In Dalai Lama Renaissance, a synthesis group of world leaders meet with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to solve world problems like poverty and resource depletion. Khashyar Darvich directs.
The film is available at their website.
The mission
Some 40 leaders and activists travel to the Dalai Lama’s home in northern India for five days. They aim to transform their separate ideas into “a new and higher level of truth.”
New thought leaders
Participants represent “a tremendous synthesis of music, art, media, all the fields of knowledge, of spirituality,” says the late Brother Wayne Teasdale, a friend of the Dalai Lama who suggested the event.
A who’s who of spiritual superstars appear: quantum physicists Fred Alan Wolf and Amit Goswami (What the Bleep Do We Know); Dr. Michael Beckwith (The Secret); national radio host Thom Hartmann; conscious evolution author Barbara Marx Hubbard; revolutionary social scientist Jean Houston; and author and environmental activist Vandana Shiva (The Corporation).
Egos clash
A few champion their own ideas. The same happens in small groups. Unrest and division arise. It’s tempting not to take sides.
As the conference closes, tempers flare. They still have not achieved a synthesis of ideas, a grand plan to save the Earth.
Turning point
The Buddha of Compassion, as the Dalai Lama is called, leads the group in a one-minute meditation. Each one experiences being compassion.
The entire group changes. People cry, laugh and hug. They line up to give the Dalai Lama a personal gift and receive his blessing. Genuine personal transformation is captured on film.
What really happened
“What [the Dalai Lama] was really concerned about was, did people open their hearts?” says organizer Brian Muldoon. “That was his entire measure of success.”
His Holiness giggles and tells simple stories. “What people really want is to be happy,” he says. “Compassion will bring you happiness.” With a story about mosquitoes, His Holiness eases tensions. His childlike innocence touches many.
Compassion unfolding
Teasdale realizes that the group didn’t have to develop a single, grand plan. “That’s a task that we’re always working towards.”
As participants return to their countries and their work, he believes, Spirit “will start breaking down barriers between and among nations and cultures” as it impacts the “have/have not dichotomy.”
What can you do now?
“When you call upon that energy, that spiritual wisdom, that consciousness, it’s always available to us. It will come,” Teasdale notes. Spirit “will give you the insights and the vision.”
“Most extraordinary” experience
Meeting the Dalai Lama was “one of the most extraordinary experiences I have ever had,” says Muldoon. “He walks in this bubble of grace.… He sees you completely without any judgment.”
Renaissance: a new birth
Darvich distilled 140 hours of film into this 80 minute documentary with 105 minutes of special features. Harrison Ford’s narration and original music by Michael Tyabji, Henry Reid and others soothes anger and dissolution.
Teasdale maintains that spirituality is “who we are.” “We are not compassionate,” he says. “Human beings are compassion, they are love, they are mercy, they are kindness.” (5 out of 5 stars)
If you like Dalai Lama: Renaissance, you might also enjoy: Thrive; 2012: Time for Change; 2012: The Odyssey.
Dalai Lama Renaissance 2007 / NR / 1 hour, 20 min
Cast Overview: The Dalai Lama, Harrison Ford, Amit Goswami, Vicki Robin, Fred Alan Wolf, Michael Beckwith, Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Vandana Shiva
Director: Kashyar Darvich
Genre: Documentary, Spirituality, New Thought
