After we had been given our new names by Geshe Rabten, Randy, Rob, and I stayed in Dharamsala for another six weeks. The weather was cold and rainy. We had arrived totally unprepared for it, or the harsh conditions, but being hippies we made the best of it. The floor of our little room in what was called “Naro-jee Villa” was concrete. At the one street market of Dharamsala, we bought straw mats upon which to lay our woefully inadequate sleeping bags. When we were not having a session with Geshe Rabten, or clambering up and down the steep trail to the market, or preparing a meal on our borrowed kerosene stove, we each sat in meditative posture, facing a wall of our room, trying to bring to mind a sharp, crisp image of a Buddha, our teeth chattering. Life was challenging but good.

Being in Dharamsala meant that we were in the place where His Holiness the Dalai Lama actually lived. In subsequent years, it became much more difficult to arrange for a private audience with the Dalai Lama, but in those days, it was a simple and quite informal matter. His Holiness’s private secretary, Tenzin, was soft-spoken and refined but considered himself a simple monk. In the late afternoons he often strolled the one street of Dharamsala’s marketplace. As our time of training with Geshe Rabten drew to a close, one evening we approached Tenzin and told him of our desire to meet with His Holiness. He reached into his robes and took out a small datebook. Looking it over, he raised his head and asked, “Would tomorrow at three o’clock be all right with you?”

“Why, yes! Yes, it would. We will be there. Thank you so much.”

That was all it took.

The next day we prepared by taking good, though frigid, baths, dressing in our cleanest clothes, and getting our best khatas, or greeting scarves, folded neatly and ready to offer to His Holiness. When we arrived at the residence just behind the Namgyal Monastery, we were ushered into a simple but eloquent foyer. Tenzin inconspicuously ducked into a room and then came out to tell us that His Holiness would see us.

The thing I remember most about that first meeting, for there have been many since then, was that His Holiness seemed much taller than I had thought him to be. His voice, too, was quite incredible, deep and rippling and, at times, seeming to come from other parts of the room. Like the student-hippies we were, just after entering the room we had begun doing prostrations. His Holiness quickly put an end to this formal ritual by coming over to us and saying, as he gestured with his hand, “All right, stop that. None of that is necessary. Please, come and sit down.” We found ourselves completely at ease.

He was charming and energetic. His very being exemplified the ideals of Mahayana, that form of Buddhism in which all spiritual practice aims at, and is perfected through, compassion and service to others. He was the true bodhisattva, a being whose sole intention is to make himself into a proper tool to serve and fulfill the needs of all beings; who compassionately strives to do whatever is necessary so that others can be helped and not harmed.

After graciously commending us for studying with Geshe Rabten and for being students of Lama Yeshe, he wasted no time in engaging us in a discussion about student protest in the United States. His Holiness wanted to know everything about recent demonstrations and unrest. We talked for some time about the shootings at Kent State. He made it clear that he wanted to know how we, as students, saw what was happening and why. He listened with eyes set firmly upon us and with a kindness and compassionate understanding that made our own words flow smoothly.

I was supposed to be following the same path that helped the Dalai Lama become as kind and great as he is, so I asked, “Given that we have taken bodhisattva vows, Your Holiness, what are we to do if, once back in the States, we find ourselves in a position where we, too, are facing policemen or National Guardsmen who want to shoot us?” Talking with the Dalai Lama brought up again for me my old dilemma about violence versus peace. Back at Cornell and on my subsequent trip to California, perhaps to join the Black Panthers, I had had my own near brushes with violence, and I had thought a lot about the possible consequences of armed confrontation. Though I had chosen to turn away from violence, I was still concerned about becoming too passive. I knew that the Dalai Lama himself had had to face similar issues when his own country was violently invaded by the Chinese. His Holiness became intensely reflective. Then, with deliberate and attentive clarity, he advised us as follows:

“You have now entered upon the Mahayana path. That is very good. Very good, indeed. The Mahayanist, the bodhisattva, as you know, works for the benefit of beings. He or she wishes to aid beings wherever they are in need. You should know that your first duty, now that you are on this path, is to practice patience. You are meditating to gain clarity. You must have clarity in order to act appropriately. With patience and clarity, you know with certainty whether you can or cannot help a given situation. If, after looking at the situation with clarity, you determine that you cannot help, then it is better not to worry. Worry accomplishes nothing. But if you are clear and you can help, then you will know what to do and how to do it. So patience and clarity are essential.”

“Yes, Your Holiness,” my impatience made me push, “but what if you think you have looked at all the alternatives—with clarity— and you find that your only course of action is to be on that line along with others, facing those policemen or those guardsmen, then what?”

“Again,” he said, “patience is most important. But if you are certain that there is no other alternative, if you are clear and certain about this, then what you must do is this: First, you must think lovingly and with compassion about the policeman. If you think or call him a pig, then you must let him shoot you! But if you can wish him well, and pray for his future happy rebirth, then of course, you stop him from harming the others. You stop him by any means necessary.” We were relieved and amazed.

Choosing peace did not mean rolling over and becoming a doormat. Pacifism did not mean passivism.

He continued, “When I came out of Tibet, many Khampas with guns accompanied me. They were concerned about me. They wanted my safety. I could not say to them, ‘You are wrong to have guns.’ Many monks, too, in Tibet took up guns to fight the Chinese. But when they came here, I made them monks again. You should not believe that the Mahayana asks you to think of beings’ welfare only in some future time. You should try as much as possible to help in the here and now. Still, patience and clarity are most important, most important.”

Lama Yeshe had made a similar point several weeks before we came to Dharamsala. He had been talking with another student and was telling him that one should actually do whatever is necessary to help beings and not cause them harm, even if that sometimes meant breaking one’s vows. He had said, “Sometimes, compassionately helping someone requires what a purist might view as breaking one’s vows. For example, suppose a woman runs by you screaming that a man is after her and wants to kill her. In a few moments, you see a man brandishing a big knife who asks you, ‘Where did that woman go?’ Now, your vows tell you that you should not tell a lie. But if you tell the truth, the man will probably kill the woman. So you choose to tell a lie here in order to protect the woman from harm. Doing so also protects the man from creating negative actions. The vows are not so much prescriptions as they are guidelines. You must use your intelligence, your wisdom and clarity, as well as your compassion to be of service to others.”

Talking with the Dalai Lama brought this truth home again. Buddhism was a process; one did not need to delude oneself or to pretend to be other than oneself, and one did not have to become completely passive in order to embrace the notion of peace. Choosing peace did not mean rolling over and becoming a doormat. Pacifism did not mean passivism. Still, patience and clarity were essential. My heart basked in the glow of his words.

Before we knew it, almost two hours had gone by. His Holiness had been so open and so frank with us that he seemed to me to be like an old friend and wise counselor rolled into one, a true flesh-and-bones Buddha.

♦

Excerpted and adapted from Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist—One Woman’s Spiritual Journey by Jan Willis. © 2008 Jan Willis. Republished in arrangement with Wisdom Publications.