A DECLARATION FROM DEHLI TO CANBERRA
Last month In Delhi India, His Holiness
the Dalai Lama convened a meeting of the leaders of nine spiritual traditions
which are practiced in India. A written
note by the Dalai Lama was given to each spiritual leader and their followers,
the note expressing ‘The Delhi Declaration’, what the Dalai Lama hoped would be
achieved for further discussion in our contemporary world.
“Followers of all spiritual traditions try in their own ways to overcome
the suffering that afflicts beings in the world and to bring about their
happiness. However, it would be better if we worked together to fulfill such
aspirations.”
On the agenda of the two day meeting,
where spiritual leaders worked together with ‘a congregation of their flock’,
were pressing issues to our contemporary world, most pressing to the
International and Australian governments - counteracting violence committed in
the name of religion. We would only have
to read the pages of a newspaper such as this, to consider the threat that the
Islamic State poses to peace in our contemporary world.
I feel a pertinent question that should be asked
is - how could this group of ‘spiritual folk’ in a far off land like India,
give hope for resolution of this conflict with Islamic State a radical branch
of one world faith?
Of course it is not up to such spiritual leaders
to settle political conflict, that unenviable task rests with our national political
leaders, governments and our representatives in the United Nations. However the power of prayer and religious
dialogue, should neither be shunned as esoteric and being of no value to offering
inspiration in the resolution of world conflicts.
What can leaders of religion offer their
political representatives as hope in a time of crisis? One delegate can give some insight to ‘The
Delhi Declaration’, who thanked the Dalai Lama for entitling the conference “A
Meeting of Diverse Spiritual Traditions of India” rather than “Religious”
traditions. What is the pertinence of
the distinction in contemporary times between spiritual and religious
traditions?
I recall one of my Tibetan Buddhist teachers,
Traleg Rinpoche giving a lecture in New York, where he addressed the topic,
‘Reading Ancient Scriptures with a Modern Mind’.
Here Traleg Rinpoche expressed the belief that
in modern times readers of ancient texts like the bible, the Buddhist dharma or
other religious texts of law - should relate to the commonality of ascetic
practice. As Traleg Rinpoche alluded to,
the ascetics who wrote our religious doctrine used their common spiritual
experiences as inspiration for their religious oral words that came before the words
of religions were written.
One should take heart in this spiritual commonality,
rather than using religious doctrine as the word that sets religious radicals
against the hand of the National and International laws, which are currently
attempting to maintain peace on our planet.
Also present at last month’s ‘The Delhi
Declaration’ was the head of the Kagyu School, the teaching lineage of Tibetan
Buddhism, the Karmapa who made this relevant comment,
“We have been talking about the difference
between religion and spirituality. I
think all religions began from spirituality, because those who became founders
did not just have philosophical views, but they had experiences: actual, lived
experiences. I think we need to pay more attention to experience.”
As a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner of over
fifteen years, the Karmapa’s prophetic words resonate with the flavor of
Tibetan Buddhist teachings. For those of other faiths who are unfamiliar with
Tibetan Buddhism, I mean to say by this, is that the Karmapa’s comment infers
that in life we must concentrate on our experiences that lead us from political
samsaric life, a life where people of different philosophies have conflicts
which lead to war, into a unified peaceful world like that aimed for by the
contributors in last month’s ‘The Delhi Declaration’.
I recall the picture of Prime Minister Tony
Abbott standing on the tarmac, conveying his best wishes and intentions to our
fighter pilots before they left on a tour of duty. I honour the responsibility that our Prime
Minister and our service people have with the IS epidemic in Iraq and Syria,
and those of our security forces on home shores who must stop those recruited
from our own citizenship to defend IS overseas.
I’m sure our international leaders are like our
Catholic Prime Minister, in a quiet moment, sending prayers of their own faith
for our soldiers to come home and our misguided minority of Islamic citizens
from not entering foreign conflict.
The Dalai Lama made the statement, “Some
historians say that 200 million people were killed in the 20th century as a
result of wars and violence. The 21st century must become the century of
peace.”
Taking this statement as the ethos of ‘The
Delhi Declaration’ to Canberra, where unlike the Indian government the IS
threat isn’t on their own shores, like recruited insurgents are on own shores,
I have hope and sincere belief that, like the Dalai Lama says, this will be our
century of peace.
I recall an anecdote from India with an
Australian story, a train ride through India in the late 1990’s, which became
known as ‘The Peace Train.’ A train ride
of Indian spiritual/religious leaders, in the name of the freedom of practicing
faith, inspired after an Australian missionary husband and wife, were killed by
Hindu extremists because they fed their Christian converts meat, an action considered
against Hindu fundamentalists. I still send
prayers to the family of this couple.
Yet in these times where troubles permeate,
at still the foundation moments of our 21st century, I believe we
must consider the sentiments of ‘The Delhi Declaration’ for the future of our
world, my belief inspired by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, that we are entering
an age, where all world faiths will live in harmony together.
I Imagine on ‘A Canberra Declaration’
where our spiritual leaders and people of all world faiths draw together, in
the name of our free way of life, which our government is doing the best it can
in International diplomatic and military partnership, to defend and protect.
A DISABILITY IS A SPECIAL ABILITY
It takes a lot of understanding for
a person living with a disability, whether it is a mental disability or a physical
disability, to overcome the difficulty and stigma of living with their condition.
A disability restricts a person
from leading a carefree life where one can go where they want, when they
want. And subsequently hinders one’s
ability to orient oneself, to lead an emotionally fulfilling life.
The humdrum of leading a normal
life gets to us all, the drudgery of working nine to five, whether you are a
blue or white collar worker, can wear one’s patience thin, but most of us bare
through the tough times.
To imagine you had a disability,
consider your tough times, were too tough for you to get through. You may lose your job or a loved one may fall
ill, leading you to quit your nine to five job.
After the hardship of a normal life, you pick yourself up off the mat,
and you get a new job or your relative’s health improves, or you may go through
the pain of a loved one’s bereavement.
Without a disability life goes on,
you overcome the hardship of distressing emotions, which make up any of one of
life’s setbacks. One goes through the
pain but through enduring life with the support of family and friends, we pick
ourselves up off the canvas and ‘keep fighting’.
There’s a certain continuum about
life – like in contemporary society which has a spotlight on a celebrity in the
public eye falling from grace through a sexual or criminal misdemeanour, they
go through the burden of falling from grace but life goes on and they are back
up on their pedestal to the respect and ‘adulation’ of the readers’ of
contemporary media.
Taking a title from the ABC program
Australian Story – my Australian Story is a battle with the mental illness
Schizophrenia, a word I steer away from because medically, in psychiatry there
is no definitive cure, the medication I am on is called Clopine, which as my
former psychiatric nurse Andy says is the best drug for people living with my
condition.
My illness, alas is a family condition,
as I shared this debilitating illness with my father Kevin, so I had a
relationship to the disease in my childhood, adolescence and young adult years;
before I suffered from my mental illness in my early thirties.
As a child I remember my Dad coming
home from work, sitting in the lounge room speaking about his fear that one of
his bosses were going to drive down our street and find that he had come home
early or had syphoned petrol from his company car into our mother’s car to save
money as my father and my mother battled to pay off our family house mortgage.
Writing this article today and
sharing some of my ‘family secrets’, the feelings of the despair about the past
and the nervousness of the plans I have for the future as a writer and artist,
make me feel sullen for firstly my deceased parents, then warmness to my
relationship to my sister who is the only nuclear family I have remaining.
The power of expression, whether it
is art, in writing or in music, is a skill that is recognised in today’s mental
health services, by mental health consumer bodies like Neami National. If you are unfamiliar with this organisation
this is a description of Neami National, taken from their website - Neami National is a community-based mental health service supporting people
living with mental illness to improve their health, to live independently and
pursue a life based on their own strengths, values and goals.
As I am now considered ‘recovered’
by my Neami National community health worker, I have exited the Neami service,
despite me believing I have recovered to a point where I am socially functional
and following my dreams in the arts, I still have to continue with psychiatric
care.
While I consider that I no longer
have schizophrenia, I still have to continue seeing my doctor and medical
treatment team, to avoid a relapse. This
is something I try to do willingly because I can remember the times when I had
this illness and was socially inept, like on the occasion when I was incapable
of attending my sister’s 40th birthday.
