Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 29, Number 6, 1 June 2012 — Reflections on the Dalai Lama's visit to Hawaiʻi [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Reflections on the Dalai Lama's visit to Hawaiʻi

By John De Fries and Kelvin H. Taketa On a brilliant afternoon at Kualoa Park, His Holiness the Dalai Lama stepped aboard Hōkūle'a to give his blessings for the upcoming worldwide voyage of the ieonie Hawaiian sailing eanoe. A malo-clad crew member climbed up the mast to tie on the khata, or traditional Tibetan ceremonial scarf, that the Dalai Lama offered to his hosts as a gesture of goodwill and respect. The image of the white scarf, dancing with the trade winds atop Hōkūle'a, encapsulated many of the themes of Pillars of Peaee Hawai'i and the Dalai Lama's visit: the responsibility to perpetuate one's cultural identity and history; the responsibility to care for one's home, the earth; and the responsibility to honor one another as a single humanity. Over the course of his April visit, His Holiness seemed to relish the opportunities he had to learn about Hawaiian history and tradition - whether at the Bishop Museum or 'Iolani Palaee, or in conversation with any one of the many individuals he met here who shared their mana'o.

Said one kupuna, "He sounded Hawaiian, even though he is a Tibetan Buddhist." It is exactly that commonality that the Dalai Lama seeks to convey every ehanee he gets - whether speaking to 9,000 residents gathered at the Stan Sheriff Center or to 300 people in attendance at the panel that was held with Native Hawaiian leaders: "Different continents, different countries, different religions, they are secondary," he reminds us. "We're the same, you and me, mentally, emotionally, physically." The ability to honor difference and acknowledge sameness was beautifully expressed in the mele ho'okama'āina friendship song composed for His Holiness by Kekuhi Kanahele, wherein she chants about two deities - Kanaloa and Kāne, who are seemingly different, but who are, in fact, eompanions, necessary to providing the fundamental elements of life on Earth. "During the equinoxes," Kekuhi explains, "these two entities eome into sacred union known as Kaneloa. At that moment, Kāne and Kanaloa, forces of the human body and the body earth, are in complete balance."

In the same spirit as Kekuhi's chant, "E Hō Mai Ka Ihu, I Alo Hā Kāua," (Grant me your nose so that we may share breath), is the message Calvin Hoe shared with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the earth blessing and the consecration

of Hōkūle'a that afternoon at the sacred site of Kualoa: "Your bones are our bones." So taken was the Dalai Lama with this nohon, he shared it with an audience at his next stop, in San Diego. This phrase has biblieal origins, yet it has a universal quality in its resonance with Hawaiian values and apparently, Tibetan ones, too. "Differences, secondary," reminds His Holiness. The most careful balance is one that appreciates the Dalai Lama's message that we are brothers and sisters without diminishing the losses that human beings have caused one another - whether through the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom a century ago or the exile from Tibet of the Dalai Lama by the Communist Chinese in 1959. The loss for Hawaiians was powerfully expressed in the panel talk by Nainoa Thompson who said, "We were very close to cultural extinction," noting how Hōkūle'a's 1976 voyage from Hawai'i to Tahiti helped instill cultural pride and renewal. Listening to Pualani Kanahele, the kumu hula and scholar, share her experience growing up on Hawai'i Island - where they knew hundreds of Hawai-

ian words to describe the rain and clouds - was a window into a Hawai'i that is largely gone yet still within living memory. "That wasn't culture or environmentalism," she explained, "That was our lifestyle." In response to the gift of two eanoe paddles that Nainoa gave to His Holiness and to Auntie Pua at the end of the panel discussion, the Dalai Lama shared in Tibetan a message that was translated this way: "In Buddhist literature there is a saying that by using this precious human life as if it were a bird, we ean cross the oeean of (human) suffering." Of the first paddle he said, "This is the paddle of ultimate wisdom that sees the way everything exists." And of the second he said, "This is the paddle of altruism."

"By using these two paddles," His Holiness the Dalai Lama eoncludes, "one ean cross the oeean of human suffering." Understanding the Dalai Lama's message from a foundation of native wisdom is a way to preserve and propel our own culture. 'A'ohe pau ka 'ike i ka hālau ho'okāhi - One ean leam from many sources. I

John De Fries is board president of Friends of the Future. Keh'in H. Taketa is president and chief executive officer of the Hawai'i Community Foundation, sponsor ofPiIIars ofPeace Hawai 'i through a lead grant from the Omidyar 'Ohana Fund and other partners who helped to make the Dalai Lama's visit possible.

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The Dalai Lama, fourth from left, is surrounded by young dancers of Hālau Hula Olana during his talk "Advancing Peaee through the Power of Aloha" April 1 5 at the Stan Sheriff Center. - Courtesy: Bennet Group