Category Archives: Blog

Our friendship is based on us being human beings. It’s not based on power.

— His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Vaclav Havel and his cherished friend the Dalai Lama have been in the news recently–since the Dalai Lama attended a human rights conference in Prague last month. While in Prague, the Dalai Lama and Aung Sang Suu Kyi praised Vaclav Havel and his legacy.

The Dalai Lama was the last foreign visitor whom met with Havel before he died. In the video above, the Dalai Lama, in referring to Havel, says: “We must carry his spirit.” The English part of the video starts around 14:00, though there is intermittent translation from English into Czech throughout.

Below is the Dalai Lama’s message at Vaclav Havel’s memorial tribute in Washington, D.C.

With the death of my dear friend Vaclav Havel, the world has lost a great leader, whose steadfast and unflinching determination played a key role in establishing freedom and democracy in what was then Czechoslovakia.

Gentle, honest, humble and full of humour, he was motivated by the idea that truth must ultimately prevail. It was this insistence on the truth that got him into trouble with the authorities when he was young. The same quality inspired his people to choose him to be the President when they threw off totalitarianism during the Velvet Revolution, which Havel led with an extraordinary display of people power.

His abiding concern for human rights meant that once in a position of authority himself he did not indulge in rancour or vengeance, but instead worked to bring about reconciliation. He was also a strong advocate of the Tibetan people’s right to justice and freedom. Not content with articulating his support in words, he also marched to show solidarity with Tibetans…

When he established Forum 2000, it was on the principle that it would be good if informed and concerned people, from different continents, different cultures, from different religious circles, but also from different disciplines of human knowledge could come together to talk calmly with each other. This, it seems to me, is the most appropriate way to promote democracy in non-democratic countries and to support respect for human rights and religious, culture and ethnic tolerance in young democracies. I have assured the Forum 2000 foundation that I shall be very happy to do whatever I can to contribute to its work and keep alive the spirit of freedom that Vaclav Havel made such efforts to promote.

President Havel honoured me with an invitation to visit Czechoslovakia in February 1990, apparently his first foreign guest, soon after he became president of the country. I will never forget the emotional crowd who greeted me, men and women jubilant in their new-found freedom. President Havel himself impressed me as being utterly free of pretence and on the many occasions that we met overt the years, he remained a true champion of human rights and freedom everywhere. On that first evening of our meeting, he told me how much he identified with one of my predecessors, the Sixth Dalai Lama, who had a reputation for worldliness and literary flair. Most recently, I was touched that he made time for us to meet once more, in spite of his failing health, on International Human Rights Day, a week before he died. Since this time I seem to have been his last foreign visitor, I cannot help thinking that from a spiritual point of view there was a strong connection between us.

On the occasion of this service of remembrance in Washington, I would like to recall with admiration President Vaclav Havel’s fundamental humanity and integrity and reflect that, in his consistent concern for the welfare of others, this was a man who lived a truly meaningful life.

(signed The Dalai Lama)

The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.

— Vaclav Havel

On Monday, October 14th at 6 PM Czech director Petr Jančárek will personally present the second part of his documentary trilogy: Václav Havel: Prague Castle in New York City at the Bohemian National Hall. The film presents a window into the life of Vaclav Havel, the playwright and dissident who became the first President of the Czech Republic.

The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nation is not being used sensibly.

— Vaclav Havel

Featuring interviews with Havel, as well as with his friend the Dalai Lama, Fareed Zakaria, song writer Suzanne Vega and others, the film tells “the story of a truly unique period in the history of the former Czechoslovakia, and the complex personality of the former President, who suddenly went from being a dissident to becoming the head of a free democratic state.” A Q&A session with director Jančárek will follow the screening.

Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope;
perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.

— Vaclav Havel

The New York Film Festival will be showing the following Czech film at the Walter Reade Theater on October 13th–if you’re in the city, czech it out…

Burning Bush
Hořicí keř | Agnieszka Holland 2013
Czech Republic | Czech with English subtitles | 234 minutes

In January 1969, Czech student Jan Palach set himself on fire to protest the Soviet clampdown that followed Prague Spring. The terrible historical moment that formed the backdrop of Palach’s heroic action is recalled to vivid life in this passionately brilliant mini-series. Agnieszka Holland and writer Stepan Hulik trace the ripples of Palach’s defiant gesture throughout Czech society and the moves and counter-moves it set in motion by coercive and the coerced, the terrified many and the courageous few: the young Dagmar Buresova (Tatiana Pohofuva) represents Palach’s defiant mother (Jaroslava Pokorná) in a libel suit against a member of parliament (Martin Huba); her law partner (Adrian Jastraban) is strong-armed into collaborating in order to protect his firebrand daughter (Jenovefa Bokova); a secret police officer (Ivan Trojan) grows disillusioned by his unpalatable job. Holland was in Czechoslovakia at the time these events took place and it makes a difference: you feel like you’re breathing the very air of Czechoslovakia under totalitarian lockdown.

From my favorite tree in Afghanistan…

You’ve carved so many little figurines, too many …
Tomorrow you’ll see what you’ve broken and torn tonight,
thrashing in the dark. Inside you
there’s an artist you don’t know about.
She’s not interested in how things look different in moonlight.

— Rumi

Every beautiful face that manifested itself to you
The heavens will soon remove it from your eyes
Go and give your heart to the person in the bounds of existence
Who has always been with you, and always will be.

— Jami (d. 1492)

This may just be my favorite tree. While I was visiting Sufi shrines in Afghanistan, I stumbled up on this tree–carved with graffiti–standing next to a shrine. Though my Afghan companions were compelled to head right for the shrine, I found myself pulled to the tree to explore the incised calligraphy decorating its trunk.

