If We Can Land on the Moon, We Can Overcome Global Poverty/ I am the Dalai Lamas Stray Cat

“Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Barack Obama

I am soon going to shoot a video and photo shoot where I sit on a chair on the beach with the ocean behind me dressed as an astronaut and reading a book of drawings titled, I am the Dalia Lamas Stray Cat I made of original colour drawings on water colour paper. This is a follow on from the photo/ video shoot where I dressed as Charlie Chaplin on a chair on the beach reading a book of drawings about the Obama family.

The book is still at the binder and the space suit came in a box in the mail last Thursday but it was without a helmet so I think I might have to fork out more for a helmet. The book is all about the Dalai Lamas compassionate Buddhist philosophy and how that has shaped my mind set particularly my responsibility as a free individual to help the poor in both developing and first world countries. However, I feel trying to take on such a responsibility on my own is way too much for me, but I have faith we can achieve it if we band together as a global community.

“There can be no peace as long as there is grinding poverty, social injustice, inequality, oppression, environmental degradation, and as long as the weak and small continue to be trodden by the mighty and powerful.”

Dalai Lama

I think the Dalai Lama has a beautiful altruistic philosophy both to all humans from lots of different walks of like, different religions and countries as well as toward all animals and plants in the natural world.

Wherever it occurs, poverty is a significant contributor to social disharmony, ill health, suffering and armed conflict. If we continue along our present path, the situation could become irreparable. This constantly increasing gap between the haves and halve not’s, creates suffering for everyone.”

Dalai Lama

The title of the beach video/photo: I am the Dalai Lamas Stray Cat shoot is reminiscent of the parable from the bible about the prodigal son where the father loved the prodigal son most as he came back into the fold of his father after being lost, and I feel this has metaphorically happened with me and the Dalai Lama even though I have never met him in person.

“Resentment and gratitude cannot coexist since resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift. My resentment tells me that I don’t receive what I deserve. It always manifests itself in envy.” 
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming