Simplicity and nonattachment

Thought for the Day, 11 March 2011

Vishvapani



The Dalai Lama likes to say that he is really just a simple Buddhist monk; but he also delivers teachings from a high throne and protocol dictates that you call him "Your Holiness". He campaigns for an autonomous Tibet with freedom of speech and religion, yet until he announced he was giving up his political role this week, he has been the Tibetan leader because he was identified as the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama.



The current Dalai Lama is a remarkable individual, as many people, including many non-Buddhists, recognise but his position is complex and contradictory. He's a religious reformer who's also called on to embody tradition, and an enthusiast for science who's fighting to preserve an ancient culture. As he has spent his life negotiating between old ways of doing things and the demands of the modern world, such contradictions are inevitable.



Some of them stem from the mix of religion and politics inherent in the role of Dalai Lama itself. Old Tibet was certainly not Shangri-la, and past Dalai Lamas led armies and ran prisons while presiding over a feudal economy. In exile our Dalai Lama has been spared such embarrassments, but his country is occupied by the world's largest nation and his immediate followers are refugees. He, too, has been deeply immersed in politics and confronted the stark realities of power.



The Dalai Lama's success in keeping the Tibetan cause on the world agenda virtually singlehandedly testifies to the creativity he has brought to his situation. He has looked afresh at the Buddhist tradition to discover its contemporary relevance and re-examined Tibetan traditions in this light. The Buddha himself owned virtually nothing, stressed renunciation, and saw the potential of power to corrupt those who held it.



Paradoxically, as a leader in exile the Dalai Lama's greatest asset has not been his political status but the alternative kind of power that stems from the admiration of those who meet him. It's an inner power, or spiritual authority, which is measured not by what you accumulate but by what you are – and what you are willing to let go.



Eventually the Dalai Lama's reforms were bound to touch his own position, leading him to dissolve his role despite the devotion of the Tibetans. Like a simple Buddhist monk, but in an intensely political context, the Dalai Lama is demonstrating the very values of simplicity and nonattachment that have already inspired so many people around the world. He is also allowing his followers to find a new way of governing themselves for the 21st century.





copyright 2011 BBC