Dalai Lama XIV

What an eye-opening book. I grew up Buddhist and have always been a fan of the Dalai Lama and his wisdom. But I never knew much about Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But I definitely have a newfound respect for both of these amazing world leaders, who teach us how to be at peace with ourselves, and find happiness in a world full of suffering and negativity. Such inspiring stories of how these two men survived through apartheid and exile, and yet still remain positive and joyful.

These days, we're so focused on external stimuli...material goods, making more money, focusing on ourselves. And yet, we're more depressed than ever before, despite the façade of "having everything". They teach in this book that compassion is key, as is giving, even when we have nothing. The eight pillars of joy is something I'll definitely be remembering for a long, long time. And the guide on meditation at the end is just what I needed in these stressful times.

So even though we can't change what's going on around us, or how other people behave, we can change ourselves. And change comes from the inside, and changing our mindset. I've slowly been moving toward this change of mindset myself, and while it's not an overnight change, the words spoken in this book give you plenty to think about. Highly recommended, and I know I'll be referring to this book whenever I need a reminder!… (mer)

Reading this book feels like the Dalai Lama is talking straight to you. He is telling his story of his past, and what he hopes for the future. He states that compassion is the biggest lesson he can ever teach. And it’s this lesson that needs to be foremost in everybody’s mind. The one thing that separates us from others is our compassion. This book is lovingly done. It’s interesting, and it gives a look into a religious leader that speaks not about religion, but about caring for other people.… (mer)

Originally published in 2016 with 236 pages. If you were looking for a book on "how" to meditate, then this isn't the book. I'm bummed. It was a Goodreads recommendation on sale for $2.99.

I was drawn to it because for a while now I have felt my compassion for people and my joy for life waning. I'm pretty sure this is a direct consequence of my addiction to Facebook, which encourages "self-cherish", the main subject of this book. People are posting every single aspect of their lives online to show everyone how wonderful they are..."self-cherishing"! I'm definitely caught up in it too. I have been praying for God to restore this compassion and joy that I used to feel for all the little things in life, without the "Like" button. I thought, why not, let's see what the ol' Lama has to say.

Well, good luck reading this. It's full of riddles, made up words...and full of "word salad" as one reviewer put it, and he was right! It gets just 1 star for such a hard and horrible read. I only understood a tiny fraction of this book.

But, here's a few interesting things I did learn about Buddhism:

The Buddhist spiritual path is, at first glance, similar to the path that God would want all His children to follow, focusing on empathy, meditation and knowledge. But, according to the Bible, LOVE actually trumps empathy, or compassion, because without love in your heart, there can be no compassion. And, according to the Bible, FAITH and BELIEF in Christ trumps ALL things. There is no mention of a higher "self" or God, or any kind of entity, at all in this book. But, because I have seen a spiritual angel at work with my own eyes, I know for a fact they exist. But, I don't go around seeing angels everyday to go around and brag about it. That was a one time show years ago, and I will never forget it!

After reading this book, I get the feeling that Buddhists, although good at heart and they tell you to love one another and have compassion for others, and want world peace, really seem to be self-absorbed, even if they did give up all the material things in life for a life of meditation. It seems their goal in life is to learn to get to the "clear light", or Great Completeness, which is the phase they say you get to at death. It is the act of learning to stay in the mindset of innerpeace through all situations in life and to have complete spiritual development so they can be kind and be a help to others. To get to this phase requires daily meditations and working your way through the 8 phases with the practice and teachings of a qualified Old Translation schoolmaster, and his blessings, and it would take years to learn to remain in that state. They say that while in that state of mind, "clear light", they can recount events that occurred over hundreds and thousands of years ago in their "previous lives", which I cannot say is true or false. I don't believe the Bible speaks of rebirths at all, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Also, according to Lama, the benefit of knowing the 8 phases and achieving getting to this "clear light" state of mind in death is that they are able to slow down decomposition of the body after death. He claims to have seen a Tibetan Buddhists body last up to 20 days before it started to decompose. Dalai Lama said he practices this meditation daily through the phases so that when death is at his door he may recognize those phases and then enter into "clear light", and hopefully slow down his own decomposition. Hmm...that sounds kind of self-cherishing. But, if one does not reach Buddhahood in his present lifetime, not to worry, he will have many other lifetimes to complete the process.

With that being said, the Buddhist and I are still brother and sister. We each have a SOUL and we are both God's children. The Buddhist believes what he believes to be the right path, and I believe what I believe to be the right path. I do have great respect towards the Buddhists, who have such devotion to their beliefs that you hardly see in Christians today. I believe God is bigger than either one of us, and that we don't know what all there is to know about life after death. Maybe we each interpret the same God in different ways.… (mer)