Sleepwalking with the Dalai Lama


Vic Mansfield


Although I normally teach physics and astronomy courses, for approximately two decades, as part of Colgate University’s Liberal Arts Curriculum, I have been teaching a course on Tibetan culture and history with a strong emphasis on Tibetan Buddhism. I also splice some Jungian ideas into that course. I was teaching it in the fall of 2003 when the Dalai Lama came to New York City for several days of teaching and a public talk in Central Park. I arranged to take the class and a few students from previous classes to see him. We left Colgate at 5:00 AM on Sunday, September 21, 2003.

One more piece of background information. Later that fall, I was scheduled to give a talk on my recent book, Head and Heart: A Personal Exploration of Science and the Sacred to the Colgate Science Colloquium. Rather than hiding my interests in such things as Buddhism and Jung, which I have been doing for decades at Colgate, I planned to present a real sense of the book’s contents. I was anxious about it because it all seemed so personal and easily misunderstood with me appearing like a lunatic rather than a respected scientist. Nevertheless, I decided not to give a “safe,” scientifically acceptable talk, but rather divulge my deeper commitments.

Because I invariably get a significant spiritual boost from seeing the Dalai Lama, I always try to prepare myself for the occasion by paying extra attention to my practice. I was thus deeply distressed when I awoke at 3:00 A.M. on the morning we were to visit him with the following dream:

I am to give a lecture on my new book at Cornell University [where I received my Ph.D.]. I am very concerned that the material I want to present has too much Jung and related material in it, that it will not be well received by these academic scientists, that it is inappropriate, and that I might even be met with scorn. The audience for the talk is large but the lecture will be outdoors in a place that puts me a very long distance away from the audience. I am deeply concerned that I will not be able to reach them in either a physical or psychological sense. Suddenly, I am told that the lecture will occur at another place. This new place is better because I am a little closer to the audience, but I am still very apprehensive for the same reasons. Before I am settled, about a half dozen people tell me to come with them because the lecture is actually in yet another place. They lead me to a tiny room with glass walls. I am to give the talk to this little group. My former thesis and postdoctoral advisor, Ed Salpeter, is among them. In addition to being apprehensive about the reception of the talk, I am also depressed to see how few people are interested in hearing it. I feel very exposed in this glass room and anxious about Ed being there.

This vivid dream leaves me with a terrible feeling—a very bad way to start a trip to see His Holiness. I meditate for a half an hour or so to regain my center and dissipate the unpleasant feelings. I have no idea what to make of the dream nor with Ed's appearance in it. Despite my tremendous appreciation for Ed as a truly great scientist and a kind man, I was always afraid of him. Many of his former students agree with me that, despite his kindness, his brilliance is terrifying. I sent him a copy of my most recent book, since I have a story about him in there, but he never acknowledged getting the book. I guessed he thought I was so far into the lunatic fringe that he did not want to reply. I learned from meeting him in the local airport about a year earlier that his wife of 40 years just suddenly died and he recently become involved with another woman who has a connection to Tibetan Buddhism. His presence in the little audience in the dream significantly added to my sense of dread. Is the dream just expressing my anxiety about the Colgate Science Colloquium lecture? That unconvincing interpretation tells me nothing new and thus, according to Jung’s understanding of dreams, implies the dream has no purpose.

At 5:00 AM, 45 sleepy students crowd into the bus. It is a five-hour bus ride to New York City so I want to make constructive use of that time. I plan to use the microphone on the bus to lead two writing exercises—after the sun is well up and I have distributed the food prepared for the trip. To use the microphone, I have to sit in the front seat, very close to the huge window that makes up the front of the bus. I notice that the bus driver has a seat belt, but none of the passenger seats has any. In an accident, I could be flung right through that big piece of glass. Thinking about this while being surrounded on three sides by glass suddenly reminds me of my unpleasant dream of lecturing in a tiny glass room.

