The Dalai Lama Tweets. How Cool is That?

Have you heard of Twitter?  No?  Well, I've got to tell you that it is actually a profound tool for spiritual practice.  Don't believe me?  Well, did you know the the Dalai Lama tweets?  That's right.  He tweets as @DalaiLama and I love that pretty much every day he tweets a nugget of consciousness.

Today I got a tweet from the His Holiness the Dalai Lama that read as follows:

"I am convinced that everyone can develop a good heart and a sense of universal responsibility with or without religion."

Given the consciousness of this living avatar I'm never surprised by the awareness that he brings to his tweets.  But his tweet today really jumped out at me.  As I got to the word 'religion' a word jumped into my mind - Attachment.  And then, as is often the case in such moments, I shifted into contemplation mode.  The conversation in my head went thus:

"Oh that's interesting, I wonder why the word 'attachment' surfaced in that moment?"


"Well, it surfaced when I got to the word 'religion'"


"Ooooo...interesting. Perhaps these words are associating themselves because the DL is trying to say that the outcomes associated with religion (acting with a good heart and maintaining a constant state of universal responsibility) don't require religion? It feels like an inner message is that religion is just a path, a vehicle, that helps us to develop and refine such a state?"

And then I paused.  At that point the conversation shifted to the level of feelings and words that would be harder to capture in writing.  But in short, the point that I wanted to make with this blog, and that was inspired by HHDL, is that religion is as slippery slope as anything else that can lead us to attachment.  What do I mean by that? 

Anything, any practice, or any belief system that we have that distracts us from allowing the Divine to shine through us warrants mindfulness.  And as I started to think about this I was inspired to look at the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti:

"Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples."

"All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man."

"I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect."

Granted, Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama are examples of individuals who made the decision very early on to awaken.  And I acknowledge that when Krishnamurti talks about a 'pathless land' he is speaking about an ideal.  For many of us religion is a wonderful path that can allow, supports, and empower us to expand the knowing of success, abundance and love in our lives every day.  But the message within these words, inspired by Twitter, is that if religion becomes a path that you insist is the only way then you have become attached.  And in attachment you cannot find liberation. 

The Dalai Lama's genius in this morning's Tweet was many-fold.  However, a couple of things are clear to me.  I agree that the path to Truth is littered with good hearts and universal responsibility.  Our conceptual thoughts about our religion are only worthy if such thoughts are allowed to empower acceptance and loving debate.  And the path we each take is a moving, fluid set of experiences all designed to stimulate us into remembering why we are here.  If we find ourselves frozen upon the glacier of dogma and theology the attachment is as self-defeating as harming another.

The Dalai Lama Tweets!  I hope that in reading this blog you now have an appreciation of how a technology such as Twitter can be a tool to support spiritual practice.  His tweet inspired me to write this blog, and given that you've gotten to this point in my post, his tweet has also inspired you in spiritual contemplation.  How cool is that?