National Post
writer Allen Abel recently spoke to 12 extraordinary Canadians. In the third part of his
series, we meet Venerable Lama Tenzin Kalsang (the former Carol Watt, nee Webster, of
Kenora, Ont.), 61.
The founder and spiritual director of Tengye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Temple in Toronto was
ordained by
His Holiness The Dalai Lama in India in 1986.
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I am without conflict. I don't
get angry. It's not to say that I don't get frustrated sometimes, but not much - I
suppose two or three times a year. But it's over in a minute or half a minute.
I have a very high tolerance for frustration.
The antidote to anger is patience,
so when I feel anger I practise patience. I reason, I reason things out. I
feel safe no matter where I go, and I do a lot of travelling. I feel like everybody is my
friend. now, they may not see it that way, but I do. The more one studies
Buddhism, the more peaceful it feels. I sleep much beterr, and I don't have any
enemies. But this came after a great struggle to remove the inner conflict in
myself. It took years, and a lot of effort.
I remember who I was before I began
this study, and it's a feeling of great relief, and it's a feeling of never wanting to be
like that again. But I also feel compassionate for the person that I was. What
really used to bother me was that I felt persecuted - persecuted by men in particular, and
by some women. I did a lot of purification of my relationships to other people. I
began to understand that when people are in conflict with other people, they're really in
conflict with themselves. That's the test: Is the conflict really with
someone else, or with yourself?
I found that my inner peace came
when I accepted my masculine qualities. Male and female were in conflict.
Understanding that led me to a place where I no longer had any sexual desire - I'm talking
about true adrogyny, not about being gay. It took my from 1976 to 1986 to become
really settled into my new celibate way of life. After 10 years, I felt that I was
ready to go His Holiness The Dalai Lama to be ordained. Some of the words that were
coming out of my mouth at that time were, "I want to be a nun."
And when I did find inner peace, I was ready to become a nun.
Now, the feeling that I wake up
with every morning is that I want to help the rest of the world attain inner peace.
I wake up without tension, the body is without tension, and not the other way around. That
doesn't mean that I don't feel physical pain. It doesn't mean that at all. For
example, my last pair of glasses, those little clips pinched my nose terribly. But I
accepted that pain as being the residue of some difficulty in my previous life, and I went
out and got new glasses.
I'm working toward being fully
enlightened, to be more like His Holiness. He says, "Be like me," and that
is what I want to be. There are always greater degrees of realization. The
teachings say that it takes "three countless eons" to become truly enlightened.
So one really has to have great perseverance, and settle in for the long haul.
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