Home › Forum Online Discussion › Philosophy › Dalai Lama: Mother’s Touch Root of all Human Value (& Religion)
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September 9, 2006 at 10:29 pm #17721Michael WinnKeymaster
I think the DalaiLama’s comments below have great bearing on our discussion here about spiritual process and the importance of the feminine in shaping human consciousness.
What is perhaps most remarkable about the Dalai Lalma is his willingness to break out of the boundaries of his own religious tradition and the Buddhist focus on Emptiness. He was quoted recently on the forum as saying Emptiness had no inherent existence, and he made additional comments that he was uncertain about the function of emptiness.
Now he goes one step further, says our core human values are defined by mother-child’s first embrace.
Why is this so significant?
Because Gautama Buddha, according to historians, never experienced that core human experience. His mother died while giving birth to him.
I pointed this lack of a mother out on this forum as being significant to his “psycho-history” and his development of his cosmic theory of Emptiness as the highest value, and it triggered severe reactions amongst some Buddhist followers as somehow being irreverent or petty or unimportant to such a divine ingallible being as Buddha.
Perhaps hearing it from the Dalai lama will make it more significant.
If we accept his premise that bonding with your mother is at the core of all human values and inner peace, and religion is the supposed carrier of humanity’s highiest values, then we have to ask if the current world religion are doing their job. How much spiritual value do they place on mothers as spiritual leaders? How do they embrace this principle of the feminine within their dogma, their leadership structure, and their practices?
michael
Bonding the key, Dalai Lama says
Tender embrace of mother and child gives spiritual leader inner peaceMichael Scott, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, September 08, 2006The Dalai Lama believes he has the key to a happier world, and it has nothing to do with political process or balance of power.
The Buddhist spiritual leader, who arrived in Vancouver Thursday for a three-day visit, said the force that brings the deepest satisfaction to the world is the tender embrace between mother and newborn child.
Transcript: Interview with the Dalai Lama
“I am now 71 years old [but] I feel, still, deep in my mind, my first experience, my mother’s care. I can still feel it,” the Dalai Lama told a small audience at city hall, after a private meeting with Mayor Sam Sullivan.
“That immediately gives me inner peace, inner calmness,” he added.The challenge in modern society is to hang on to that deep sense of connection later in life. “When we grow up, when our brain develops, then our intelligence causes short-sightedness,” he said. “And I think also the influence of the environment [plays a role]: then aggressiveness, fear, jealousy, anger, frustration — these things arise, and [cause our potential to] become submerged.”
The Dalai Lama said his No. 1 priority is to promote this quality of human bonding, a force he calls “human value.”
“After birth, our first experience is mother’s affection,” he said. “Mother’s care. The child at that time, just after birth, may not have the idea ‘This is my mother.’ But [will have a connection] because of the biological system or need, feeding, relying on that person. And on the mother’s side there is also that sort of tremendous feeling of care — and with that milk, also comes [the connection].
This is not due to religious faith, but because of the biological factor. That is the basis of our life breath, how our life started.
“So, now the time has come, I feel, that as a result of discussion — of exchange, different ideas, different views — and as a result of listening to others’ problems, and noticing the global-level problems, including terrorism, I feel, if we make more effort to sustain our basic value,
I think humanity may become more peaceful. More compassionate. As a result, differences can be easily solved through dialogue. Through talk. Through mutual understanding. So that is my number-one commitment: the promotion of human value.”
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is in Vancouver for three days of public discussions and events around the inauguration of an education centre being built here in his honour. During his first stop, at city hall, he answered a wide range of questions with humility, insight and humour.
Smiling at a mannerly scrum of reporters and photographers, the Dalai Lama expressed his admiration for the media, and then grinning broadly, explained how he often says that reporters should have long noses like an elephant’s, miming a long trunk-like proboscis that gently snuffled at his interpreter’s elbow. ”
[You need a nose like this to] smell everywhere, he said to sustained laughter. “I think, with respect [to Mayor Sullivan], you should use it to smell politicians, mayors, prime ministers, religious heads, businessmen, scientists. I think everywhere. I think we should know the reality.”
September 10, 2006 at 12:11 am #17722FajinParticipantHi Michael,
Buddha didn’t make up the notion of emptiness. Shunyata (void) was a concept that stretches beyond the limits of time (space).
Buddha taught methods to return to it and that suffering ends when we do so. I believe he reached the beyond of the beyond of the eighth jhana of jhana yoga and obtained the incredible breakthrough in concsiousness known as Buddhahood or enlightenment.
He realized emptiness itself. So I think he knows better than the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama eat meat! What kind of Buddhists are they?!
Fajin
September 10, 2006 at 1:48 am #17724DogParticipantI hope you are not ignoring the human aspect of religious Icons. This is why it is important to keep practicing the fundamentals. There is also a humbling aspect to this. There are reports of “masters” through out time that have had problems, especially around sex, and “power”. Agian I think it has to do with intent. Making the patterns and forces known on the conscience level. As fare as the meat thing. You guys act like your going to go to hell if you eat a steak. There are many amazing people and races who have eaten meat over the years. In fact eaten mainly meat. It just depends on the person. Also the goal. If you do alot of hard martial arts eating fruit is a nice balance. So is the yin of meditation. The Dao lets you freely find balance however that maybe.
