Tyler Dewar: The way I feel right now
is that all of the other speakers
have said exactly what I wanted to say.
(Laughter)
And it seems that the only thing left for me to say
is to thank you all for your kindness.
TD: But maybe in the spirit
of appreciating the kindness of you all,
I could share with you
a little story about myself.
TD: From the time I was very young, onward,
I was given
a lot of different responsibilities,
and it always seemed to me, when I was young,
that everything was laid out before me.
All of the plans for me were already made.
I was given the clothes that I needed to wear
and told where I needed to be,
given these very precious
and holy looking robes to wear,
with the understanding
that it was something sacred or important.
TD: But before that kind of formal lifestyle happened for me,
I was living in eastern Tibet with my family.
And when I was seven years old,
all of a sudden,
a search party arrived at my home.
They were looking the next Karmapa,
and I noticed they were talking to my mom and dad,
and the news came to me that they were telling me
that I was the Karmapa.
And these days, people ask me a lot,
how did that feel.
How did that feel when they came and whisked you away,
and your lifestyle completely changed?
And what I mostly say is that,
at that time,
it was a pretty interesting idea to me.
I thought that things would be pretty fun
and there would be more things to play with.
(Laughter)
TD: But it didn't turn out to be so fun and entertaining,
as I thought it would have been.
I was placed
in a pretty strictly controlled environment.
And immediately,
a lot of different responsibilities,
in terms of my education and so forth, were heaped upon me.
I was separated, largely, from my family,
including my mother and father.
I didn't have have many personal friends
to spend time with,
but I was expected to perform
these prescribed duties.
So it turned out that my fantasy
about an entertaining life of being the Karmapa
wasn't going to come true.
It more felt to be the case to me
that I was being treated like a statue,
and I was to sit in one place
like a statue would.
TD: Nevertheless, I felt that,
even though I've been separated from my loved ones --
and, of course, now I'm even further away.
When I was 14, I escaped from Tibet
and became even further removed
from my mother and father,
my relatives, my friends
and my homeland.
But nevertheless,
there's no real sense of separation from me in my heart,
in terms of the love that I feel
for these people.
I feel, still, a very strong connection of love
for all of these people
and for the land.
TD: And I still do
get to keep in touch with my mother and father,
albeit infrequently.
I talk to my mother
once in a blue moon on the telephone.
And my experience is that,
when I'm talking to her,
with every second that passes
during our conversation,
the feeling of love that binds us
is bringing us closer and closer together.
TD: So those were just a few remarks
about my personal background.
And in terms of other things that I wanted to share with you,
in terms of ideas,
I think it's wonderful to have a situation like this,
where so many people from different backgrounds and places
can come together,
exchange their ideas
and form relationships of friendship with each other.
And I think that's symbolic
of what we're seeing in the world in general,
that the world is becoming smaller and smaller,
and that all of the peoples in the world
are enjoying more opportunities for connection.
That's wonderful,
but we should also remember
that we should have a similar process happening on the inside.
Along with outward development
and increase of opportunity,
there should be inward development
and deepening of our heart connections
as well as our outward connections.
So we spoke and we heard some
about design this week.
I think that it's important for us to remember
that we need
to keep pushing forward
on the endeavor
of the design of the heart.
We heard a lot about technology this week,
and it's important for us to remember
to invest a lot of our energy
in improving the technology of the heart.
TD: So, even though I'm somewhat happy
about the wonderful developments that are happening in the world,
still, I feel a sense of impediment,
when it comes
to the ability that we have
to connect with each other on a heart-to-heart, or a mind-to-mind, level.
I feel that there are some things
that are getting in the way.
TC: My relationship
to this concept of heart-to-heart connection, or mind-to-mind connection,
is an interesting one,
because, as a spiritual leader, I'm always attempting
to open my heart to others
and offer myself up
for heart-to-heart and mind-to-mind connections
in a genuine way with other people,
but at the same time,
I've always been advised
that I need to emphasize intelligence
over the heart-to-heart connections,
because, being someone in a position like mine,
if I don't rely primarily on intelligence,
then something dangerous may happen to me.
