Encountering A Buddhist Master
Hualian, Taiwan
May 4, 2008
What do you say to a wildly popular female Buddhist monk who welcomes you into her serene grounds, engages you in a conversation about journalism ethics, extols the virtues of recycling, and wraps it up with a blessing for peace and a gift of coins (reminding me of how the late Chabad rebbe gave a $1 bill to visitors so they would go do good deeds)?
“Shalom v’todah” (peace and thank you) instantly crossed my lips as I mutually bowed in the respectful eastern way in front of Master Cheng Yen, founder of the Tzu Chi movement (http://www.tzuchi.org/). She is the so-called “Mother Theresa of the East” and we were finishing a visit to her home in Hualien, Taiwan a few days ago.
Master Cheng spoke with us – a handful of journalists brought to the country by its Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov.tw/en/) to check out the challenging environmental situation on that side of the world (more to come in print and on-line) – in what I was told was a rare meeting with such a group of outsiders.
This diminutive 61-year-old woman, in whose presence one sensed tremendous strength of purpose, long ago abandoned a life of family wealth. Since then, she has humbly transformed her own teachings of “earthly Buddhism” – which we might translate into “tikkun olam,” or repairing the world—into an international movement. She and her cadre of activists around the globe have inspired 10 million volunteers.
This Buddhist master is a true environmentalist; she does not even allow the burning of incense as it pollutes the air. She speaks directly but with neither political correctness nor grandiose statements.
“The mission of religions is like social therapy. All different beliefs convey this type of mission of conveying people’s sense,” she said in response to my question about her blossoming relationship with some Israelis enamored by her work, which has resulted in the planting of trees in her honor in Israel and her unexpectedly asking followers to “pray for Jerusalem’s peace.”
So that got me thinking about universalism and how some young Jews are attracted to Buddhism and other eastern religions. In part, I believe, that’s because such approaches to life are simple and don’t demand large sums of money or allegiance on political issues to become a leader. Rather, they are about personal, internal loyalties and values.
That’s something we Jews need to focus more on. After all, it’s not alien to the Jewish culture. Balancing that and our real demands for funding what we do while maintaining important social, cultural and political structure – operations that by definition can quickly become bureaucratic and anti-personal – is a great challenge.
How do we get better at all that?
Last week in the Far East, I began thinking about some answers – that start with qualified and quality leadership, which, sadly, is often an unwestern virtue.
Posted by on 05/05/08 at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
Subscribe to this blog