September 10, 2006 at 2:09 am #17726DogParticipantThere is not a single person that did not come from a women. This definitly has an effect. I have learned in my own life that you will get stuck until you have made peace with your mother and father. You have also talked about being mother and father to your self I have also found this important.
September 10, 2006 at 2:21 am #17728FajinParticipantIf you eat meat, you will have bad karma. If you do not eat meat, no karma will be created. It does not matter what the quantity is.
September 10, 2006 at 2:32 am #17730DogParticipantYou will have bad “Cause (yin) and effect (yang)”? I understand if you live like a fat person you will be fat. But can you put it in taoist cosmology how you are negatively effected.. Does it cause chi to be stuck or do the shen have a harder time processing it. Are you saying that there is some sort of karma police?
September 10, 2006 at 2:42 am #17732FajinParticipantI believe it was a Yogi said that if you drink milk from a cow shaken by fear of being killed, then you are drinking fear itself. I believe the same apples for eating meating. It penetrates on an emotional level of concsiousness.
September 10, 2006 at 3:41 am #17734singing oceanParticipantplants are affected in a positive way by music, how do you think they feel when someone is taking their seeds and fruit by force? Are we not eating violence?
September 10, 2006 at 5:00 am #17736matblackParticipantFajin>>>>>>If you eat meat, you will have bad karma. If you do not eat meat, no karma will be created. It does not matter what the quantity is. <<<<<<<<
er…..so.what about judjing one who eats meat? i think that to judge one who eats meat will create karma for the judge.
"if you eat no meat, no karma will be created" , maybe not on THAT level, but be careful of self-righteous vegetarians pointing the finger and condemming meat eaters.
Because (to me), karma is being generated from pointing the finger.to me, vegetarianism is noble, and i look forward to the time when my body does need meat.
just but be careful not to let your attitude become polarized toward people who do eat meat
some people simply CANNOT function without meat as their only effective source of b12. this is determined by their genetic make up
and i know we've had this discussion before and i know that b12 does exist in spirulina and other vegetable sources, but for some, vegetable derived B12 does NOT suffice for thier body.i like when jesus says 'judge ye not' ……….even someones' ignorance, cruelty, arrogance etc………judge ye not, for in condemnation lies the resistance, the critic, …..this too can create karma.
September 10, 2006 at 5:06 am #17738matblackParticipantDOG>>>>> I have learned in my own life that you will get stuck until you have made peace with your mother and father. You have also talked about being mother and father to your self I have also found this important.<<<<<<<
i agree dog. i think it's very important for peace among child and parents/ their genese are in us. the morphogenic resonance connects us to them .
peace with them – peace with ourselves
love with them – love with ourselves
then……….all humanity
September 10, 2006 at 11:08 am #17740FajinParticipantPlants are not emotional and do not suffer any pain, we also do not suffer pain from that. There was a book about water by a Japanese scientist which shows that saying things like “I love you” to water will make beautiful crystals form and it is healthier for us to drink. Saying something bad, the water does not change at all. There is a big difference between a plant and an animal.
Fajin
September 10, 2006 at 11:43 am #17742PeroParticipantI seem to recall a research being made with plants. The researchers killed one plant in front of another, and in another experiment just told the plant that they were going to kill it. In both cases they registered some sort of increased activity in the plant, forgot what exactly it was, I think maybe electromagnetic. Which led to the conclusion that plants feel as well…
And you are wrong with the water example as well. It`s not true that the water doesn`t change if you say something bad. If that were so why would it change if you say something good??? The truth is, that it does change in both cases.
I remember an example was made that with words “Do it” the crystals became “ugly”, and with the words “Lets do it” beautiful.September 10, 2006 at 11:51 am #17744FajinParticipant“Do it” the crystals became beautiful. There was no “lets do it”.
The point is that they recognize the thought frequencies/yi and they react spontaneously to that. Plants react spontaneously too, just like with music making it grow.
Animals have a brain, they are different. I don’t know too much about this subject but killiang an animal and eating is much different from taking an apple from a tree and eating it. Buddha said to only eat meat if it is offered as a meal to you by someone.
September 10, 2006 at 11:58 am #17746PeroParticipantBut how are the animals different? They react spontaneously as well, brain or no brain. And besides, aren`t in essence all things the same?
One thing I read some time ago about why Buddha taught not to eat meat. Supposedly, at that time in India, there was a lot of slaughter houses (right word?) for meat, that produced more than was neccessary. So they were uneccesserally killing many animals. He wanted to stop that.
September 10, 2006 at 12:01 pm #17748FajinParticipant>>One thing I read some time ago about why Buddha taught not to eat meat. Supposedly, at that time in India, there was a lot of slaughter houses (right word?) for meat, that produced more than was neccessary. So they were uneccesserally killing many animals. He wanted to stop that.<<
*Hiduism is against it too. It's really a simple subject. You kill it, you eat, you get bad karma. It's that simple. Why would you kill it if you can eat fruit which you don't have to kill?
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