The Dalai Lama in Chicago, May 6, 2007

Since His Holiness's entire address will be available by archive at lamrim.com, I won't type my notes in their entirety here. But here are a few things that stood out for me:

What is Buddhism?

"What is Buddhism? In order to know what Buddhism is I think it is important to know what the word Buddha means. In Pali, 'Buddha' means two things: 1) cleansing or purification, 2) perfection of enlightened qualities. Baiscally, the potential possibility--every sentient being has that same potential. We all possess the quality to be aware and know--the potential for enlightenment is already there. This eans that the facility to be aware and know is in all of us, the perfection of that is Buddhahood."

On knowledge, ignorance, and Tenzin Gyatso:

So knowledge and ignorance are contrdictory at some level like darkness and light. The training of the mind is a way to get a certain mental quality we want--make efforts to increase that. Then the opposite is reduced. For example, take compassion. I analyze, use reason, and develop conviction about compassion and familiarize myself with that. As compassion is increased, anger and hatred are reduced. Sometimes anger and hatred are together, but as you progress, it can become rare. That is basically the Buddhist system--the law of opposing forces. So our emotions, now, the negative emotions such as anger and hatred are actually much based on projection. When we develop anger, when we are angry, the negativeness is 90 percent our own mental projection. That is why in Buddhist texts much of our affliction results entirely from false projects of our mind. Some kind of ignorance: There are two kinds: 1) conventional, and from that ignorance comes 2) another kind of ignorance, which grasps things as though they have objective existence. The antidote is wisdom--the insight that such things do not possess inherent existence. Emptiness is the absence of independent existence. Emptiness is the absence of independent existence--everything, when we pinpoint it. For example, the human being named Tenzin Gyatso surely exists and is alive here on this seat. The Dalai Lama is speaking; it is true. Further, your minds see Tenzin Gyatso's body, hear his voice. Through is speech and gestures, you may see his mind. It is impossible to judge the whole complex mind through his speech. But according to words and his smile, you can tell his mind is OK. He is not angry. Tenzin Gyatso's body speech and mind--now where is Tenzin Gyatso? There is nothing where you can point your finger and say, Tenzin Gyatso."

This made the crowd laugh and everyone was really engaged at this point.