Working with youth, I notice with sadness how often tension and misunderstanding arise between the generations. The so-called generation gap often seems to be a chasm. I find little respect among my peers for the generations that have come before us. Perhaps it's because previous generations have made such a mess of things. But I think it's also because we tend to model how we've been treated. Young people who have been treated with little respect by adults will rarely feel much respect for them. Most young people frequently experience adults who dismiss their thoughts and feelings on account of their young age.
In light of this, I was intrigued when I heard that the Dalai Lama was coming to San Francisco in June of 1997 for a conference that would include people of all ages, from many cultural backgrounds, for a common exploration of peacemaking. The conference, titled "Peacemaking," was to include speakers who were working for peace and social justice all around the world, including the jungles of Guatemala, the forced labor camps of China, and the American inner city. I was particularly fascinated to learn that the Dalai Lama had specifically requested a meeting with the youth participants of the conference, a meeting that would not include any participants over the age of twenty-four. When asked why he wanted to have this meeting, the Dalai Lama had replied: "Youth are the future. All ages are important, but it's young people who have to carry the burden if the world's turned over in a bad state." Somehow it seemed appropriate that the Dalai Lama, one of the great elders of our times, would respect young people enough to have a special meeting with us. I knew I had to be there.
The atmosphere was intense and charged with excitement as five hundred young people poured into the room. They represented every major race and religion in the world. Young people from Hawaii to Harlem, from communes, gangs, high schools, and home-schools; punks, skaters, social activists, environmental leaders, farm workers, students, and school dropouts. To my left sat an African-American teen with long dreadlocks, perhaps eighteen years old. He came from Compton, where he was part of a school club that combats racism. His T-shirt said: "Fight the Machine." Why did he come to the conference? "Because I'm sick of the way things are going, and I wanted to learn how to do something positive."
To my right sat a seventeen-year-old Caucasian girl with light brown hair. She was preparing to study journalism in college and hoped to gain ideas that would stimulate and inspire her. In that one room sat young people from inner city gardens, suburban recycling programs, gang prevention projects, groups that teach conflict resolution skills, and organizations working for the homeless, for prison inmates, for social justice, and for the environment. The feeling was electric. As I looked around, I wondered: Would these young people, from so many different backgrounds, be able to find common ground? A noisy, expectant chatter filled the room. And then a clapping started, and spread, as one by one we rose to our feet to greet the Dalai Lama, who was just entering the room. Though our backgrounds varied greatly, we would all soon be united in our respect for a great peacemaker.
In his maroon and yellow robe, the Dalai Lama looked anything but intimidating. Yet though he spoke gently, his words and sweet amiability carried with them a sense of a deep humanity, and of a peace unruffled by the violence and genocide his people have endured.
It was announced that anyone who wished to ask a question could come over to the microphone, and within seconds there were twelve people waiting in line. The first person in line was a young woman who started shaking when she began to speak. Finally she managed to say how moved she was to see the Dalai Lama, and that he was her greatest hero. Then she asked: "Is it possible to be in a state of oneness and peace all the time?" The Dalai Lama smiled, and then burst out laughing, as he answered: "I don't know myself! But you must never stop trying." A bright smile danced across his face, and she returned to her seat glowing with excitement to have spoken to her hero.
One young man from a gang coalition in Mexico spoke through an interpreter: "Many of us in gangs are tired of waiting. We've come together to denounce violence. We don't want to be the bad guys anymore. But still we face much racism and struggle. What do you think of urban Mexican guys like us?" Loud clapping filled the room, and someone else spoke before the Dalai Lama could answer. But a short time later, perhaps in response, the Dalai Lama spoke of racism and said in his uniquely simple way: "We all have two eyes, one nose, one mouth. Internal organs also the same! We are people." Then he broke into a peal of laughter, as if he found the whole notion of racial prejudice rather absurd. Later, he again touched on the subject: "If you have only one type of flower, over a big field, then it looks like a farm. But many different types of flowers looks like a beautiful garden. For a beautiful garden, we must take care of each plant. I think the many different cultures and religions of our world are like this garden."
Knowing a bit about the plight of the Tibetan people, I would have understood if the Dalai Lama was bitter. After all, he was forced to flee his country under the onslaught of the Chinese invasion in 1959. Since then, he has seen hundreds of thousands of his people tortured and murdered by the Chinese government. He has helplessly endured the wholesale clear-cutting of Tibetan forests and the dumping of countless tons of hazardous and nuclear wastes on Tibet's fragile and pristine ecosystems. And he has been in exile, unable to return to the land over which he still presides. Yet a remarkable peace emanates from this man. A man who, remarkably, does not hate the Chinese. A man who clearly feels great compassion for them.
What, I wondered, gives him such tranquility in the face of the horrors he's seen? How does he persevere as the revolutionary leader of a conquered land he cannot even visit while holding an inner peace at the core of his being? Then I realized with a flash of excitement that the Dalai Lama was able to persevere in the face of so much suffering precisely because he had a deeper spiritual base upon which to depend. If he thought the only thing that mattered was Tibetan politics, he would have long since been lost in despair. But he has learned to take root not in external results but in a peace that comes from within.
One of the people at the Peacemaking conference was Thrinlay Chodon, a thirty-year-old Tibetan woman who was born and grew up in northern India after her parents fled Tibet. They both died while she was young, and Thrinlay's life has been that of a refugee, living in tremendous poverty. I asked her how she kept from hating the Chinese. "The Dalai Lama reminds us that the Chinese have created much bad karma for themselves, and the last thing they need is our hateful thoughts. If we hate them, we will have lost. Love will have lost to hate. So we must keep them in our hearts if we are to persevere in the struggle."
Political and social activism, I realized, are not separate from spiritual work. They need each other. We cannot expect to get anywhere preaching a doctrine of peace while hating the warmongers.
We will never free Tibet while hating the Chinese. Because freeing Tibet and bringing peace to our cities and our world are not just about politics, but about values.
I'm only twenty-five, but I've had the opportunity to be around many people who have given themselves to the goal of fostering positive change. Yet the forces of destruction are so great that they can sometimes feel overwhelming. How are we not to get lost in the despair and pain? The Dalai Lama, and the whole movement for the freedom of Tibet, teach me something profound. For in them I can see that, in the final analysis, what matters most isn't that our efforts meet with success, it's that we give all we have to the causes we hold dear, trusting that in the greater panorama that lies beyond our perception, there is a profound meaning to all the love we share. I believe the struggle for the liberation of the human spirit is taking place on many levels, including some we cannot always see or hear. If we are to persevere in our work in the world, we cannot depend only on external results. We need a spiritual foundation from which to gain perspective, act, and draw nourishment. If we want to bring peace to the world, we must also strive to have inner peace. As the Dalai Lama said at the Peacemaking conference: "The same is true in reverse. Peace in the community helps make peace in the individual. Peace anywhere helps make peace everywhere. That's why we need more peace."
Some young people at the conference found talk of peace hard to swallow. Many of them came from inner cities, where drugs and drive-by shootings are prevalent and homelessness common. "I don't want peace," said Philip, a teen from San Francisco, "I want change. Fast. I'm mad, and I'm not going to just sit back and pretend everything's nice in the world." I have heard these kinds of sentiments again and again. Many young people are angry about what's going on around them. Bottle that anger up and it will become destructive. Give young people a meaningful outlet for our energies, and we can accomplish extraordinary things.
"Peace" sounds passive to some youth, like a cop-out in a world desperately in need of action. Yet during the Peacemaking conference, lifelong activists in the fields of human rights, social change, ecology, and racial healing sounded a different chord. Harry Wu, an exiled Chinese dissident who has spent much of his life in China's forced labor camps (which he compares to German concentration camps) told the conference: Peace is not the denial of injustice, nor is it merely the absence of violence. In a world torn apart by war and separation, peace is revolutionary. In a world where abuse of people and the Earth is normal, working for peace means directly challenging the status quo.
Sometimes, as many of the conference presenters could attest to from personal experience, working for peace means placing ourselves at great personal risk. But to do anything else is to risk our souls and our world. No real peace will ever last without economic and social justice. Harry Wu ended one of his speeches with a profound message: "The power of nonviolence is to tell the truth to all the people. The power of nonviolence is to never give up the ideal of justice."
Toward the end of the conference, a large group of young people noticed the irony of noble peace talk inside the convention center while dozens of homeless people sat hungry on the street outside. They made up several hundred sandwiches, then went out and gave them, free of charge, to all who wished to partake.
Ocean Robbins is founder and president of Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!) in Santa Cruz, California, as well as author (with Sol Solomon) of Choices for Our Future. YES! sponsors assemblies, programs, and summer camps to educate, inspire, and empower youth worldwide.
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