Leaving Fear Behind

Leaving Fear Behind is a beautiful film by Dondup Wangchen. He interviewed Tibetans in Tibet on their feelings approaching the Olympic games in 2008. Some of the responses are quite emotional. Several people start to cry when they say that their greatest wish is that His Holiness the Dalai Lama be allowed to return to Tibet.

It's tragic that Tibetans are facing the decimation of their culture, and I think this film is an important document in that it allows Tibetans to express their own ideas about what their lives are like.

In the past several months I've had the great fortune of meeting several Tibetans. Whenever I meet a Tibetan I am always amazed by their warmth and sincerity. I truly love the Tibetan people. They are such kind, warm hearted people. To me they represent the ideal that I am striving to fulfill for myself. If it weren't for the Tibetan's dedication in preserving the Buddha's teachings, I myself would be totally at a loss. By extension, if I make an effort to become a better person through contact with Tibetan people, then I can inspire other people in turn.

The Buddha's teachings tell us that everything we view as a misfortune is actually a teaching in disguise. Whenever we endure mental hardship we become stronger. We can use it as a form of mind training. As an example, if I think that my life is difficult or lonely, I can think about the Tibetans, and see that actually my life isn't difficult at all. Either that or I can think, I am suffering now, but I am going to use my suffering, and mentally take on the suffering of others', thereby relieving them of their burden. In developing an altruistic attitude, my mind becomes joyful because I am able to assist other beings in finding happiness.

Dondup Wangchen is still imprisoned, and is probably being tortured for making a simple film.

Several months ago I met a man who was arrested and tortured in a prison in Lhasa. He recounted his story. It was a horrific one. Yet, despite the suffering he'd obviously endured, he told his story with a smile. I wish I could retell it here, but I haven't asked his permission. Even though he was telling a very difficult and sad story, he was still able to make it positive. After enduring weeks of starvation, he explained that the food he finally was allowed to eat was the most delicious food he'd ever eaten. And then he also said that after being denied water, when he finally did get something to drink, the water he drank was the sweetest water he'd ever tasted.

In actuality, I feel my own pain as a great burden at times, and I bemoan my lot. But my pain is non-existent. And my life is a happy and lucky one. Even the slight discomfort I feel, my shyness, and inability to make friends here, is really not bad at all. I can see this in comparison to many of the lives of people I read about and meet. And I can also see that if it weren't for the perception of suffering that I've experienced throughout my life, I would never have been led to study the Buddha dharma. If I hadn't felt a great sense of loss, and of being lost in the world, of failure, loneliness, what have you, I wouldn't have felt the sense of desperation that was the driving force behind my great thirst for the Buddhist teachings.

Alternately, I can train myself to rejoice in my own qualities, to really look at what I have as valuable, and to view my life as valuable. However small my contribution is, whatever good thought I have, or small kindness I bestow on another being, I can rejoice in that small virtue. Little by little, drop by drop, I can slowly transform my attitude, so that I no longer feel anguished. As my own attitude changes, I will become more a capable, and I will be able to reach out to others in more meaningful ways. I can also aid others in their quest to become relieved of their own suffering.

So it is through my own pain that I have come to discover greater truths, and that I have come into contact with Tibetan people. My fortune is truly great, indeed.

Solitude

Yesterday I translated a Dutch film of a woman from Curaçao who's been on welfare since coming here in the early nineties. She has three children, one of them a severely mentally disabled teenage boy, who is unable even to use the toilet.

It was an interesting job. In the process of doing it, I indentified with her as a mother trying to raise children in The Netherlands with virtually no support from the native population.

I've said before that coming here has helped me to better understand what it's like to be a minority, and what it's like to be discriminated against. I guess that's a valuable lesson in itself that I should be thankful for, but it still can never subtract all of the lonely hours I've spent here, or the depression that's been its result. I'm a lot stronger now, even though my strength hasn't translated into acceptance here on the "home" front.

There was an article last week in the NRC Handelsblad (the most reputable Dutch paper, that uses as its model the New York Times) about research done by an English expat. He found out that most people who come to Amsterdam to work leave after only a few years because they find the social climate too harsh and unaccepting. This goes even for people who do their utmost to speak the language, and to "fit in," and "integrate." Even people, unlike me, who earn a lot, live in Amsterdam in a nice house, and have respectable careers end up feeling shut out of the Dutch culture. It leaves me wondering if there's much hope at all. They all wind up in expat groups, like so many, complaining about the Dutch. How familiar.

About a year ago I decided to combat my isolation by becoming an acestic. I decided that there had to be another way of breaking through the boundaries of my life, and I knew that it wasn't going to come from the outside. In the end, I have to become responsible to an internal self that isn't reliant on other people's reactions or acceptance, which isn't very forthcoming at all. There are some very nice people out there, but the little time we spend together has never been enough to sustain the vastness of the loneliness I feel when the warmth of their presence has gone.

In Zen, solitude is wisdom. Solitude, loneliness and isolation aren't the same things. Solitude brings with it a sense of peace and tranquility. Isolation is turbulent and disparaging. Isolation is unbearably stressful and can lead to various psychological ailments.

I keep reminding myself that I am grateful to the pain I've experience because it led me to what I am doing now, which is following the vajrasattva path of Tibetan Buddhism, and it is a source of learning.

I haven't come that far on the path, but when I am meditating consistently, I am more positive, at peace with myself and the world around me.

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