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Author seeks Buddha within
Wednesday, May 03, 2000 By Bill Steigerwald, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
There's nothing stereotypical about Lama Surya Das. The 49-year-old Buddhist teacher grew up on Long Island, Valley Stream Central high school class of '68. He drives a Jeep Cherokee. He has an "Ask the Lama" column on his Web site (www.surya.org). He has a PR person, a business manager and a best-selling book, "Awakening the Buddha Within." And he even has a girlfriend who lives in the 781 area code of Boston.
But Surya Das, a k a "servant of the sun," is no Hollywood movie fabrication. The middle-class Jewish kid formerly known as Jeffrey Miller not only knows the Dalai Lama, he is one of the most deeply schooled American-born teachers of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. After college, and after participating in anti-war protests, he wandered through Europe and the Middle East before landing in India, where he says he found what he was looking for: Tibetan-brand Buddhism.
For two decades beginning in the early 1970s, he studied with the old masters in the timeless monasteries of India and later at a French lamasery. In the early 1990s, he was sent back to America to be a teacher -- a lama -- of a kind of Buddhism that adapts itself to the infamously material world of Western civilization
In conjunction with Pittsburgh Friends of Tibet, the Buddhist Society of Pittsburgh and Three Rivers Dharma, Surya Das will visit Pittsburgh this weekend. On Friday night at the Mellon Institute in Oakland, he will give a 7:30 lecture titled "The Healing Spirit of Buddhism." He will also conduct day-long workshops there on Saturday and Sunday. Call 412-241-5806 or 412-641-1495 for ticket information.
Q: You meet someone on a bus and you tell them you're a Buddhist and they say, "What is Buddhism -- what's it all about?"
A: Well, almost nobody says that anymore. Buddhism is kind of a fad. Everybody thinks they know what Buddhism is. They usually ask how did I get into it. Or more importantly, what does my mother think, ha ha ha.
Q: What are the basic principles?
A: The basic principles of Buddhism are that anyone can become enlightened and become as wise and loving and unselfish and peaceful as the Buddha, or as a saint or sage. The way to do that is to practice walking the path of wisdom, compassion and nonviolence and service.
And that Buddhism is not necessarily a religion but it's a way of life, and you don't have to convert to become enlightened by walking that kind of path.
Q: Do Buddhists believe in sin?
A: Sin is kind of a Judeo-Christian term. Buddhists believe more in good or bad karma -- what goes around comes around. So, there are positive actions and words and thoughts and negative ones, which is what you might call sins. We would call them unskillful or unwholesome actions, words or thoughts. But it's not exactly sin. We don't believe in hell. We believe that you get the results of your own actions.
Q: Is all life sacred to Buddhists?
A: Yes. All forms of life are sacred. That's why non-violence, love and compassion are among its most fundamental original tenets.
Q: What is the worst thing a good Buddhist can do?
A: Um ... kill, I suppose. But more generally, it is to not harm others. The precept of Buddhism is to help, not harm.
Q: Are there practical uses of Buddhism?
A: Yes, Buddhism has a lot of practical uses. That's why it's so influential today. It's had a lot of influence in the fields, like, of healing, of therapy and psychology, of medicine and the mind-body healing sciences, in the fields of death and dying, hospice work, in all kinds of fields: relaxation and stress management.
Buddhism in the arts has been very popular. The Zen Buddhist aesthetic has affected arts and architecture in gardens. Haiku poetry has had a large effect on modern poetry since the time of Ezra Pound. Buddhism is used in sports. Ultra-successful sports performance coaches like Phil Jackson use the principles of Buddhism to train their teams.
Meditation helps your focus and to be more unselfish and more cooperative and more focused and more concentrated and more 100-percent centered.
Q: Isn't it tough to be a good or devout Buddhist in America, where consumerism and materialism are gods?
A: There are many gods in America. Pleasure is also a god. Health is a god. Youth is an American god. People are basically the same everywhere -- the nature of our body and our mind and our families and so on. Yes, it's challenging to be a Buddhist in America, but it's also a unique opportunity.
