TIBETAN PROTESTS – In Support of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan People

March 26, 2008
 
Dear BPF Dharma Friends,
 
As human beings and citizens of the world, it is hard to ignore the plight of beings suffering all over our planet. As practitioners of the Dharma, awareness of the suffering created by fanaticism, intolerance, attachment to views, and wrong perceptions, is part of our daily commitment to lead a life guided by the 5 and/or 14 Mindfulness Trainings (Precepts).

As a Sangha or spiritual community, the Mindfulness Trainings invite us to take a clear stand against oppression and injustice and strive to change the situation, even when doing so may threaten our safety. People living in places like Burma, Tibet, and Sudan are enduring great suffering and injustice as they are being denied basic human rights that, in the United States of America, we take for granted.
 
In the 14 Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn invites us to become aware that looking deeply at the nature of suffering can help us develop compassion and find ways out of suffering. With the fearless attitude of a Bodhisattva, we can bow to keep our eyes open before suffering and learn to find ways to be with those who suffer in order to understand their situation deeply and help them transform their suffering into compassion, peace and joy.  With the support of our practice, we can learn to recognize that the words we use can create either suffering or happiness, and that anger blocks communication and generates more suffering. With this awareness, we can develop the determination to learn to speak truthfully and constructively about situations of injustice, use only words that inspire hope and confidence and look with the eyes of compassion at those we perceive to be the cause of our anger. Nurtured by deep understanding and love, we can become aware of the suffering brought about when we try to impose our views on others, no matter how right we think we are, and aspire to help others renounce fanaticism and narrowness of mind through compassionate dialogue, so that they too can find their own soft spot—Bodhicitta, the Awakening Mind—and love and understanding can flourish in their hearts once more.
 
If I find myself on the Bodhisattva Path today is only because of the kindness, compassion, and understanding extended to me by countless beings, several teachers, and a few truly Awakened Ones—Chinese, Tibetan, Vietnamese—who provided me with guidance and support along the way. One of these Bodhisattvas happens to be a Tibetan Rimpoche who, like thousands of others, fled Tibet after the invasion by the Chinese Communist Government. This gentle soul, the embodiment of wisdom and compassion, transformed my life in ways that defy description by words.

I know many of us have benefited greatly from the teachings transmitted by our Tibetan brothers and sisters, including the Dalai Lama. Leading always by example, like Thây Nhat Hahn, I saw the Dalai Lama go out of his way during his visits to South Florida to approach and welcome with great love and respect local members of the Chinese community attending his teachings. Now, in the midst of reports escalating violence and increased repression of the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama publicly rejects a boycott of the Beijing Olympics as he feels this may create suffering for the Chinese people for whom he feels nothing but compassion.

Please join me in supporting those who suffer, without engaging in partisan conflicts, in whichever way you can.
 
May all beings be well, May all beings be happy,
May all beings be peaceful, May all beings be free.
 
In the Dharma,

Dr. Martha P. Martinez
President Lotus Institute for Mindful Living, Inc.
Founder Broward Lotus Sangha
P.O. Box 245124
Pembroke Pines, FL 33024