Author: Lama Ole Nydahl

I like my parents and look forward to our visits, but we often end up fighting with each other. How can I avoid this?

Lama Ole’s answer:

Don’t visit them too often, but try to always stay friendly while you are there. Every generation has its own lifestyle, and when they encounter each other they each do their best to bridge the gap. When the visit isn’t going well, you go home again and try it later by phone.

From a certain age on, people fall under monument protection anyway; you have to behave yourself with them and not shake them up too much. Check whether they are still able learn something new or whether you can only round off what is already there and give them a few good impressions to take with them into the next life.

Our parents have done so much for us, and they rebuilt Europe after the wars. So, we really owe them something. We should see how we can bring them happiness and try to treat them well. But sometimes treating them well means not visiting them too often and calling them on the phone instead. When that also leads to arguments, then it’s better to write postcards: “I’m doing well and thinking of you” and so on. And each generation can do its own thing.

If we have the feeling that disturbing energies or ghosts come to us, how much can we trust this feeling? Why do they come and what can we do to prevent this?

Lama Ole’s answer:

If you arrive somewhere and get a strange feeling, then you must first check yourself. Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed? Is the bad trip yours? But if you are sure that you’re feeling well but that you always get the same strange feeling at a certain place, then there may be some disturbing energies there that you are open to or have a connection with.

The best antidote against this is actually compassion. If they come to disturb you and you have compassion, they experience that as an unpleasant smell. They can’t stand it and go away again. And if they come because they need help, then they get help this way.

It is also excellent to make good wishes: “May you have great happiness and may all suffering leave you”—or something like that. If you do that, you can really do a lot of good. They are really capable of knowing what you do and think, so you can actually do something for them if you have this openness to them. But you must also know that you can’t trust them. Beings do not get wiser when they are dead. You can’t depend on them. You can only trust beings who have overcome the concept of the ego and who think more of others than of themselves. With the other ones, you can get yourself into a real Mephisto thing, like in Faust. You can get into real difficulties there.

This is why in Buddhism we only work with the protectors who have a wisdom eye on their foreheads. That is the sign that they are Bodhisattvas, who only work for the benefit of others.

So, if you experience disturbing energies, wish them everything good, but don’t get involved with them and don’t make any promises.

What should we do if a difficult person shows up in our Buddhist center and causes a lot of disturbances?

Lama Ole’s answer:

If someone is really just disturbing others and doesn’t want to learn anything, then you should try to get rid of him. You can check if there is another group where he would fit in better and send him there. If that doesn’t work, you must make it clear to him that he shouldn’t come anymore.

People get lots of bad impressions in their minds when they behave aggressively and disturb the center. Whatever a person does in the center has a powerful effect on an inner and outer level. One has huge opportunities to build up a lot of good, but if one is ill-tempered and always going against things, this can build up a lot of negativity which causes further suffering. In that case, it is better to stay away.

If one wants to learn something, then one goes to the center and opens up, and through one’s confidence in Buddha, the difficulties fall away. But the wish to change must be there, otherwise it doesn’t work. There are so many capable people who are trained and paid to take care of the difficult cases.

Esoteric things are trendy right now, and many people are really into this, saying they see auras and meet angels and so on. What do you think of this?

We Danes are famous for never having had a strong government or really big, famous people because whenever someone got too big, everybody started to laugh at them. That big broad laughter flattens everything, and most talented people had to leave the country at some point. I’m not talking about myself, I like to be in Denmark…

At some point, I decided completely unceremoniously that there are two forms of spirituality. There are people who can handle their lives, who deal with what needs to be done, and everything runs pretty much as it should. At some point, they discover that working in a margarine factory for 40 years, going off into retirement with a nice speech, and then getting buried 10 years later with an even nicer speech—this can’t be everything that a human life has to offer. And then, on the basis of a practical life, they start to develop deeper abilities and qualities. What these people experience—people who have their lives together, who stand there strong, who have nothing to prove or excuse—you can trust that. You can believe what these people say.

Then there is the other kind of “spiritual” people. Whenever they have to meet a challenge, they pull their heads in and don’t get anything done. They can’t manage it; they can’t do it; they don’t have the courage or stamina. And then they retreat from the world and create their own sweet little universe that no one else can really examine. I have no trust at all in what they experience.