So it's an interesting paradox at play there.
But I had a really striking experience once,
when a group from Afghanistan
came to visit me,
and we had a really interesting conversation.
TD: So we ended up talking about the Bamiyan Buddhas,
which, as you know,
were destroyed some years ago in Afghanistan.
But the basis of our conversation
was the different approach to spirituality
on the part of the Muslim
and Buddhist traditions.
Of course, in Muslim,
because of the teachings around the concept of idolatry,
you don't find as many
physical representations of divinity
or of spiritual liberation
as you do in the Buddhist tradition,
where, of course, there are many statues of the Buddha
that are highly revered.
So, we were talking about the differences
between the traditions
and what many people perceived
as the tragedy of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas,
but I offered the suggestion
that perhaps we could look at this in a positive way.
What we saw in the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas
was the depletion of matter,
some solid substance
falling down and disintegrating.
Maybe we could look at that to be more similar
to the falling of the Berlin Wall,
where a divide
that had kept two types of people apart
had collapsed and opened up a door
for further communication.
So I think that, in this way,
it's always possible for us
to derive something positive
that can help us understand one another better.
TD: So, with regard to the development
that we've been talking about
here at this conference,
I really feel
that the development that we make
shouldn't create a further burden
for us as human beings,
but should be used
to improve
our fundamental lifestyle
of how we live in the world.
TD: Of course, I rejoice
in the development and the growth and the rise
of the noble land of India, the great country of India,
but at the same time, I think,
as some of us have acknowledged,
we need to be aware
that some aspects of this rise
are coming at the cost
of the very ground
on which we stand.
So, as we are climbing the tree,
some of the things that we're doing
in order to climb the tree
are actually undermining
the tree's very root.
And so,
what I think it comes down to
is a question of, not only having information of what's going on,
but paying attention to that
and letting that shift our motivation
to become more sincere
and genuinely positive.
We have hear, this week,
about the horrible sufferings, for example,
that so many women of the world
are enduring day-to-day.
We have that information,
but what often happens to us
is that we don't really choose to pay attention to it.
We don't really choose to allow that
to cause there to be a shift in our hearts.
So I think the way forward for the world --
one that will bring the path of outer development
in harmony
with the real root of happiness --
is that we allow
the information that we have
to really make a change in our heart.
TD: So I think that sincere motivation
is very important for our future well-being,
or deep sense of well-being as humans,
and I think that means sinking in
to whatever it is you're doing now.
Whatever work you're trying to do now to benefit the world,
sink into that,
get a full taste of that.
TD: So, since we've been here this week,
we've taken millions of breaths, collectively,
and perhaps we haven't witnessed
any course changes
happening in our lives,
but we often miss the very subtle changes.
And I think
that sometimes we develop
grand concepts
of what happiness
might look like for us,
but that, if we pay attention,
we can see that there are little symbols of happiness
in every breath that we take.
TD: So, every one of you who has come here
is so talented,
and you have so much to offer to the world,
I think it would be a good note to conclude on then
to just take a moment
to appreciate how fortunate we are
to have come together in this way and exchanged ideas
and really form a strong aspiration
and energy within ourselves
that we will take the good
that has come from this conference,
the momentum, the positivity,
and we will spread that and plant it
in all of the corners of the world.
His Holiness the Karmapa: Tomorrow is my Talk.
TD: Lakshmi has worked incredibly hard,
even in inviting me,
let alone everything else that she has done
to make this happen,
and I was somewhat resistant at times,
and I was also very nervous throughout this week.
I was feeling under the weather and dizzy and so forth,
and people would ask me, why.
I would tell them, "It's because I have to talk tomorrow."
And so Lakshmi had to put up with me through all of that,
but I very much appreciate
the opportunity she's given me
to be here.
And to you, everyone, thank you very much.
(Applause)
HH: Thank you very much.
(Applause)