Can Catholics participate in compassion project with Dalai Lama in Seattle?

[tradmom]

A state sponsored event for public school students will occur in April with the Dalai Lama in Seattle entitled “Seeds of Compassion” and can be previewed at seedsofcompassion.com. It is anticipated 16,000 students and their teachers and chaperones will attend the event, many of whom will be baptised Catholics. In the literature about the event, compassion is defined as “the desire to alleviate another’s suffering.” Students will seek to express compassion as defined with the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. A seven step process of compassion will/is taught, which includes daily meditation.

In light of Catholic teaching on the redemptive nature of suffering, would the practices of Tibetan Buddhism be at odds or compatible with Catholic perspectives.

An interesting aside is the honorary Co-Chair of the event is the openly practicing Catholic Washington State Govenor Christine Gregoire. Does this event violate the First Ammendment?

 

[White_Tree]

Hello tradmom,

I’m going to offer my opinion on this matter. Make of it what you may.

I’ll address your last question first. Does this event violate the first amendment?

Well, this is what the first amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Congress does not appear to be involved in this event at all, and more importantly, there are no laws being written to the books about this event or others like it, so I don’t really see how the first amendment even applies in this situation, except for the fact that it gives explicit permission for such an event, due to freedom of speech and assembly.

Regarding your second question, I will not comment on Tibetan Buddhism as a whole, since I don’t consider myself qualified to do so, but I will only answer based on the information you provided.

Specifically related to the “redemptive nature of suffering” I feel that what the Dalai Lama is teaching here is completely in alignment with Catholic teachings.

Just because suffering has a redemptive nature, this does not mean that we shouldn’t seek to put a stop to it. Perhaps that is the conclusion you can reach if you take that philosophy to its logical end, but certainly that is not what the Church, or Christ, teaches us. Consider the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. Have you heard of these? All of these acts are geared towards the alleviation of suffering on some level, and these are highly encouraged by the Church. And Christ’s whole life was geared towards saving us from suffering.

Where is the incompatibility?

 

[Brian_Millar]

The main thing that has a bur under my saddle on this one. What if it was the Pope that was heading that program, how many parents would pull their kids from attending the event? I bet plenty.

This is clearly a two faced approach, if school sanctioned events were abolished from being able to accomodate a Christian based system, just as they managed to completely strip away anything Christian from the schools, how is it they are able to justifiy this current event? It’s two faced as all you can get in my book. The message I’m not against, it’s who is teaching it I have issues with, for this is a spirtual leader, and one of one particular faith that’s clearly not in alignment with Christianity. I wonder how many of these kids are going to be impressed to the point where they decide to convert to budhism? If they allow this to happen, they should be more open minded to allow other religious based leaders to receive the same involvment as this one. Just my 2 cents here…

 

[LaMar]

Hi tradmom,

An interesting aside is the honorary Co-Chair of the event is the openly practicing Catholic Washington State Govenor Christine Gregoire. Does this event violate the First Ammendment?

Christine Gregoire is a citizen of the U.S., and as such she is also protected by the First Amendment.

The First Amendment would be violated if, say, Washington’s assembly and Gov. Gregoire passed a state law requiring people to pray to the Dalai Lama, or proclaim themselves Buddhists, or something like that. If that happened, we’d be able to petition a federal court to have the enforcement of the law restrained and overturned, because not all of us care about the Dalai Lama, or want to be Buddhists. Those who like Buddhism are able to do what they like, and those of us who don’t care are not required to. That’s the American way.

 

[1ke]

My opinion is that Bhuddist meditation and philosophy is NOT compatible with the Catholic Faith.

And, this is equivalent to Christian prayer in public schools and I think it does violate the “separation of Church and State” as created by our US Courts (not the Constitution, which contains no “separation” clause). It has been upheld again and again in courts AGAINST any sort of Christian expression of faith. This is clearly analogous if all of the students are being taken there on school time and expected to participate.

But, from the website, it just looks like a mish-mash of new age do-gooder secular humanism.

This is a social engineering project. The high school curriculum that teachers can use from this website includes a bunch of cr*p about our “ecological footprint” and how bad the US is. US = bad. Everyone else = good. GAG!

Maybe you should contact the American Center for Law and Justice or the Thomas More Society and discuss it.