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Inner and Outer Peace

A Panel Moderated by Gerd Scobel and Including H.H Dalai Lama, Fr. Anselm Grün and Bernie Glassman

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The panel was called "Inner and Outer Peace," and included Gerd Scobel as moderator, a German television personality who hosts an intellectual show with interviews; Fr. Anselm Grün, a Benedictine monk who counsels business leaders to engage in socially responsible practices and has written over 300 books; His Holiness, the XIV Dalai Lama and Bernie Glassman.

The dialogue was convivial and began with a discussion on the linguistic roots of the word, "peace." Bernie pointed out that the root of the Hebrew word, "Shalom," "Shalem," meant "to make whole, to make one." Bernie stated that in the dialogue he wanted to focus on achieving inner peace by doing outer peace, socially engaged Buddhism as a way of practice. Then he ended with the question, "How do you make social engagement spiritual practice."

Fr. Anselm discussed the Sermon on the Mount as an externalized expression of prayer, showing Jesus' concern with the world, not just his private relationship with God. He then raised the Benedictine axiom, ora et labora, pray and work. Fr. Anselm said that if prayer only goes to the self, then it is narcissistic.

Gerd asked how can we open people to the larger social dimension? How is it possible to create social peace with someone who wants to kill me, for example?

Bernie first returned to Fr. Anselm's comment that prayer solely for the self is narcissistic, quoting Kobo Daishi: "The way you can measure the depth of a person's enlightenment is how they serve others." Bernie discussed how ones concept of self influences how one acts. If we consider our own body as the self, we act in very self protective and self-aggrandizing ways. Then he pointed to His Holiness as someone who sees self as the universe and acts with concern for all.

Bernie then addressed Gerd's question, how to engage with situations of conflict, hatred and war. Bernie brought up the axiom of the Zen Peacemakers, The Three Tenets: Not Knowing, Bearing Witness and Doing Loving Actions. He explained these principles as being open, absorbing all perspectives of the situation, then doing something that arises from the first two perspectives. He illustrated using The Three Tenets in his work in the Middle East. Bernie entered the work dropping his attachments to his preconceptions, and met with as many participants from all sides as would meet with him - Jewish Settlers, peace activists, politicians, business people, artists and media leaders from Palestine, Israel and Jordan. Only then did he begin to design reconciliation programs.

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The Dalai Lama turned the conversation on "how can we open people to the larger social dimension" to common values among religious traditions, such as love, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance and contentment. In his opinion, faith in a religious tradition can be a path to awakening to a larger sense of self. The Dalai Lama also stressed the importance of distinguishing actor from action, practicing tolerance toward the actor while addressing the action appropriately.

Fr. Anselm mentioned that when he does spiritual counseling, he finds that people project their own personality distortions on to their picture of God. He promoted the importance of not having a picture of God, aligning with Bernie's emphasis on Not Knowing.

Bernie discussed Bearing Witness Retreats as a way of awakening compassion and a larger sense of self. In discussing Auschwitz specifically, Bernie described the "Final Solution" as the Nazis' attempt to eliminate diversity in a distorted fantasy of perfection.

Gerd stated that although people loved the idea of socially engaged Buddhism, they resist doing it, fearing becoming overwhelmed by the demands of a world of need. He then said, "How much can I do? I don't have 1,000 arms like Avalokiteshvara."

Bernie responded, pointing to the audience, "You do have 1,000 arms. We have maybe 8,000 people here, so we have 16,000 arms. Then there's the TV audience witnessing this, maybe another million arms. And then there's those hearing about this, so I think you have some arms."

Bernie spoke a little about phases of practice and types of practice, meditation, cleaning, farming, chanting. There are forms of inner practice and outer practice, but in matured practice the inner and outer work are realized as the same.

Fr. Anselm interpreted Jesus' quotation, "Blessed are the peacemakers," as pointing to the unity of inner and outer spiritual practice. He said we maintain the same posture in work and prayer. He described this "posture" as total devotion, attention, clarity, inner peace and patience. If someone is working from small self, their efforts create an aggressive environment. Dwelling in selflessness transforms work into an harmonious experience of functioning in deep unity. Christians call this "dwelling in the Holy Ghost."

Then Bernie said, "I don't understand, what is work?" When I was a child, men went out to paying jobs and women cooked, cleaned and raised children. What men did was called, "work;" what women did wasn't. Isn't what the Dalai Lama does, "work"? We seem to be arbitrary in what we call work.

The Dalai Lama asked, "How do we teach important values that have come through religious traditions to those uninterested in religious traditions?" Do we need to move beyond religions? He stated emphatically that Buddhism needs to be more socially engaged.

All participants agreed that this was the beginning of a long discussion and agreed to continue their discussions and efforts in the future.