Some definitive moments with the Dali Lama.

On the way back from San Antonio I grabbed 2 movies to watch on the return to San Francisco.

Season 19 of "The Twilight Zone" - filmed January 1963
-and-
10 Questions for the Dali Lama

I ended up watching The Twilight Zone on the flight home. It was an entertaining way to fall asleep sitting up.

I just finished the 2d movie.
FYI: the Dali Lama does have an email. Its not dali lama at hotmail dot com, but it is something like that.

It was a film dedicated to the Tibetan people and to the guidance of their spiritual leader, the 14th Dali Lama of Tibet.
It had the journal entry feel while it followed a man's personal journey through India as he contemplated 10 questions to ask the Dali Lama. The film captured Buddhist & Tibetan history, included rare footage of the young Dali Lama, and outlined the Tibetan struggles againsts Chinese occupation......( He spent something like 3 years researching to find footage for the film!)


It was a good. The questions during the interview were not simplistic. Rather they got me thinking about one of my heaviest interests: culture.

How are cultures preserving their traditions, and, how much are they embracing the modern world to modernize?

DID YOU KNOW:
that internet search engines like Yahoo & Google sensor Chinese search engines so that all articles containing "Dali Lama" are controlled by the Chinese government.

Not every where in the world is there Freedom of speech or freedom of information.

His response to that are "......that the power of truth must come through openness and through information."

Now this is mysterious.......A six year old boy was appointed as a reincarnation of the panchen lama, one of the key individuals who will recognize the next dali lama... The boy and his family disappeard within days of the announcement. He is now the youngest political prisoner in the world. Instead, the Chinese chose their own reincarnation... That is just the gist of what the Chinese do to impose on the people of Tibet.

Its strange to think about that only a few months ago. I sat in class on the 5th floor of the Federal Building, watching the "Free Tibet" protest go by. The entire day people were talking of the protest. Our minds were so distracted we could barely be in class. Fortunately, we heard them yelling walking down Brannan and we all raced to the window to take it in. The class ended shortly after that happened. The teacher told us to "Go and Live History."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNpqIVgLu4Q


So basically, the Dali Lama rocks. At the end of the film, he advises us,

"may all the energies of all time concentrate on spiritual practice -and- to use the brain a maximum way in a spiritual field."

He says that you have to enter this kind of practice without expectation but to certainly spend some years on it.