26th Dec 2005
The Dalai Lama (and Spalding Gray) Discuss Business Travel
This is one of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever read with the Dalai Lama….
Spalding Gray: We’ve both been traveling these last weeks and the most difficult thing that I find on the road is adjusting to each location, each different hotel. I have a tendency to want to drink the alcohol, which, as you said in an earlier interview, is the other way of coping with despair and confusion. Just what are some of your centering rituals and your habits when you come into a new hotel?
The Dalai Lama: I always first inquire to see “what is there.” Curiosity. What I can discover that is interesting or new. Then, I take a bath. And then I usually sit on the bed, crosslegged, and meditate. And sometimes sleep, lie down. One thing I myself noticed is the time-zone change. Although you change your clock time, your biological time still has to follow a certain pattern. But now I find that once I change the clock time, I’m tuned to the new time zone. When my watch says it’s eight o’clock in the evening, I feel sort of sleepy and need to retire and when it says four in the morning I wake up.
And later….
Spalding Gray: But you are flying a lot and the pilots are drinking. That’s what I’m always afraid of. I’ve always said I would never fly on a plane where the pilot believes in reincarnation. When you get on a plane to fly, do you have to work with your fears?
The Dalai Lama: I used to have a lot of fear when flying. Now I am getting used to it. But when I get very afraid or anxious, then yes, as you mentioned, I recite some prayers or some mantra and also, you see, the final conclusion is the belief in karma. If I created some karma to have a certain kind of death, I cannot avoid that. Although I try my best, if something happens, I have to accept it. It is possible that I have no such karmic force, then even if the plane crashes, I may survive.
Spalding Gray: You walk out.
The Dalai Lama: Yes. So that belief, also you see, is very helpful. Very effective.
What a classic interview. I love the questions Spalding Gray asks. Did he write about that experience in any of his monologues?
Oh, and the fact that it took place at the Red Lion. I could just picutre those bikini-clad women.
Wasn’t it amusing?
I’ve never heard of Gray integrating any of the material into his monologues. It’s really great stuff.
I find it best and least disappointing to have no spiritual/meditative practices to eleviate my fear of flying. What does work quite effectively, I might add, is to take a sleeping pill 30 minutes before boarding and a double rum or rye and coke once service begins following take off. I have been asked a number of times if I fear the possibility of being unable to leave a burning plane; no, I don’t.
What this “goes to show” is that the spiritual life has all kinds of practical applications. It doesn’t have to be an ethereal, nebulous kind of thing unavailable to anyone who meditates less than six hours a day.