VERY unZen monk behind the Prince’s bedside book
As he struggles to contort his legs into the Lotus position for a spot of meditation this week, Prince harry may well take as his literary guide eight steps To happiness.
During a visit to Birkenhead on Monday, this best-selling tome of religious teachings was presented to him by a Buddhist monk, Kelsang sonam, who was aware of the Prince’s burgeoning interest in the life-enhancing practice of meditation.
The book ‘charts a complete path of spiritual development...and explains how to transform all of life’s difficulties into truly liberating experiences’.
Readers are urged to free their minds of negativity and accumulate cosmic merit by performing good deeds.
so far, so good. What could be more innocuous than that title and who — especially a new husband and fatherto-be — doesn’t aspire to happiness?
Indeed, the lessons in the 360-page book promote the practical wisdom that the Queen, as head of the Church of england, would surely endorse.
Learn to cherish others, exercise compassion, accept defeat gracefully, have faith, take joy in the good fortune of friends, and ‘offer victory’ to your enemies — what Christians would call ‘turning the other cheek’. But a word of warning to harry. he’d be forgiven for imagining that these were the teachings of a living saint, a man whose wisdom was hardwon during decades of self-denial.
Well, not quite. The author of the book, Kelsang Gyatso, is a controversial self-styled ‘geshe’ (senior monk) — literally, a ‘virtuous friend’ — who preaches his own brand of Buddhism known as Kadampa. And this virtuous friend has been embroiled in political wrangles, character assassination and power struggles for all his adult life.
Born in Tibet but a naturalised British citizen, he was last heard of five years ago living in London, although his British base was a Victorian stately home, Ashe hall in Derbyshire. Others have said he was in Texas and he would now be 87 if still alive.
According to his organisation’s website, he has set up more than 1,000 study centres globally, where disciples learn to be happy and to cherish others — and he ‘demonstrates these qualities perfectly in his own life’. Modesty, apparently, is not prized as a virtue. Certainly, the Dalai Lama, the leader of the world’s Buddhists, has little time for Gyatso and does not regard him as a ‘virtuous friend’. The title ‘geshe’ is unwarranted, he said in 2015, adding: ‘he has now taken against me, his own teacher. Apparently he insists that his own students only follow him.’
Gyatso has shown what he thinks of the Dalai Lama. Back in the Nineties, he organised two years of vigorous demonstrations in Britain and elsewhere, with what one observer alleged was an ‘aggressive international smear campaign’ to undermine the Dalai Lama — a Nobel Peace laureate renowned as a sweet-natured man — although Gyatso later claimed that ‘demonstrating was loving him’.
This was far from Gyatso’s first battle with mainstream Buddhism.
He ARRIVeD in Britain in 1977 when invited to lecture at Ashe hall, then a quiet Buddhist retreat. Years of infighting followed, and when the dust settled, Ashe hall was the hQ for Kadampa, which some critics have, rightly or wrongly, likened to a cult.
Kadampa is marketed as ‘modern Buddhism’, but it is telling that on the flyleaf of his book, eight steps To happiness, all 22 of the books recommended for further study are by himself.
As for the central tenet promoted in the book, Gysato says: ‘Throughout my life I will abandon killing, stealing, lying or cheating, sexual activity, taking intoxicants and engaging in meaningless activities.’
Of course, Prince harry wouldn’t lie or cheat, much less steal. such virtue doesn’t need such enlightenment, Buddhist or otherwise. And under the gentle guidance of his part-time vegan wife, he has been strenuously resisting the urge to kill things.
But what about the monk’s strictures against ‘engaging in meaningless activities’? There are critics who might argue that some elements of harry’s post-military life could be summed up by that humourless phrase: another ribbon-cutting, anyone?
seriously, the Prince is unlikely to find the ‘steps to happiness’ by following in the footsteps of this particular divisive and egotistical monk.