The second exercise I have the students do is to write down a serious question that they might have about their individuation, although I do not use that term. I tell them that many people, both Tibetan and western, believe that just being in the Dalai Lama's presence can provoke answers to their questions, can open a door to some higher intelligence within us that can help. It is not that the Dalai Lama answers the question willfully or directly, but his presence can provoke an answer. I encourage them to stay alert for that possibility. I am not sure the students actually understand what I am saying, but it is worth a try. I do not have a question.

It is an extraordinarily beautiful day in Central Park, full of sun, mild temperatures, and 65,000 people who come to see His Holiness. We arrive there early enough to get up close. Monks are chanting, flowers are everywhere, and the huge crowd is friendly. I am so delighted with the whole thing, especially how the talk connects with the students. It is the best that I can do for them.

Much as I love students, I want to slip away from them and bask in the afterglow of the Dalai Lama’s presence. Therefore, I tell them that everybody is on their own. I jokingly say, “Just get to the bus by 6:00 PM and only call my cell phone if you are in jail or the hospital.” I am in a lovely mood and want to walk in the brilliant sunshine and savor the moment. I have no agenda for nearly four hours (an unfamiliar state!) so I wander aimlessly. When I come to an intersection, I go in the first direction for which the light says, "Walk." Let nature take me where she will. Manhattan has never been so luminous.

After about a half an hour of this blissful random walk somewhere in Manhattan, I suddenly come up behind Ed Salpeter! I say, "Is that Ed Salpeter?" He turns and says, "There is the real Vic Mansfield." He explains how he saw somebody he thought was me a week earlier, pointed me out to his partner, and then found it was actually somebody else who was a graduate student in my era. Ed is on his way to Austria and has been one of the 65,000 people who saw the Dalai Lama. Apparently, his partner brought him there. I tell them how I am taking Colgate students to see the Dalai Lama. Ed warmly invites me to stop at his house whenever I am in Ithaca for a meal and conversation. I blurt out that he was in a dream of mine last night but I have no sense of the meaning of it all. I am embarrassed by my revelation.

I was in a lovely mood before seeing Ed, but now I am in a state of deep gratitude and joy for the astonishing interconnected mystery of the universe. I do not understand what is going on, but clearly, something of importance is unfolding. I wander back into Central Park, find a grassy spot under a giant oak tree, and lay on my back staring up into the canopy.

As the students and I leave Manhattan in our bus, the traffic halts in a dense gridlock. To make constructive use of our time, I take the microphone and ask the students if they had any answers to the questions they had written down. I knew the exercise is advanced for them and do not expect much. Nobody answers. I tell them that I am giving a talk at Colgate early in November and am apprehensive about it. I briefly tell them about the dream and the meeting with Ed. Although I do not know what is going on, this kind of experience is what I was referring to on the way down. At that very moment, a big caravan of police escorts with flashing lights and blaring sirens makes the great ocean of traffic part so that a limousine can pass our bus on its left side. It is the Dalai Lama and his entourage! The students all crowd to the left side of the bus to see the Dalai Lama gazing toward the bus out of the passenger side of his limousine. The timing is striking and I am amazed that, like a sleepwalker, I had set the stage for my experience with the writing exercise.

Still filled with wonder at it all, I settle down for a long bus ride. I fish around in my briefcase for a manuscript sent to me in mid summer by a friend. It has been getting dogged eared in my briefcase for at least six weeks, because I never seem to find time to read it. As the bus rolls northward on the beautiful evening, I am stunned to find that the paper, whose reading has been delayed until this moment, discusses the physicist Wolfgang Pauli’s reluctance to acknowledge his long and intimate association with Jung. Pauli also feared ridicule from his scientific colleagues because of his involvement with Jung’s ideas and his critical role in helping Jung develop his synchronicity idea. I am both comforted and taken aback to learn that even Pauli, a daring titan in physics, so feared the possible scorn of his scientific colleagues that he would hide that important part of himself.


--------------------


Although this event cries out for an extended discussion focusing on its meaning, I must leave it with several questions. What role do these mysterious synchronicity experiences play in our individuation and our spiritual life? What implications do they have for our worldview? Although they are generally spontaneous occurrences, can we enhance our receptivity to them? I have written a book on synchronicity and explored it in many published articles that you can read on my website at http://www.lightlink.com/vic.


Although I normally teach physics and astronomy courses, for approximately two decades, as part of Colgate University’s Liberal Arts Curriculum, I have been teaching a course on Tibetan culture and history with a strong emphasis on Tibetan Buddhism. I also splice some Jungian ideas into that course. I was teaching it in the fall of 2003 when the Dalai Lama came to New York City for several days of teaching and a public talk in Central Park. I arranged to take the class and a few students from previous classes to see him. We left Colgate at 5:00 AM on Sunday, September 21, 2003.

One more piece of background information. Later that fall, I was scheduled to give a talk on my recent book, Head and Heart: A Personal Exploration of Science and the Sacred to the Colgate Science Colloquium. Rather than hiding my interests in such things as Buddhism and Jung, which I have been doing for decades at Colgate, I planned to present a real sense of the book’s contents. I was anxious about it because it all seemed so personal and easily misunderstood with me appearing like a lunatic rather than a respected scientist. Nevertheless, I decided not to give a “safe,” scientifically acceptable talk, but rather divulge my deeper commitments.

Because I invariably get a significant spiritual boost from seeing the Dalai Lama, I always try to prepare myself for the occasion by paying extra attention to my practice. I was thus deeply distressed when I awoke at 3:00 A.M. on the morning we were to visit him with the following dream:

I am to give a lecture on my new book at Cornell University [where I received my Ph.D.]. I am very concerned that the material I want to present has too much Jung and related material in it, that it will not be well received by these academic scientists, that it is inappropriate, and that I might even be met with scorn. The audience for the talk is large but the lecture will be outdoors in a place that puts me a very long distance away from the audience. I am deeply concerned that I will not be able to reach them in either a physical or psychological sense. Suddenly, I am told that the lecture will occur at another place. This new place is better because I am a little closer to the audience, but I am still very apprehensive for the same reasons. Before I am settled, about a half dozen people tell me to come with them because the lecture is actually in yet another place. They lead me to a tiny room with glass walls. I am to give the talk to this little group. My former thesis and postdoctoral advisor, Ed Salpeter, is among them. In addition to being apprehensive about the reception of the talk, I am also depressed to see how few people are interested in hearing it. I feel very exposed in this glass room and anxious about Ed being there.

This vivid dream leaves me with a terrible feeling—a very bad way to start a trip to see His Holiness. I meditate for a half an hour or so to regain my center and dissipate the unpleasant feelings. I have no idea what to make of the dream nor with Ed's appearance in it. Despite my tremendous appreciation for Ed as a truly great scientist and a kind man, I was always afraid of him. Many of his former students agree with me that, despite his kindness, his brilliance is terrifying. I sent him a copy of my most recent book, since I have a story about him in there, but he never acknowledged getting the book. I guessed he thought I was so far into the lunatic fringe that he did not want to reply. I learned from meeting him in the local airport about a year earlier that his wife of 40 years just suddenly died and he recently become involved with another woman who has a connection to Tibetan Buddhism. His presence in the little audience in the dream significantly added to my sense of dread. Is the dream just expressing my anxiety about the Colgate Science Colloquium lecture? That unconvincing interpretation tells me nothing new and thus, according to Jung’s understanding of dreams, implies the dream has no purpose.

At 5:00 AM, 45 sleepy students crowd into the bus. It is a five-hour bus ride to New York City so I want to make constructive use of that time. I plan to use the microphone on the bus to lead two writing exercises—after the sun is well up and I have distributed the food prepared for the trip. To use the microphone, I have to sit in the front seat, very close to the huge window that makes up the front of the bus. I notice that the bus driver has a seat belt, but none of the passenger seats has any. In an accident, I could be flung right through that big piece of glass. Thinking about this while being surrounded on three sides by glass suddenly reminds me of my unpleasant dream of lecturing in a tiny glass room.

The second exercise I have the students do is to write down a serious question that they might have about their individuation, although I do not use that term. I tell them that many people, both Tibetan and western, believe that just being in the Dalai Lama's presence can provoke answers to their questions, can open a door to some higher intelligence within us that can help. It is not that the Dalai Lama answers the question willfully or directly, but his presence can provoke an answer. I encourage them to stay alert for that possibility. I am not sure the students actually understand what I am saying, but it is worth a try. I do not have a question.