After taking some photos, I tried climbing up the tree as high as I could–though I didn’t get very far. Since the boughs of the tree hang over an oversized swing set, I imagine many Afghan children spend their time climbing this painted tree too.

You don’t need to know Dari to understand some of the words carved on this tree–just a little Arabic will do. If you look closely, you’ll see the word ‘ishq engraved on its tattooed trunk. Look again, and maybe you’ll make out another Sufi concept too. For now, I’ll let you do the deciphering, instead of giving it all away.
And if you don’t know Arabic or Persian, you can always look at these numerals, and see if you can spot any numbers…

Why do I love this tree? Maybe because it brings together my love of inscription, language and nature–and as the greeter of travelers from both near and far, it keeps silent watch day and night over a marvelous shrine…

When from that tree, feathers and wings
sprout on your soul, be quieter than a dove.
Don’t open your mouth for even a cooooo.

— Rumi

A thousand years ago two philosophers met on a slope of Lebanon, and one said to the other, “Where are you going?”

And the other answered, “I am seeking after the fountain of youth which I know wells out among these hills. I have found writings which tell of that fountain flowering toward the sun. And you, what are you seeking?”

The first man answered, “I am seeking after the mystery of death.”

Then each of the two philosophers conceived that the other was lacking in his great science, and they began to wrangle, and to accuse each other of spiritual blindness.

Now while the two philosophers were loud upon the wind, a stranger, a man who was deemed a simpleton in his own village, passed by, and when he heard the two in hot dispute, he stood awhile and listened to their argument.

Then he came near to them and said, “My good men, it seems that you both really belong to the same school of philosophy, and that you are speaking of the same thing, only you speak in different words. One of you is seeks the fountain of youth, and the other seeks the mystery of death. Yet indeed they are but one, and as they dwell in you both.”

— Khalil Gibran

The hidden well-spring of your soul must rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

— Khalil Gibran

Welcome to my home away from home in Bukhara. This is the madressa in Uzbekistan where I like to stay and unwind when I’m working in Central Asia. Not far from this oasis of peace and relaxation (otherwise known as a bed and breakfast) is a statue of Nasreddin–a legendary comic figure from the Middle Ages whose stories use humor to impart a spiritual or moral lesson.

When I was teaching a seminar on Sufism in Central Asia at Columbia, my students loved these Sufi-inspired “koans” so much that some of them even chose to write their final papers on representations of Nasreddin in popular culture from Uzbekistan to Albania–and many places in between. Here is one of the many Nasreddin stories told frequently in Bukhara:

Nasreddin was walking in the bazaar with a large group of followers. Whatever Nasreddin did, his followers immediately copied. Every few steps Nasreddin would stop and shake his hands in the air, touch his feet and jump up yelling “Hu Hu Hu!” So his followers would also stop and do exactly the same thing.

One of the merchants, who knew Nasreddin, quietly asked him: “What are you doing my old friend? Why are these people imitating you?”

“I have become a Sufi Sheikh,” replied Nasreddin. “These are my murids (spiritual seekers); I am helping them reach enlightenment!”

“How do you know when they reach enlightenment?”

“That’s the easy part! Every morning I count them. The ones who have left – they have reached enlightenment!”

Today I was telling my students in Beirut about an article I read which suggests that American college students are reading now “for the test” instead of “for class”–i.e. they put off all the reading until a “binge” reading session the night before a mid-term or final, instead of doing the reading each week ahead of class.

“What about here in Lebanon, do you think students do that too?” I asked my students.

“No, Professor, here it’s different,” one of my Lebanese students said, “because here we don’t do the reading for class–or for the test.”

His answer reminded me of a story about a legendary jokester from the Middle East and Central Asia, which I’ll share in my next post…

For without you, I swear,
the town has become like a prison to me.
Distraction and the mountain and the desert,
all I desire.

— Rumi

While I was excavating at the Great Pyramids in Egypt and working on objects from our cemetery kept in the Egyptian Museum, I had the opportunity to photograph the entire exhibit of King Tutankhamun’s tomb contents–even though the lights were turned off and flash wasn’t allowed. One of the objects I’ve always treasured is this pendant with a scarab at its center. To read a recent article on the connection of this scarab “brooch” to an ancient comet, please click here. Here’s a quote from the article:

Fewer still know about the striking yellow-brown scarab that is set at its center, and that it is made of a yellow silica glass stone procured from the sand of the Sahara and then shaped and polished by ancient craftsmen. The silica glass was originally formed 28 million years ago, when an ancient comet entered the earth’s atmosphere and exploded over Egypt, heating up the sand beneath it to a temperature of about 2,000 degrees Celsius and resulting in the formation of a huge amount of the yellow silica glass, which lies scattered over a 6,000 square kilometer area in the Sahara…

Since I’ve been spending much of my time this week writing about my journey to Afghanistan for an upcoming project, I’ve been going through my photographs to recall all that I saw…one of the things which surprised me the most in Afghanistan was the large number of women wearing the burqa–almost everywhere that I traveled…

This week in Beirut, my students and I are reading the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides–and discussing the challenges and rhetoric of war, politics, and democracy. One passage in particular jumped out at me last night, while I was re-reading the text to prepare for today’s class…

Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs, but in the affairs of the state as well: even those who are mostly occupied with their own business are extremely well-informed on general politics–this is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.

— Pericles’ Funeral Oration in Thuycdides’ History of the Peloponnesian War

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.

— Jimi Hendrix

When I was in this family’s home in Tanzania, the kids asked me to take photos of them. When I lifted my camera to take this shot, these are the poses they struck…

If we are to create peace in our world, we must begin with our children.

–Mahatma Gandhi