I really look at what people accomplish, how they hold themselves, and whether one can count on them. If I think that they respect themselves, do as they say, and are above playing childish games, then I trust what they say.

But if people run away from the challenges of the world, I stay away from them. If people are too holy and without self-irony, unable to laugh at themselves and somehow unclear and sweet; if things are not fully understood and not clearly expressed, then all my hair stands on end and I think, “Get out of there!” because I consider it unhealthy.

I have a very close circle of friends whom I’m strongly connected with. But now I realize that I have to get away from this group. How can I dissolve the connection with goodwill?

Lama Ole’s answer:

The best is to think that everybody benefits the most this way. You can think, “If they disturb me then they will also get bad karma, and I can only help them after I have gotten some distance.” You only need to justify it to yourself. To them you say something that can emotionally pass as a reason, and then you happily walk away. And the flimsier the explanation is, the more they will be forced to examine their own situation.

If you come in with a big, extensive explanation, with points and sub-points, and whys and wherefores, then they can address it on a conceptual level. Instead of this, the best thing is to say something like, “I often got headaches when we were together”—something completely subtle and feminine. Then they’ll start to ask “Why?” But by then you are nowhere to be found.
A gnawing feeling will remain with them. They’ll ask themselves, “What was that? Why headaches? Why would someone get headaches from us?” So you leave something that will keep on scratching and digging for a long time. Then you have left them a good gift. You have set something in motion with them.

Could you say something about your own experiences with drugs?

Lama Ole’s answer:

In the sixties, drugs had a different function than they have now. The spiritual horizon lay two centimeters above the highest tower in Copenhagen—not more than that. We had completely square heads. We would have become even more materialistic than our parents. We drank a lot and had three or four fistfights every week because the pressure was so high. There was no vision for our lives—no view.

The drugs made us more human. But perhaps eighty or ninety percent of Hannah’s and my friends from that time are dead today. We paid a high price. But it is like that for those fighting on the front: they get blown away. Then the next people come and take over the land that the first people conquered. There is no doubt that our entire spiritual environment and our openness is much greater today because the brave people in the sixties broke through the widespread concepts of those times—because they had enough trust in space to break through.

But today drugs are an old hat. They are completely ridiculous. When we took drugs, we were the avant-garde, the best of the society, who took them to make new worlds accessible. Today, deadbeat kids take them to commit suicide slowly. Drugs are out.

It seems like every drug has a period in which it activates many karmas. For example, if we look at old sources about the conquest of the Americas, tobacco was a hallucinogenic when it first came to the West. The people who used tobacco were often depicted vomiting. Over their heads there were little thought bubbles with all sorts of strange things happening. Those people completely hallucinated. And now tobacco is just bad for the lungs.

That means: stay away from drugs. They are no good anymore. My generation killed themselves with drugs. That is also the reason why today the Japanese assemble semi-conductors and not the Europeans or Americans. An entire generation here and in America, who should have done that, is gone. That is why East Asia got ahead. They suppressed drug use; they did not allow their young people that freedom.

How do drugs work from the Buddhist point of view? Are the things one experiences real?

Lama Ole’s answer:

Drugs as a whole are not recommended. The basis for the strong experiences they offer is not the drug itself. The basis is mind. The experiences arise out of our mind. There is not one drug that can bring happiness. The only thing a drug can do is to pack the happiness we would have had over a long period into a very short period. Then, after a while, one has nothing left and the bad experiences come.

In Copenhagen in 1963, there were maybe twenty or thirty people in our group of friends. Today, there are five of us left and two or three of them are carrying their heads under their arms. Of those who survived, only a handful function normally. The losses from drugs are just too high. I really advise against it.

I wouldn’t even use hash, the mildest of them all—and also not too much alcohol. The best thing we have is our clear understanding and the inner abilities of mind. I would bank on that. That is the best drug. Another good drug is a beautiful woman!—or a strong man. Love is also an excellent drug.

If one falls into states of confusion after taking drugs, is that only due to the drugs or does one also have to have a predisposition for it?

Lama Ole’s answer:

There must really be a ring and hook there. I am from the sixties and had a lot of experience with drugs. I wrote my exams at the University of Copenhagen, and before I met Buddhism I was very interested in all possibilities for unfolding the mind.

