Dalai Lama – a message of positivity at CBS Arena

Today the Dalai Lama dropped into Christchurch on his way to Australia for a planned visit.  He said it was meeting Hillary all those years ago that gave him the chance to become friends with many New Zealanders.  He said that when friends are in trouble, you try to help them and that is why he is here.

It could almost be said that it was a hard ask.  How do you comfort people who have lost so much?  But he spoke of using intelligence to find positivity.  He spoke of how the feeling of loss for those left behind is real and strong but that there was a need to hold onto something precious and somehow find a positive way forward. 

He said that often in these circumstances some people did not like the word death being used but that death this was not a taboo word.  He said that life has a start and an end and we all experience both.  It’s just that some experience the end earlier than others.  He said that we need to be aware of that and be prepared for it, and that if we did that we could enjoy our lives. 

He also spoke about how the earthquake was not caused but just happened and this was also part of life.  In terms of how to move forward positively, he urged everyone to think of others around them – around the world – and invoked the disasters in Japan and Haiti.

When asked what was the best way to rebuild Christchurch, he said “I don’t know, that is up to you, I’m leaving tomorrow!”  The crowd happily laughed.

The crowd was put at 5000 and it would have been all that.  It started with the Dalai Lama personally meeting and offering condolences to those who had lost someone.  And he then received a Maori welcome including a hongi. 

Before he spoke he was introduced by a Tibetan member of the local community.  

I expected the Dalai Lama to sit at his chair and talk but he came up to the lectern and stood and spoke for about 30 minutes.  Admittedly sometimes it was hard to follow some words but he did warm into it.  His language assistant did an amazing job, following every word and instantly offering the correct English word when needed.  We were then treated to a Buddhist Mantra which ended with “that’s the end just a short one!” The crowd was buoyed by these sporadic humorous interludes which underscored his message of positivity.

There was then a presentation of gifts from 2 schools, one local and one from Wanaka.  Aspiring School in Wanaka has been studying Tibet and presented a book of poems and some edible Lotus flowers.  In one of many spontaneous acts, the Dalai Lama opened the box and handfed the 2 pupils a petal each.  He then had one himself before hand feeding Bishop Victoria and the Iwi representative.  He then spoke at length to the pupils about how they had the role of taking the world into this century, that the time of us older people was over and of the responsibility they, as new guardians, held.

That was just so amazing to witness and once again summed up the reason he was here, to give us hope by looking positively to the future.  After presenting the pupils with a white scarf each it was time for the Hongi and the second girl was praised for being well endowed for this – she had a very large nose! A most interesting comment but given by the Dalai Lama in his spirit of positivity it should be a wonderful memory for the rest of this pupils life.

And for that the Dalai Lama’s gets a positive “like” from me.  It was an honour to be able to participate and directly receive his message of positivity for Christchurch.

Christchurch Earthquake - National Memorial Service

We didn’t go to the memorial service today.  Maybe we should have but we didn’t.

We don’t feel any better for not going….and we don’t know if we’d have felt any better if we’d gone.  Motel work did have an effect but not as much as the emotional effect.

Friday's paper - names of souls no longer with us & area many of them died shrouded in morning fog.

To be honest, we are emotionally quaked out.  In the space of just over 2 weeks we’ve had to deal with massive disasters in both NZ and Japan and it’s been hard.  

Just as we were getting over the Christchurch quake, the day we got out of cordon and curfew, and looking for some light relief we were hit by the Japan quake and subsequent tsunami destroying so much of what we knew, live on TV.  It’s been one of the darkest few weeks of our lives, and it still isn’t over.  

Two disasters hitting so much we know and love has been hard and I think wanting to get away from it all was the main reason we didn’t go to the memorial service today.

We stayed at home, watched on TV and cried.  It was beautiful to see so many referring to the disaster in Japan – we do know how they feel and what they are going through.

We did have our reasons for not going but they were negated by the raw power of the Memorial Service.  It was an amazing thing.  We thought it was too soon because some people’s names have not been yet announced but everyone gracefully spoke around that fact and included those poor souls.  We though it was too soon because the city is still a mess, but it was only a few hours.  We though it was too soon because we still don’t know the extent of the tragedy but it is a tragedy.  We thought it was too soon but it was an amazing tribute to an amazing, but munted city.

Christchurch Earthquake Memorial Service (photo by Bebe Frayle - thanks!) 

The words of the day, of course, belong to Prince William - 'my grandmother once said grief is the price we pay for love' and he added that “today we love and grieve.”

We love our families, friends and city, and today we grieved for our families, friends and city.  We also love our friends and places we know in Japan and today, one week from their disaster, we grieve for these friends and places. 

There is still so much to grieve for in both countries but somehow our love will keep us going.

Dealing with 2 disasters

There’s only 2 weeks and 2 days between 222 and 113, 2 dates which have had, and will continue to have for a long time to come, a great impact on our lives.

Our family is a Japanese Kiwi mix and to think that both our countries would be rocked by such similar disasters within such a short time is hard to comprehend.

We have spent 2 weeks dealing with the death and destruction in Christchurch, only to be shocked once again with the utter devastation and waste of human life in Japan.

It’s hard on the spirit to see such pain inflicted on people you know so well.  We live in Christchurch, Jeff lived in Japan for 19 years and Naomi is, well, Japanese.

In the motel rooms we have live NHK Premium feed and so we watched Japan’s North Eastern coast being systematically destroyed live on TV while many Japanese citizens were stranded without electricity.

We’re pleased to say that as far as we know, all our friends and family are ok.  But still, after 2 weeks of coping with a personal disaster, we find that once again dealing with the start of yet another disaster rather taxing.  We want to know what’s happening, and we want to be able to help where we can.  And at the same time we have to keep coping with our own disaster here in Christchurch.

After finding Twitter so useful in coping with the Christchurch quakes we once again relied on it for info re the Japan disaster.  To be honest we thought we’d find something organised but our first impression that this was not necessarily so.  There were at least 4 different hashtags being used to diffuse information and this of course meant that a large part of the 140 characters was taken up by hashtags.   After seeing the Christchurch example we had a go at narrowing down the options which will hopefully result in a more concentrated flow of information.  Twitter being twitter, it will be decided by popular vote but at least we helped give tweeps a choice. 

It has just been announced that Japan will face rolling power outages from tomorrow as it faces an energy supply crisis of only some 75% of what is needed.  The rolling 3 hour outages will occur between 6.30am and 10pm.  No doubt twitter will have a role in getting through this stage of the crisis, after all it’s helped us all through the 6 months of our crisis here in Christchurch.