Me and the Dalai Lama: Rabbi Rami’s Experience with Metta

I’m an introvert. Unless I’m being paid to speak or a question is directed to me, I’m delighted to listen quietly to others. Case in point: I’m sitting beside His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in a midsized room at the Ramakrishna Math in New Delhi. We are here to celebrate the 150th birthday of Swami Vivekananda, one of the great saints of modern India. Hundreds of spiritual teachers of many traditions and thousands more laypeople are gathered to hear us. Speaking before large crowds doesn’t bother me. Talking one-on-one with the Dalai Lama, however, is another matter entirely.

Yet dozens of people walk up to His Holiness and chat with him as if he were family. He laughs; they laugh. They walk away; no one says a word to me. I am considering changing my name tag to “Chopped Liver.” Occasionally, His Holiness smiles at me; I smile back. I nod to him; he nods back. I should say something. But what do I have to say to the Dalai Lama?

I fantasize about engaging him in some profound philosophical exploration, but I remember the story of Kalu Rinpoche and Master Seung Sahn meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the 1970s. Kalu Rinpoche had spent years in solitary meditation in the mountain caves of Tibet. Seung Sahn was a Korean Zen master who moved to America and supported himself by working in a laundromat in Providence, Rhode Island. In good Zen fashion, Master Sahn picked up an orange from a tray and shouted at Rinpoche, “What is this?” Rinpoche just stared at him. Again, Master Sahn demanded, “What is this?” Again, Rinpoche hesitated. Then, turning to his translator, he said, “Don’t they have oranges in Korea?”

Master Sahn was trying to engage Kalu Rinpoche in Zen inquiry over the Buddha-nature of an orange. Kalu Rinpoche, not understanding the nature of Zen inquiry, thought Master Sahn was an idiot. Enough people believe this of me, and I do not want to add the 14th Dalai Lama to the list. I stay silent.

And besides, why is it up to me to initiate conversation? Why doesn’t His Holiness ask me a question? “Rabbi, does Ecclesiastes’ teaching of havel—the notion that all things are as insubstantial as morning dew—parallel the Buddha’s teaching of anicca or impermanence?” Or, “Rabbi, does the Torah’s teaching ein od milvado—there is nothing but the formless One—mirror the Buddhist notion of sunya, emptiness?” Indeed, they do, I would say, for all those who inquire into reality discover the same Truth. The conversation would deepen from there. Sadly, the Dalai Lama stays silent. Perhaps I intimidate him.

Maybe I should break the ice by introducing myself as a student of his friend Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi who visited His Holiness in Dharamsala years earlier, but I fear he might want to pick up where his conversation with Reb Zalman left off—exploring the various colors of different spiritual dimensions, something I know nothing about.

Or I could explain we had a mutual friend in Sister José Hobday, the Seneca-Iroquois medicine woman and Franciscan nun who, when she first met His Holiness, ignored the warning not to touch him and instead squeezed his cheeks with both hands saying, “You’re my baby brother!” But reminding him of this breach of etiquette might upset his followers sitting nearby.

Or I could tell him that when I last visited his friend Peggy Hitchcock in Arizona, I stayed in the room she had built for him whenever he came to visit, but then I think that my sleeping in his bed might be bad karma, which leads me to think about asking him about karma and how karma could work if, as the Buddha taught, no self passed on from birth to birth and, since we were on the subject, how he could be a 14th Dalai Lama when the roles of first through 13th Dalai Lama were also empty. But that might be rude.

I never spoke a word to him. Which, in the end, was perfect, because none of it mattered. “My religion is simple,” the Dalai Lama once said. “My religion is kindness. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart is the temple. Your philosophy is simple kindness.”

Why kindness? Because, as the Dalai Lama says, kindness is the key to mental happiness, which is critical to human fulfillment: “I believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. From the moment of birth, every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affect this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment. I don’t know whether the universe, with its countless galaxies, stars, and planets, has a deeper meaning or not, but at the very least, it is clear that we humans who live on this earth face the task of making a happy life for ourselves. Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness … From my own limited experience, I have found that the greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion.”

How to Practice Metta

One of Tibetan Buddhism’s most powerful practices for developing love and compassion is metta, or loving-kindness meditation. Here is how I do the practice:

• Sit comfortably and allow your breath to quiet your body and mind. Then silently say to yourself: May I be happy. May I be safe. May I be at ease. May I be peaceful.

• Shift your attention to someone you love and repeat these exact phrases: May they be happy. May they be safe. May they be at ease. May they be peaceful.

• Repeat the exercise focusing on someone with whom you are struggling.

• Repeat the exercise focusing on all beings.

• Conclude the exercise by returning focus to yourself.

As the Dalai Lama teaches, “The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes. Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. This helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the ultimate source of success in life.”

My experience with metta attests to his being correct. I should have thanked him for that when I had the chance.

Learn more about how the five Unity Principles appear in Buddhist beliefs.