Words of the Dalai Lama..."F@#k it, I'm going to Canada"

I had the honor of going to see the Dalai Lama yesterday in Oxford thanks to one of my amazing yogis. What a cool dude! He wore his saffron robe and sat on a couch in easy pose after methodically untying his shoes and taking them off while the crowd of thousands looked on in total amusement. He spoke simply from his heart with no plan.

Background
The current Dalai Lama is the 14th Dalai Lama. The legend is that each Dalai Lama is the incarnation of Buddha and is known as "the living Buddha". All of the Dalai Lama's predecessors have been men, but he has mentioned that the next incarnation could be female. I like that thought. The Dalai Lama is not only a religious leader to Tibet and all of Buddhism, he is also a political leader of Tibet. The current Dalai Lama has been living in exile from China since around 1960. He was forced to flee for his life during the Tibetan Uprising of 1959. That's when the Communist government of China cracked down on Tibet killing thousands of monks and driving them out of their homeland. Can you imagine?

What did he say?
I sat amongst many college students txting about drunk girls (I peeped over his shoulder) and talking party plans for the evening. (no judgment, I went to college too). Couple that with my own ears inability to follow an accent and I only picked up on 1/2 of the speech. For me it was more about soaking up his energy anyway.

This is what I heard:
Be your true nature. Your true nature is gentle, kind and compassionate. We gossip and talk about violence because violence is actually an aberration. Even in a large city, you can count on your fingers the number of violent deaths. That's because most every single human on the planet is actually quite kind and peaceful. That is our true nature.

Respect each other. Your religious traditions are wonderful and you should honor them. Embrace it. Live it. Respect the religious traditions of others. We are all saying the exact same thing and it is beautiful.

Do not judge a religion by extremists who are using religion to manipulate power and money. (and don't think it is limited to Islam extremists misinterpreting Jihad...pretty sure Christianity had a dark age). Religion is good. Traditions are good. Power and money as motivators...not good.

Finally, the Dalai Lama said, "Either you (Americans) get it or not. If not, "F@#k it, I'm going to Canada". At that point he laughed and so did I. That was probably the thing he said that moved me the most. You see, I get all the other stuff. I say it to you guys all the time...so nothing new there.

F#$k it...how wonderfully liberating. Sometimes I sound like (I hope to just myself) "blah blah blah blah...are these people hearing me...blah blah blah...." We have been open for 2 years now and classes should be 10 to 15 people deep. They aren't. (In fact, I've been getting up at 6 am every Saturday for the past year to teach 3 people...thank you 3!) I wonder if the location in Lebanon is the issue or if something else is going on. We have awesome facilities, good pricing, amazing teachers, a good schedule with variety and a really good message. Still, I can't get you guys to commit. It's very discouraging. I wonder how I have failed to fill up that cute little studio? Do we lack community? Is our message of self-help, self-healing and peace not sound? Is anybody listening? Seriously, you have 6 dedicated instructors at EOM who have dedicated a huge chunk of their experience to helping you.

In between questions to the Dalai Lama, floods of people streamed out of the building. To be fair, he was hard to understand. But, my God, it was so rude. Here is the living Buddha sitting before us and people were getting up and leaving in between his words. Late for a party? Avoiding the jam in the parking lot? Bored? If the reincarnation of the Buddha can't hold an audience captive, why would I be able to?

F@#k it. Either come or don't. My message is the same. There's always Canada.

I'll see the 3 of you on Saturday!