OK, the clear light that one sees on LSD is really great, or being able to leave one’s body and all of that. But gradually you discover that it’s actually not the drugs that make you happy. The happiness that you might have experienced in half a year gets compressed into eight hours. When you have done that a few times, at some point the red letters come from the bank, “Overdrawn! Overdrawn!” and the joy and meaning are gone—fear and confusion take their place.

If you have taken drugs, then that is the background you can work with. You then develop yourself further through meditation, which lays a foundation for everything beyond that. But if you haven’t taken drugs, you don’t need to do it now.

I am not saying that LSD should not be used. It should be available for psychologists to use in cases of extreme fear of death. Actually, in such cases, minimal doses of 25 micrograms can make a “click” so that the fear disappears. I think that LSD should be available as a tool—as medicine—in the hands of good psychologists, perhaps also lamas if they have the time. But it should not simply be available for everyone to stuff their heads with. That is not good. And if you achieve development without drugs, if you succeed with your own strength through meditation, it is much more effective. You establish something permanent. If you take drugs, first you’re way up and then you crash again; you have a lot of yo-yo trips that you can gab about later, but you have no lasting experience. With meditation, you put one stone on top of the other. Wherever you are in your development—that’s where you really are.

Do you think that people like Aldous Huxley—who thought a lot about philosophy, tried out lots of different things, and also experimented with drugs—could find their own way to enlightenment?

Lama Ole’s answer:

Aldous Huxley actually had two sides. He was extremely gifted, but on several levels he was quite immature. The whole Huxley family was brilliant. It is too bad that their genes died out because, like so many other intelligent people, they forgot to reproduce.
On the one hand, Aldous Huxley was a humanist and on the other hand he had an understanding of perception. There is a lot of wisdom in his books. Also what his wife, Laura Huxley, said about his death is very good: as he lay dying, she sensed his voice echoing further out into space. At least he came to a very high level of consciousness. But if there was no hook for the ring, it is unsure whether he went to a pure land. It is more likely that he went to a god realm.

It is very difficult to enter a pure land out of one’s own power. One needs refuge and a connection to a buddha.

How do drugs affect the mind?

Lama Ole’s answer:

With the exception of LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and a few similar drugs from the Amazon, drugs have the opposite effect of meditation. Drugs show you the experiences in mind; meditation shows you mind itself. Drugs scatter mind; meditation gathers it. Taking drugs and meditating are not compatible.

Alcohol—as stupid, unspiritual, and uninspired as it is—is indeed better because it doesn’t make you slippery. You act stupidly, but you’re aware of it and excuse yourself later—people understand and then it’s over.

But hash is different. It makes you slippery like an eel. Your twist things to please yourself. You get older but not wiser. I myself smoked a lot—almost every day for about nine years of my life. In the sixties, we believed that it could be useful. We really thought that. We had Leary, Alpert, Huxley—all of the best brains with us who said that.

But my experience with drug users is that I become restless when I’m with them. I don’t feel that what I’m doing is catching on. If I am with people who drink, I try to tell them something. But with people who smoke hash, I would rather read the newspaper because I have the feeling that whatever I say won’t be understood.

I would advise people who want to meditate to stop smoking hash. It is cheaper to learn to meditate! And after a while, it is at least as pleasant. But it is more difficult. You have to build it up with your own strength. On the other hand, what you have built yourself you can stand on firmly!

How should we deal with people who have just started coming to our Buddhist center and who have problems with alcohol or drugs?

Lama Ole’s answer:

I wouldn’t start any big discussion about it in the center. People can only come if they are clean, and then they get what they want. You can spend a whole evening talking to someone with a drug or alcohol problem; he’ll understand everything very deeply, and then the next morning, when the drug has no effect anymore, he won’t remember a thing. We pay taxes for institutions to take care of people with these problems. Those who come to us should be capable of meditating and should want to do it.

We are not social workers. If we were, we would wear ourselves out and have nothing to offer those with surplus. So if someone is drunk once, we can put up with it because he is a friend. If he smokes pot once, it is also not such a big deal. But people with permanent problems do not belong in the center.

How can we help a friend who has gotten himself into big trouble? He is not aware of what he is doing and rejects any good advice anyone offers.

