An Open Letter
to The Dalai Lama
Nearly four years ago, you sent a message of gratitude and
encouragement to the people of the Catskills for protecting
our natural environment. That message of caring, of your interest
in the future of our mountains and valleys, was conveyed through
our sister newspaper and was widely appreciated. On behalf
of all of us we welcome you back, on the first of what we
hope will be many teaching visits to the Menla Mountain Retreat
and to our communities.
Throughout our lives most of us have known of you and the
struggles of the Tibetan people, oppressed in their own land
or in exile. This is something we understand deeply from within
our own history and traditions. Like people everywhere, we’ve
been moved by the compassion you’ve voiced, even toward
those who’ve waged cultural genocide against your people.
In demonstrating such empathy and in your lifelong work in
conflict resolution, human rights, and on behalf of our global
environment, you have shown by example that moral authority
is real, is earned, and has the power to change our world.
In these years since you first reached out to our towns, Tibet
House’s teaching center in the Pantherkill valley has
become an integral part of our community, joining Zen Mountain
Monastery in Mt. Tremper and Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD)
in Woodstock as global centers of their teaching lineages.
Amongst many other things our community is now, it is also
one of the major centers of spiritual practice and religious
learning in the world. Like Lindisfarne in Ireland or Mt.
Athos in Greece, such places have a long history of providing
a beacon of light and hope that’s endured through our
civilization’s darkest times.
Perhaps such times are coming again, perhaps not. Or perhaps
on the other side of them, as you’ve suggested, is a
future too different from the present for us to easily visualize.
Regardless, we think it fitting that our well-protected mountains
are now home to such an abundance of teaching and learning.
Like the wildlife or the quiet of our unbroken forests, it’s
part of what makes this the sacred land most every one of
us knows it to be.
A few of us, to be sure, have difficulty fully accepting the
positive dimension of this abundance. Partly perhaps, it’s
because some people’s sense of place or their relationship
to the land reflects personal interests more focused on the
mundane. Others may be troubled that some traditions new to
these mountains are unfamiliar. And a few perhaps, have difficulty
hearing the central message of Buddhism: that life - as we
all can see - is suffering, but the end of suffering is within
our own hearts. Our purpose in life is to search there for
the attainment of our own happiness, through the fullest possible
awareness of ourselves and the world around us.
The clarity of this message, for those who haven’t considered
it of late, is often strikingly simple and forthright. And
sometimes people are surprised that it neither conflicts with
nor excludes other ways of understanding ourselves and our
role here, nor what our own religious traditions have taught
us.
As a newspaper we have two jobs: to report what’s happening
and what’s not as best we can, and to share with our
readers what we see as important about those things. That’s
what we do on this editorial page, and it isn’t always
about governance or politics. Sometimes it’s literally
about the quality of life, which certainly seems to reflect
the quality of our thoughts and insights. More than anything
and as much as our actions, that’s what defines any
community. When a newspaper fails to engage that, if it fails
to ask its readers to reflect on those things and act accordingly,
then it fails to serve those it intends to.
We believe in our neighbors, our readers, the friends we know
already and those we don’t. And we believe our community
of belief here is strong enough and secure enough to accept
with an open heart the wisdom that joins us, whatever color
its robes.
We are not always perfect neighbors here in these mountains.
We struggle even amongst ourselves to define what is just
and fair to all, we project onto others what we dislike in
ourselves and suffer the embarrassments all people do, when
we realize we’re doing the right thing for the wrong
reason or the wrong thing for the right one. Still, with the
grace and forgiveness of those who love us, we try, and in
that trying and sometimes despite ourselves, we grow in wisdom
and acceptance and humor.
So having said all this, we make the offer to you again: Welcome
to the open heart of the Catskill High Peaks. Join us. Share
what we have to share: our floods and our sorrows, our music
and our children and our joy, the moon rising over Tremper
or High Point Mountain, and the clear flowing waters entrusted
to our watchfulness.
You have told us that with your passing the world will be
entering an age very different than the one we’re living
through. We have no knowledge of what will be, only the aspiration
to help make the sacred dimension of our lives and our time
here as central to our communal life as it is to our private
ones. We hope your time amongst us will be gratifying, and
that what we still need to learn to live together in harmony,
you’ll help us learn.
BP
