So he really only spent a day and a couple hours in Shandaken. There was still something about the Dalai Lama’s overnight visit last week that seemed to bring something magical with it. He overnighted at the Menla Mountain Retreat & Conference center at the end of Pantherkill Road. The conference that His Holiness came to participate in was organized by Columbia University’s Integrative Medicine Program to study Eastern & Western perspectives on longevity and health. At the conference His Holiness spoke in English, occasionally lapsing into Tibetan when the precision of complexity required. And though the translation was all but seamless, he listened intently, often correcting it. His voice was deep and resonant, but every so often it would rise and warble like notes from a flute, as his points trailed off into a little chuckle. So what did he say? He said he’s just like us. Sometimes he gets angry. And when his friend Robert Thurman said “I’m worse,” he said “I don’t know, “ and laughed. He said fear is instinctive, it’s behind much of what we see as confidence, and it’s often fear of the impermanence of change. He said “the more open and compassionate the mind, the less fear. There is a gap, he said, between our understanding of reality and reality. To bridge it, we need to cease or subsume our observations into “a single taste” of emptiness, Only through insight into this can we break through the false mental projections of appearance, and the destructive emotions they give rise to. And he said “someone who wants to cheat, to exploit, then smiles when actually their motivation is to harm, that is the worst kind of violence.” Life, he said, “should be based on compassionate life.” Shandaken town supervisor Bob Cross Jr. was there, with rapt attention. As were town councilpeople Rob Stanley, Joe Munster and Peter DiSclafani. Town police Fred Holland and Chad Story helped out. It was a very special event... BP

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