Lama Ole’s answer:

There are direct and indirect ways to work with this. We may tell people directly, “Listen, do you know what you are doing to yourself?” We assert ourselves as well as possible. Apart from that, we make wishes to the buddhas and say, “Please, before all his capital is used up, just give him a good one on the nose, fast and hard so that he realizes that it was not a good idea and can get out of it.” We have good experiences with Tara in this type of situation, the female buddha principle. She can help in a motherly way. Mahakala may be a bit rough there, but we can use him too.

I would make wishes that they get into difficulties quickly so that they can stop quickly, instead of torturing themselves for a long time. Because the longer they keep on, the more strength they lose and the deeper they get into trouble. If people want to run head on into the wall, it is important that those who would usually hold a pillow in front of them pull it away from time to time and say, “Olé!”—because when it hurts, people may start to think. They really should be confronted with their actions.

My brother worked with people in withdrawal. He was very tough with them and provoked their pride. He really treated them like dirt, always pointing to their situation and saying, “Look at what you are now. Look at what you’ve done to yourself!” And in many cases, he was able to find a shred of pride and could then say, “Come on, now show me how you can do it differently.” He got them out like that, but it is difficult. Bad company is like honey—it sticks to your fingers.

How can we help friends who have started to take drugs and become rather arrogant and exclusive?

Lama Ole’s answer:

We should simply explain to people who take drugs that even though they feel better subjectively, objectively they function worse. Drugs decrease one’s ability to think critically. Although objectively their abilities continually decrease and they accomplish less and less in school, work, and life, they think they are good and are becoming better and better because their ability to think critically decreases so rapidly.

The ego avoids situations in which they could have developed. One can always point out the facts very clearly: exams they didn’t pass, work they didn’t do, personal issues they couldn’t cope with, and so on. They might feel good, but they are in their own personal dream. Seen objectively, life is not going particularly well for them. Actually, one can only help drug users once they have already discovered that their lives are going down the drain.

The reason why we don’t let people who take drugs into our centers is simply that it is a waste of time: you won’t be talking to them but rather to the drugs. If a heroin user walks in, he’ll be sentimental. If a cocaine addict comes, he’ll be callous and want to check everything. If someone on ecstasy comes in, he won’t understand anything. A person on amphetamines will run around the table three times and then out again. A pot smoker will sit there and have a lot of emotions, but the next morning he won’t remember anything.

Because our lives are so short and time is so scarce, we can say: “Thank you for coming and thank you for leaving. Come again tomorrow when you can understand what we are saying.

Do we always have to tell the truth, or can we lie to protect someone in certain cases?

Lama Ole’s answer:

That depends on the level of your practice. On the level of Theravada—the level of cause and effect, where the focus is more on oneself than on others—you should always tell the truth. Here it is very important to avoid the ten harmful actions. These are divided into three harmful actions of the body: killing, stealing, and harming others sexually; four harmful actions of speech: lying, slandering, rough or harmful speech, and meaningless speech; and three harmful actions of the mind: being greedy, hating others, and having wrong views.

On the Mahayana or Bodhisattva level, there are sometimes situations in which one can protect other beings by not telling the truth. For example, if someone comes running down the street followed by fifteen farmers armed with pitchforks who ask us where he went, then we should not tell the truth because this would bring harm to the person. On the level of the Great Way or Mahayana, there are actually only three harmful actions of the mind that we must absolutely avoid: we must not hate, not be envious, and not be confused. With our body and speech, we can do anything to benefit all beings in the best possible way.

There is a good story about this in the book The Divine Madman about the famous Tibetan yogi Drugpa Kunley. His mother was known throughout the whole village as a gossip. She was always talking about others and starting rumors. Drugpa Kunley knew that she didn’t have much longer to live and that her behavior would not bring her pleasant experiences in her next life. Because he loved his mother, he advised her again and again to learn to meditate, but that didn’t help and she held on to her habit of gossiping. One day, Drugpa Kunley ran through the village yelling at the top of his lungs, “I just slept with my mother!”—which of course wasn’t true. When this reached his mother’s ears, it was so embarrassing that she couldn’t say anything to anyone. From this point on, she used her time for meditation instead of gossiping, and when she died Drugpa Kunley was able to lead her mind into a state of liberation.

If the motivation is good, one can also lie sometimes. But it should not become a habit and should not happen out of weakness but only to protect others.