It is an extraordinarily beautiful day in Central Park, full of sun, mild temperatures, and 65,000 people who come to see His Holiness. We arrive there early enough to get up close. Monks are chanting, flowers are everywhere, and the huge crowd is friendly. I am so delighted with the whole thing, especially how the talk connects with the students. It is the best that I can do for them.

Much as I love students, I want to slip away from them and bask in the afterglow of the Dalai Lama’s presence. Therefore, I tell them that everybody is on their own. I jokingly say, “Just get to the bus by 6:00 PM and only call my cell phone if you are in jail or the hospital.” I am in a lovely mood and want to walk in the brilliant sunshine and savor the moment. I have no agenda for nearly four hours (an unfamiliar state!) so I wander aimlessly. When I come to an intersection, I go in the first direction for which the light says, "Walk." Let nature take me where she will. Manhattan has never been so luminous.

After about a half an hour of this blissful random walk somewhere in Manhattan, I suddenly come up behind Ed Salpeter! I say, "Is that Ed Salpeter?" He turns and says, "There is the real Vic Mansfield." He explains how he saw somebody he thought was me a week earlier, pointed me out to his partner, and then found it was actually somebody else who was a graduate student in my era. Ed is on his way to Austria and has been one of the 65,000 people who saw the Dalai Lama. Apparently, his partner brought him there. I tell them how I am taking Colgate students to see the Dalai Lama. Ed warmly invites me to stop at his house whenever I am in Ithaca for a meal and conversation. I blurt out that he was in a dream of mine last night but I have no sense of the meaning of it all. I am embarrassed by my revelation.

I was in a lovely mood before seeing Ed, but now I am in a state of deep gratitude and joy for the astonishing interconnected mystery of the universe. I do not understand what is going on, but clearly, something of importance is unfolding. I wander back into Central Park, find a grassy spot under a giant oak tree, and lay on my back staring up into the canopy.

As the students and I leave Manhattan in our bus, the traffic halts in a dense gridlock. To make constructive use of our time, I take the microphone and ask the students if they had any answers to the questions they had written down. I knew the exercise is advanced for them and do not expect much. Nobody answers. I tell them that I am giving a talk at Colgate early in November and am apprehensive about it. I briefly tell them about the dream and the meeting with Ed. Although I do not know what is going on, this kind of experience is what I was referring to on the way down. At that very moment, a big caravan of police escorts with flashing lights and blaring sirens makes the great ocean of traffic part so that a limousine can pass our bus on its left side. It is the Dalai Lama and his entourage! The students all crowd to the left side of the bus to see the Dalai Lama gazing toward the bus out of the passenger side of his limousine. The timing is striking and I am amazed that, like a sleepwalker, I had set the stage for my experience with the writing exercise.

Still filled with wonder at it all, I settle down for a long bus ride. I fish around in my briefcase for a manuscript sent to me in mid summer by a friend. It has been getting dogged eared in my briefcase for at least six weeks, because I never seem to find time to read it. As the bus rolls northward on the beautiful evening, I am stunned to find that the paper, whose reading has been delayed until this moment, discusses the physicist Wolfgang Pauli’s reluctance to acknowledge his long and intimate association with Jung. Pauli also feared ridicule from his scientific colleagues because of his involvement with Jung’s ideas and his critical role in helping Jung develop his synchronicity idea. I am both comforted and taken aback to learn that even Pauli, a daring titan in physics, so feared the possible scorn of his scientific colleagues that he would hide that important part of himself.


--------------------


Although this event cries out for an extended discussion focusing on its meaning, I must leave it with several questions. What role do these mysterious synchronicity experiences play in our individuation and our spiritual life? What implications do they have for our worldview? Although they are generally spontaneous occurrences, can we enhance our receptivity to them? I have written a book on synchronicity and explored it in many published articles that you can read on my website at http://www.lightlink.com/vic.