I remember being disheartened when
my sister returned home from her 40th birthday celebrations and her
telling me so many people were upset because they wanted to talk to me after so
many years. I recall the thoughts in my
head and the feelings in my heart staying with me for days, me with
schizophrenia unable to deal with my disappointment – caught in my own mental
and emotional bubble to which I could not let anyone in.
A mental and emotional bubble for
people with a medtal illness? I believe
this is the state of flux that all people with a mental illness live within –
traversing emotions that sometimes and sometimes not get processed, according
to the severity of their condition.
I recall last year’s local
Doncaster Neami branch Christmas Party, in the tranquil surrounds of one of the
parks in the municipality of Manningham, whose motto is half city half
country. While we all were enjoying
ourselves ‘in half city half country’ with the good company playing games and
celebrating the festive season, I looked at the Neami clientele and realised I
no longer fitted in, as I could see for most of the people in attendance, they
were in their personal life’s, still caught in the mental and emotional bubble,
like the one I know so well.
I also recall the conversation I
had with the Neami Branch Manager. I
said my mental health is so much better now that I had my first paid occupation
in ten years, to which he refrained,
“We are all social creatures.”
I now consider we, social creatures
hopefully on an unbroken mental and emotional lifestyle, not an emotionally
divorced mental rollercoaster.
Having let the light in on my
understanding of mental illness, what is my understanding of the mental and
emotional bubble for people living with a physical disability? I’ll share an example of a birthday party I
attended for a man with cerebral palsy who was confined to a wheel chair.
Another man in a wheel chair with
the same condition was waiting to give his present to the birthday boy, so
feeling I could help what I thought were his nerves in approaching the birthday
boy, I introduced myself and said come on I’ll take you up to him, to which he
explained, no he is feeding I must wait.
Through this interaction I knew instantaneously that this man knew his
condition better than I did – he enlightened me to his condition and I thus
felt emotionally caring.
This man knew his disability better
than I, he had a certain specialness about his disability, a specialness that
made me realise despite his physical difficulty, he was more emotionally aware
of his condition than I realised, he had a special ability, that overcame in
his character his physical disability.
In my opinion stigma still defines
‘a special ability as a special disability’, like that stigma portrayed by
young American songstress Mile Cyrus.
Forget the tweaking of Miley, Miley made derogatory public comments
about one of her idols, the Irish artist Sinead O’Connor’s battle with
depression, to which the Irish singer defended with hostility.
Like the racism retort of the young
Collingwood supporter against the Australian of the Year Adam Goodes, where
Adam said it was not the young Collingwood supporter’s fault. The Miley-Sinead incident, highlights what is
special about ‘a disability’ that I now call a ‘special ability’, a mental and emotional
recognition and response to one’s life long personal condition.
PROCTECTION OR DEFENCE OF OUR NATION
With our troops being sent to the Middle
East to quell the ISIL threat, I think it appropriate to question the future of
our participation in conflict in foreign lands.
I recall Barack Obama’s campaign before he
became the United States President in 2008, saying quite clearly that he didn’t
support the previous US administration’s entry into and participation in the
Iraq War.
Yet now we find our own government, the
United States and other governments, again participating in a fresh conflict in
the Middle East. I don’t see this as a
contradiction on behalf of ours and other administrations like that of Barack
Obama’s United States Administration, for the simple fact that while this
Middle East conflict brews, the war is also on our and other western countries
shores.
I see our participation as a defensive
measure to not only liberate the people of our of allies’ nations, but also as
a necessary defensive measure to quell the possibility of ISIL supporters travelling to ‘their
homelands to take up arms or of perpetrating a terrorist strike on our own or
other allies’ home shores.
So while our defence forces are protecting
our allies and our own nationhood, what can we make of Prime Minister Abbott’s
message to the Australian people? While
as I have said I agree with Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s deployment of our
troops, I do have a difference of opinion regarding his philosophy of our
participation in this and any possible future oversea’s conflict.
So what is the philosophic difference
between the defence and protection of the Australian nation and people? I firstly recall Prime Minister Keating’s
statement, that as our leader he would not go to Gallipoli for Anzac Day, as he
did not agree with celebrating this conflict as Australian troops were, in his
opinion sacrificed by our British allies in defence of a cause which was more theirs
and not ours.
