on the Listener Survey icon to the left of this column).
SUBSCRIBE HERE FOR FREE TO LIVING DIALOGUES AND IN THE COMING WEEKS HEAR DUNCAN CAMPELL’S DIALOGUES WITH OTHER GROUND-BREAKING TRANSFORMATIONAL THINKERS LISTED ON THE WEBSITE WWW.LIVINGDIALOGUES.COM. TO LISTEN TO PREVIOUS RELATED DIALOGUES ON THIS SITE, SCROLL DOWN ON THE LIVING DIALOGUES SHOW PAGE HERE -- OR CLICK ON THE NAME OF A GUEST ON THE LIST AT THE RIGHT -- TO HEAR DUNCAN’S DIALOGUES WITH DR. ANDREW WEIL, BRIAN WEISS, COLEMAN BARKS, RUPERT SHELDRAKE, LARRY DOSSEY, JUDY COLLINS, MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, MATTHEW FOX, JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE, DEEPAK CHOPRA, BYRON KATIE AND STEPHEN MITCHELL, CAROLINE MYSS, GANGAJI, VINE DELORIA, JR., MICHAEL DOWD (THE UNIVERSE STORY OF THOMAS BERRY AND BRIAN SWIMME), STEVE MCINTOSH, FRANCES MOORE LAPPE, STANISLAV GROF, RICHARD TARNAS, MARC BEKOFF AND JANE GOODALL, RICHARD MOSS, PAUL HAWKEN, PAUL RAY, JOSEPH ELLIS, DUANE ELGIN, LYNNE MCTAGGART, ECKHART TOLLE, MICHAEL MEADE, ANGELES ARRIEN, SOBONFU SOME. TED SORENSEN AND OTHER EVOLUTIONARY THINKERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.
The best way to reach me is through my website: www.livingdialogues.com. Many thanks again for your attentive deep listening in helping co-create this program. All the best, Duncan.
P.S. As a way of further acknowledging and appreciating your part in these dialogues, and since I cannot personally answer all of them, I have begun to publish from time to time in these pages some of the numerous (unsolicited) appreciations received from you.