World Tibet Network News Wednesday, May 13, 1998

The Dalai Lama in Wisconsin (THE CAPITAL TIMES) 05-11-98

By Todd R. Svanoe, May 11, 1998

What explains the rush last month of more than 12,000 university staff and students who swooped down on tickets to Wednesday's public lecture by the Dalai Lama before they could even be offered to the general public?

One wonders how many thousand seats more would have been snatched up by eager participants and whether recent national movies on Tibetan Buddhism alone could enamor so many to this particular public figure.

Are we seeing, as Time religion writer David Van Biema puts it, "the vague undifferentiated good will of a cynical and over-caffeinated world still auditioning sources of truth, calm and peace''? Is the interest merely political: a natural sympathy for the leader of the gentle-hearted Tibetan people, underdogs in the battle for autonomy against communist China?

Or are increasing numbers of people in the West seriously seeking an Eastern religious alternative to a dominant Judeo-Christian paradigm?

Wondering what trips people's spiritual triggers has been a lifelong hobby for me. So like a good, slightly audacious American journalist-- determined to get a handle on Buddhism in a matter of days -- I marched off to Deer Park Monastery outside of Oregon recently for a few talks with the local masters.

While there I discovered many surprising similarities between Western Christianity and this Eastern form of Buddhism, as well as some insurmountable differences.

Removing my shoes, I was greeted with a kindly smile by the abbot of the monastery, Geshe Lhundup Sopa, robed in trademark saffron and maroon.

"The main target of Buddhism is an egotistic and self-centered view,'' started Sopa, 75, a retired professor of South Asian studies from the UW-Madison. This view expresses itself in anger, hatred, jealousy, etc.

Most of the practices of Buddhism concern developing good mental habits in the pursuit of six perfections: charity, morality, meditation, patience, diligence and wisdom, he said. Most people have developed only a minuscule portion of their minds.

I grew up with a grandmother who took away my transistor radio because it was a tool of Satan. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with her, looking up "jazz'' in the dictionary, hoping an objective definition would persuade her.

Suffice it to say, I know well the anti-intellectualism found in some parts of the Christian church. So any religious man with an emphasis on the mind is a friend of mine.

He told of one of the thousands of meditation techniques available to the serious seeker.

Monks here have been offering at an altar seven dishes of water each day as a means of developing the habit of generosity. "It's not because the Buddha needs it,'' he explained. "You learn to give without expecting anything in return.''

A different practice, but the words sound so familiar.

Another practitioner tells me that the Dalai Lama has written several books on how to love one's enemy. Jesus, too, made such love the hallmark of genuine faith.

So, are the two religions the same? Hardly, said Sopa, who believes it is the differences of Tibetan Buddhism that hold so much appeal to those who have given up on Christianity.

"Christianity is much more grounded in faith and doing whatever God or the creator says. There is no creator out there separate from yourself. Buddha says, `Use your own wisdom. Don't follow me because I say so. You have to examine what I say.' ''

Here, too, I partially identified with the teacher. Too often Christians I meet know what they believe, but not why.

But I've come to see that Buddhists differ from Christians very fundamentally in their view of suffering.

Both religions would agree with the first two of Buddhism's four Noble Truths: People exist in a state of suffering, and that suffering has a cause.

For Christianity its cause is in a fissure between God and humanity. To Buddhists, there is a chasm between people and their limited conceptualization of reality.

But Buddhists' solution to that problem is vastly different. The doctrine continues: There is a cessation of suffering, which is nirvana; and there is an eight-fold path to this liberation. "You develop a realization of emptiness,'' explained one practitioner.

By contrast, the Christian Scripture says Christ "was made perfect through his sufferings.'' The apostle Paul, in fact, sought to "share in Christ's sufferings,'' not escape them.

Reflecting on all of this, I couldn't help but think of a sermon I had heard at Bethel Lutheran Church over the holidays on the incarnation of Christ.

"We don't try to enter God's world, as the great saints of Eastern religions say, by ceasing to be human,'' said Rev. Bill White. "Rather, we meet the God who became flesh by being more deeply human.''

White gave the example of Mother Teresa, who suffered with the dying, having no method of deliverance to offer them, just blankets and bowls of soup to dignify their deaths. To some, this is not a very satisfying picture of religious faith.

In four short encounters with the Madison Buddhist community and lots of reading, I, too, have become fond of Tibetan culture.

But if the displacement of Christianity helps explain Wednesday's packed house at the Kohl Center, perhaps this is a partial explanation: In the words of G.K. Chesterton, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.''

Todd R. Svanoe, a correspondent for The Capital Times, writes regularly about religious issues. He will be covering the Dalai Lama's visit to Madison this week.