World Party: The Dalai Lama and DogCanyon in Washington, D.C.

By
Glenn W. Smith
– October 7, 2009Posted in: Culture, Music, Politics, Religion

earth 300x300 World Party: The Dalai Lama and DogCanyon in Washington, D.C.A few years ago I got to meet the Dalai Lama. My friend Jim Forbes, the extraordinary former senior pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, hosted a small event on political engagement with the world. As the Dalai Lama entered the church, he paused, turned and bowed to me, Margie, and daughter Katie. Smiling, we put our palms together in front of our eyes and bowed back. He smiled back at us like old friends, of which he has approximately 6.7 billion.

This week, DogCanyon heads for Washington, D.C., to attend a conference on education and world citizenship sponsored by the Dalai Lama’s Mind & Life Institute. The economy is forcing us all to focus on the near. Where’s the gain in thinking about the whole world, you ask? Unless we do, we might just lose the near that’s so dear to us.

Turk Pipkin, a DogCanyon regular who travels the world talking to Nobel laureates and bringing water, education and caring attention to the world’s less fortunate, wrote:

In five years of talking global problems and solutions with Nobel laureates, one of their most common sentiments has been the need for improving schools and expanding education in every corner of world. What would you predict the results of a world that spends a hundred times as much on weapons and war as it does on education?

What happens in Dime Box influences what happens in Darfur and Dubai. What happens in Darfur and Dubai affects us here. We ignore the inter-relatedness of world citizens at our peril.

I’ve sometimes described myself as a Southern Buddhist, which is something different from that other Southern B. For many years I’ve tried to study the history of Buddhism and other world religions. I have to admit, Western misunderstandings of the Buddha’s secular teachings at first threatened what I thought of in college as my precious individuality. Later in life, I asked a Tibetan lama how to reconcile the dilemma of self and other. He answered, “Take care of yourself, and take care of others.” Not very complicated.

By now you’ve probably read where I describe that philosophy as prairie humanism. It’s a humble name for something great spiritual/political teachers and writers — Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Socrates, Lao Tzu, Confucious; and in more modern and secular times, Margaret Fuller, Emerson, Thoreau, Tolstoy, Joan Chichester, and Rita Brock — have been trying to tell us for a long time: take care of ourselves and take care of one another.

We can’t do that unless we engage in politics, which is nothing but the practice of working out our problems and opportunities with one another in a public setting.

Political engagement with the world is not easy. It takes grit, it takes courage. Hard-bitten political types sometimes like to dismiss hope, courage and full-blooded engagement with the world as idealistic and impractical. The spiritual word for such thoughts is bullshit. Politics is not easy. Ask the exiled leader of Tibet what it’s like to deal with the Chinese. It does mean that we gain no merit with God, Buddha, or the Universe if we sit in church, temple or mosque and tell ourselves how pure of intention we are.

Because if that’s all we do, the world, near and far, will slip away from us.

We have to act. And that’s precisely what the Dalai Lama said to us in New York that day. And that’s why DogCanyon is risking a trip to Washington, D.C. We’ll write you from there.

Put the Message in the Box, World Party

The world says
Give a little bit
Give a little bit of your love to me
‘Cause I’m waiting right here with my open arms

Give a little bit
Give a little bit of your soul to me
‘Cause I’m waiting to behold your many charms
Is that love in the air? She says

Put the message in the box
Put the box into the car
Drive the car around the world
Until you get heard
Until you get heard
Until you get heard

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About Glenn W. Smith

Glenn W. Smith has spent the past 30 years in journalism and politics, where he’s made a name for himself as a writer, campaign manager, activist, think tank analyst and, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says, a “legendary political consultant and all-around good guy.” “There’s no one like him,” says author George Lakoff. CNN commentator Paul Begala says, “He has unmatched experience, a graceful pen (or pixel nowadays) and deep insight into the best and worst of us.” Novelist Sarah Bird speaks of his “lucid and lyrical” prose. And, she says, he’s fun. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington says Glenn writes with “grace and abundant humor” and “uses his colorful experiences in Texas to enlighten us all.”

Smith led Ann Richards’ successful 1990 campaign for Governor of Texas. He worked for former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Earlier, Smith was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. He’s coordinated national campaigns for groups such as MoveOn.org. In 2004, he authored the highly acclaimed book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He also wrote Unfit Commander, a book that detailed George W. Bush’s mysterious disappearance from military service.

In 2004, Smith was featured in the film, Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Karl Rove. Smith provided commentary on Rove’s role as then-President Bush’s senior advisor. He has made numerous media appearances with Chris Mathews on Hardball, Joe Scarborough, Brit Hume, and many others. He writes a regularly for top national web sites, including FireDogLake and Huffington Post.

As a senior fellow at George Lakoff’s prestigious Rockridge Institute in Berkeley he studied, wrote and taught on the power of metaphor and narrative in political communications. He also lectured on religion and politics at the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley. As a sponsor and organizer, he has pulled together numerous national events with progressive religious leaders. He also organized a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church in New York City as well as “Freedom and Faith” bus tours, which was a nationwide campaign for social justice and progressive values.

Smith’s play, Double Play, which explored American Western myths and legends, was held over to sold-out audiences. He’s even written and performed songs in the Americana tradition, such as his best-known song, “Helping Marty Robbins,” a tribute to his hometown, Houston.

Most recently, Smith is the creator of DogCanyon, a political and cultural web site covering state, national and global issues from a Texas perspective. DogCanyon is an exhilarating and unique site that gets the connections between politics and culture and explores both the personal side of politics and the ups, down, craziness and beauty of “life its ownself,” as humorist Dan Jenkins would say. DogCanyon offers heartfelt personal essays, hard-hitting political analysis, and, most importantly, laughs.

As Paul Begala said, Smith writes in “the finest, firmest, fearless tradition of Texas essayists like Molly Ivins.”