Buddhism is really flexible and adaptable and always has been. So, in a way, it's easy to be a Buddhist in America. I think it's harder to be, say, a devoutcommunist or a devout orthodox Jew or Muslim in America. There are millions of American and Asian Buddhists in America who live a Buddhist path of enlightenment without changing everything about their American ways.
Q: You say Buddhism is a fad, but is it really growing in America?
A: Yes, it's definitely growing. It's a trend that's really popular. Even more than Buddhism, without the -ism, meditation and yoga are growing a great deal in America. There are tens of millions of people doing that.
The New York Times says there are 5 or 6 million Buddhists in America. I would speculate that there are 25 to 30 million people doing meditation and yoga today. Also, there are millions of people practicing vegetarianism because of this kind of Buddhist influence and the influence of Eastern thought in general.
Q: What would America be like if we were all good Buddhists?
A: I think it'd be the same as if we were all good Christians. It would be a better country. I don't know more than that. It'd be a more spiritual or more peaceful country.
Q: In some ways, Buddhism is well-suited for America. America is very individualistic.
A: Yes, good point. I've said this myself. Buddhism is very unselfish and service-oriented -- thinking of helping others rather than selfish development, egotism, materialism and so on. Buddhism is very well-suited to Americans, because, as you say, it's very individualistic. It's up to each person walking the path themselves, not being saved by somebody else.
It's very adaptable. It's very gender-unbiased, less patriarchal. It's very exploratory, innovative, which is very American, less preservative. In other words, it's not so historical. It's not always looking back to somebody in the past to save us or to keep the rules exactly as they were.
On the other hand, Buddhism is not a missionary-izing religion. The Dalai Lama exhorts us Buddhist teachers to contribute to others, not convert others. That's an important standard of Buddhism: We only teach when asked and go wherever we're asked.
Q: If a Buddhist ran for president, would it make any difference?
A: He would lose, heh, heh, heh. But maybe that's good for Buddhists, ha ha ha! He probably wouldn't raise too much money, ha ha ha!
Q: If everyone in America had been Buddhists starting out, would we all still be sitting around -- using the horrible stereotype of what goes on in India -- in a backward country where...
A: India is not a Buddhist country. It's a Hindu country with a caste system. It's very backward. Look at Japan, that's a Buddhist country. Or Thailand or Vietnam, even, which has developed since we were there.
People think of Buddhism as being quietistic or meditation-loving and not progress-loving, and that's partly true. But I think East and West have something to offer each other. Buddhists in the modern worlds have learned a lot from Christians and Jews in terms of education and service to the poor, and so on.
Christians and Jews are learning a lot now from Buddhists without converting, but by bringing it into their own religions and deepening their own spiritual quests by learning about meditation and yoga and martial arts and Zen gardening and vegetarianism and acupuncture and these kinds of inner-Buddhism sciences. I think this is a good cross-fertilization. I don't think it's desirable for any country or world to have all one religion. There are different courses for different horses, because people have different ways of doing things.
Q: So competition in religion works just as well as it works elsewhere?
A: Yes. I wouldn't want to be quoted about the virtue of competition. But, yes, a nice choice of full options works well anywhere. It's like different cuisine. They all have the same purpose -- to feed us and nourish us, but people have different inclinations and styles.
Q: Of your several books, which one should people start with?
A: "Awakening the Buddha Within" is my popular best seller. It's sold about 150,000 copies so far. And my most recent book, " Awakening to the Sacred," is popular. And I have a new book coming out next year, "Awakening the Buddhist Heart."
Q: If someone unfamiliar with Buddhism wanted to come to check you out, which time would be the most accessible?
A: They should come Friday night to the lecture, rather than to the workshops. I always encourage people to come first and hear what I have to say. There'll be questions and answers at the end and they can come up afterwards and shake hands or get their books signed.
It's very informal and very American-style, there's no big, um ....
Q: You're not going to be carried around in a sedan chair?
A: Unfortunately not, ha ha. I have to walk around myself in America. It's one of those things I had to renounce, ha ha ha!
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