Chance = Change

His Holiness the Dalai Lama...and how perfect that i sat with him for the past three days at a theater,, a huge theater, in Manhattan called The Beacon Theater! Because if there ever was a beacon of light in these stupid times, it is His Holiness, the Dalai Lama...I feel happy and deeply blessed to have experienced him and his way of teaching. So proud that there is such a human being on this planet....so proud to be a human being in the same race of man....he leads the way in showing us how we can be, and as flawed as we all are, as human as he is, his presence and his gracefullness, and his knowledge and his pure meditative self is inspiring. That is actually it: I feel inspired...I feel breathed into...lightened...enabled ...by his presence and his being. I feel, in short, so good!

I will transcribe the notes I took, in the special booklet we received that had to do with The Blade Wheel of Mind Reform Teachings that were his topic for this sitting...i took so many notes, as I always do when in the presence of these Buddhist masters I am fortunate enough to study with...right now, all I feel like doing is pouring out my heart with the love I left there feeling today. He is a great man.

And the Buddha's teachings are great. I learned this weekend that to do anything less than study the teachings of the Buddha and his subsequent masters,like Matreya, Shanti Deva, Darmasakahya, and so many others.....to do less than make a study of all the great writings, all the sutras,...well...there are brilliant minds that have been at work glorifying the Buddha's enlightenment since it happened centuries ago, and to not benefit from these brilliant minds and hearts would be a sad thing.To boil it all down to the chanting of one thing...to assume that, no matter how powerful a set of words can be, all can be experienced in simply chanting those words is simply not for me right now. There is too much else to strive for, and whereas we do all have the sweetest of Buddah natures within , and hearts that are capable of greatness, there are depths to plumb and horizons to travel toward before we can earn the true title of Buddha....Bodhisattva, yes...we can take that vow and proceed from there...but I am no Buddha...I feel humble enough to know that and use that knowledge to grow. And so I shall. I have never felt so honored as i felt in the presence of the Dalai Lama today. Such greatness. And I understood how, every day, my little mind, my vast ego, prevents me from seeing so much of the world around me. Such self-cherishing blindness is no crime....in fact, it is deeply human...but to experience a break in it is like breathing fresh air. And it was intoxicating. Like coming alive. My ego-driven self has given me many things, many wonderful things,,,,and there is so much more to gain than that...such a wider scope of vision.

I honor all the paths I have been on, and value them. They have led me here.
In two weeks , we go back to Menla for a 5-day sitting on Peace with Robert Thurman and Sharon Saltzburg...I can hardly wait. In the interim, I will meditate and read, then meditate and read some more.

Meanwhile, I am rehearsing this wonderful LAUGHING MATTERS with such terrific people...it is a show I could do with a full heart.Glorious music and comedy, with a story worth telling. And Lynn Ahrens called...She and Steve Flaherty want me work with them on some stuff they are doing...I told them I would be honored to do so. Wonderful writers. As long as people respect and can work around my NYU schedule, I feel great about working with them. And that is what Leonard Foglia , Mike Stoller, Iris Dart, Lynn and Steve and other nice people are doing and I am grateful for that.

So much more to tell about the Dalai Lama. I will . Stay tuned.