Osaka, Japan, 30 October 2011 - His Holiness the
Dalai Lama began his first day in Japan on his current autumn tour by
addressing a crowd of several thousand, from Japan and Korea and many
other countries, on the essence of the Heart Sutra, and the theme of
"The Struggle in Overcoming LIfe's Difficulties."
Heading across Osaka on a grey morning to the great
modern domed Maishima Arena, and speaking on the occasion of the 125th
anniversary of Koyasan University, he began by inviting the audience to
chant the Heart Sutra together, and then delivered an ever more
incisive and rigorous dissection of the journey from emptiness to
compassion, as explained in the great Buddhist text. "You have a jewel,
growing up in this country with this tradition," he told his listeners,
"so you must preserve it. You must analyze and check Buddhism. It's not
only a matter of tradition and recitation; that's only on the surface."
He proceeded to give a clear, systematic
description of the Four Noble Truths and our need for happiness at some
level deeper than the senses; and he stressed that you must work hard
and think carefully in pursuit of inner happiness, not just pray to
Buddha. Indeed, in the non-theistic traditions, it is mind, the
individual, that is the source of power, not some external deity.
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His Holiness the Dalai Lama during his teaching on the Heart Sutra in Osaka, Japan, on October 30, 2011
Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL
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Emptiness is not, of course, the same as
nothingness, he stressed; and as he began to explain the roots of the
Heart Sutra, he moved into an accelerating and steadily more
scintillating description of delusion and projection. "If I am sitting
here," he said, "where is the Dalai Lama? What part of me is the Dalai
Lama? And if you're thinking about yourself, what part is the 'you'?
Where does the "you" come from? Is it your body? Your hand? Your mind?"
Gaining momentum, and visibly quickened by the theme, and the taking
apart of philosophical ideas, he continued speaking for more than 40
minutes longer than the two hours allotted for the lecture, using
emptiness as a way to dissect and dissolve the heart of hatred. "If you
hate someone, where is that person? In which part of him does it lie?
It's mostly in your head. And so with love." If you hate someone, we
might almost say, who is the "you" and who is the "someone"? Freedom
comes only when you cut out delusion and projection.
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Monks from Koyason chanting at the
start of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's public talk in Osaka, Japan, on
October 30, 2011. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL
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After lunch backstage, the afternoon session
began with 18 monks from Koyasan chanting, and His Holiness inviting
questions from the audience. A long line quickly formed in the middle of
the large arena, and many of the questioners clearly took their cue
from his analytical and searching talk, addressing issues of
reincarnation and compassion and impermanence, asking for clarification
of specific aspects of the text.
"Attachment to what appears real is what keeps us from
clear-mindedness," His Holiness said. "And also the imprint of what
appears to be real." When a young boy asked if two projections could
enter into a friendship, His Holiness pursued and deepened his
discussion of things as they are. "We just had lunch," he said, "and it
was real. And so was the body that was consuming it." But if you look
for the self, it;s nowhere to be found.
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| Audience members line up to ask questions of His
Holiness the Dalai Lama during his public talk in Osaka, Japan, on
October 30, 2011. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL |
"Sometimes
we have a strong anger towards a person, or even hatred. But what
exactly are we angry at? The man's body? The man's mind? Really, that
person we dislike doesn't exist. This person called the enemy: where is
he? When we are really truthful, we can't find him. Besides, when
somebody looks like an enemy, we notice that that person has friends. So
there must be other sides to him that we don't see."
The importance of secular ethics, he said, is that it is not
conditional: unlike with the love that might be connected with Buddhism
or Christianity, we can't say that it is closed off from those who don't
belong to this religion or that one. He then broke down the three kinds
of compassion: the biological, the social and the one being borne out
by science.
"The essence of emptiness," he concluded, "is that everything
depends on everything else. "And in Japan," he went on, "you have
advanced science, but you can't buy inner peace with science. You've
invented lots of cameras, but the camera doesn't reflect your mind. Not
yet!"
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View of the stage during His
Holiness the Dalai Lama's public talk in Osaka, Japan, on October 30,
2011. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL
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When a man from the audience asked His
Holiness about impermanence, in relation to the tragic earthquake in
Japan seven months ago, he pointed out that there are two levels of
impermanence: the first is the visible, obvious kind. But impermanence
is also taking place, more incrementally, every second. So in truth the
visible kind is only a sudden manifestation of what is always happening.
"The wisdom of emptiness is sometimes likened to the mother of
Buddhism, in all its vehicles," he said. and "Bodichitta, or compassion,
as the father."
At the end, as one audience member after another thanked His
Holiness for his explanations, he said, with evident delight, how much
he enjoyed these topics, and how much he hoped he might return sometime
for three or four days of such discussions.