So I interpret Paul Keating’s stance as
going some way to explaining my premise for the future of no war on our
planet. Prime Minister Keating interpreted
the Gallipoli conflict on which many build our nationhood, as Australian
soldier’s participating on behalf of ideals to a ‘homeland’ of the British
Empire, that were now largely antiquated in our quest as a nation to define our
own unique identity.
So why do so many politicians, and leaders
in our population, still use our participation in war as a means to define our
nation Australia? While men served, as
do women now serve in support of our troops, to me the building of our national
identity by leaders like Prime Minister Tony Abbott, on our participation in
conflicts, has a level of contradiction to my ‘intellectual terms’.
As a ‘conflict realist’ – someone who supports
and understands our necessary involvement in world conflicts - for the reasons
I have explained. But as an ‘idealist
pacifist’ - someone who does not believe ideally in war, I do not believe in
continuingly defining our nationhood on current and future conflicts in which
we do participate.
I believe in the past it has been human
nature to not glorify war, but rather honour the service of our service people,
their sacrifice and pain, and that sacrifice and pain which we shared with them
as a nation of people.
Recalling the reaction to returning
Vietnam veteran’s, where they were unfairly spurned by a people which was
against our involvement in this conflict.
Forty years later, as a ‘conflict realist’ I support that we treat our
returning service people with their rightful honour. Yet as an ‘idealist pacifist’ I wonder to the
depths of my soul, that I would like our leaders like Prime Minister Abbott to
no longer build our nationhood ‘on the back’ of our participation as a
‘warmongers’ against an enemy.
Taking the ‘power to the public’ of the
Vietnam War protests – I believe as the His Holiness the Dalai Lama recently stated
– the 20th century was a time of war and the 21st century
must become a time of peace. So where
has the strident protest of the 1960 and 1970’s populous against war gone?
To me I find Prime Minister Abbott’s address
to the people who elected him as though we must support our contemporary
soldiers in contemporary conflicts like we did in the conflicts of history
which, which our Prime Minister still defines our nationhood by.
To my ears this is morally respectful but
yet philosophically naïve, because by not having a stance which does not want
to repeat the ‘mistakes of history’, he continues the cycle of war and
conflict, our nation will, by his conservative ethos find ourselves contributing
to in the future.
To me, under Prime Minister Abbott, our
current administration is defending our nationhood against ISIL, but not fully
protecting our nationhood, because by participating in contemporary conflicts
in the name of the spirit of our past military involvements, we are continuing
an ethos where we define our national identity by participation in wars.
So I must ask Prime Minister Abbott - what
are we going to learn from our current conflict in the Middle East, which can
help us protect the nation that we are, but learn to protect our values by in
the coming decades absolving ourselves from participation in wars, so we can
define a broader national identity, not from who we go to war with, but what
unique Australian characteristics are we protecting in conflicts we enter, so
in hopefully future times of peace we can understand, live by and inturn
celebrate the values which make us uniquely Australian on our home shores and
in the world community?
OUR MOTHER'S DEVOTION
With
the flow of adolescent emotion
I
discover life’s motive, emotional motion
so I
let go of my mother’s hand
no
longer her hand in my hand
Am I
an adolescent free of my mother’s devotion?
Through
thick and thin
forgiving
me of my sin
I
pray for my mother’s lost devotion.
Now
through the sun and the rain
four
seasons in an adult’s day
I
live for my recollection of my mother’s devotion.
Where
to go, where to stay?
Free
from her bosom since yesterday
I
reach out for my mother’s lifelong devotion.
With
family values and fair play
as
clear as a spiritual apparition only seen today
I see
her face, in your face
both
our mother’s lifelong devotions?
With
fatherly advice and a motherly ear
at
the wheel, life is no longer hard to steer
tuned
to both our mother’s soulful devotion
a
musical arrangement will become
our
family’s emotive motion.
So
our life is a rollercoaster ride
Look
mum! No hands at a height
Then
around a bend hands held tight,
Exhilaration
and fear show me,
that
a new beginning is near.
The
new beginning with heaven at our station
our’s
is the right price
so
I’ve given up the might of the fight
to
the soulful continuation
of
our mother’s devotees
and
our mother’s devotions.
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