This month (April 2004) we talk to Michael Stiles.

Michael is an artist who has been attending Drolma Center in Fort Lauderdale, since its inception in 2000.

When were you first attracted to Buddhism?

Buddhism has 'interested' me since I was a teenager, but my involvement only began in the 90's, while I was living in Toronto. At first I just wanted to learn how to meditate, so I joined a gay Buddhist fellowship group. Among its members were several people who were also active in Kadampa Buddhism (NKT) and in time I started going to their meetings, too.

What made you come to this Buddhist Center?

My teachers at Chandrakirti (the NKT center in Toronto) told me that although I was moving to Florida, I was really very lucky since it might give me the opportunity to study with some people there named "Nick and Lucy". . . I thought they were just being nice.

Were you apprehensive about coming? What did you expect?

I was apprehensive simply because I thought I couldn't possibly find a Sangha and teachers as wonderful as the ones I was leaving behind. Little did I know.

What were your first impressions when you arrived?

The Chandrakirti Center was in a great old Victorian house, with a lovely meditation room (gompa), and half-a-dozen monks in residence -- so I really didn't know what was going on when the Fort Lauderdale address turned out to be a Unitarian Church! By the end of the first evening, however, it was clear to me that whatever it lacked in statuary was more than made up for in charisma!

What do you like best about coming here?

The esprit de corps. Buddhism really does bring out the best in people, and your fellow meditators are the first to enjoy the improvement.

How would you explain the benefits of meditation to someone new?

Your attention is your life. Gain even a little control over your attention and you start to notice that you really haven't been living your life all these years -- it's been living you! For me, that realization brought an instant respect: I looked at a picture of Buddha on the cover of an art history book, and thanked him for the incredible gift!

How has what you have learned here made a difference in your everyday work and home life?

For one thing, my partner and I are celebrating our 15th anniversary this month; the pre-Buddhist me could never possibly have sustained that long a relationship. I used to spend so much time being worried about the fact that I was unhappy (still unhappy), and scared that it would never really change. Now, all of that is gone. I'm still unhappy sometimes because I'm still wrestling with the Eight Worldly Concerns (being overly concerned about enjoying gain, pleasure, praise, & fame, and overly concerned about avoiding loss, pain, blame, & shame), but the abyss I used to fall into -- feeling that I just fundamentally didn't know how to live my life -- that's gone.

What do you feel that Buddhism can offer to the world today?

I think the two answers above petty much say it. I think a lot of people, whole societies maybe, are primarily driven by worry and fear. We desperately try to control everything we can, from interest rates to foot odor, but never realize that what we need to control most is simply our own minds.

What is your favorite Kadampa Buddhist quotation?

"Always rely on a happy mind alone," is a Dharma verse that helps me almost every day. It pops into my mind whenever I start to fight with something. If I really start to lose it, I even hear the words in my fellow Drolma Center Sangha member Jack Schneider's voice. Then I know I'm in trouble!

What is your favorite Dharma movie?

Chocolat was truly a great Dharma film disguised as a silly little comedy. Juliet Binoche played a chocolate-maker who, with her little daughter, moves to a remote French village. The villagers are hostile to strangers anyway, but when they discover that she was never married, and isn't even Christian, they insist that she go. Of course she doesn't; she's a high Bodhisattva and sees only the absolute best in everyone. This isn't a virtue she's struggling to learn, she's got it like a laser, and her enemies are powerless before her-powerless even to sustain their ill-will. One by one they're each simply overwhelmed with love for her. Why? Because each of them would far rather be the person she sees in them, than the person they see each morning in the mirror. It's brilliant. In her company they finally discover what it is to actually 'grow up' instead of just growing old. I'd never thought much of Juliet Binoche before, but in this film she's simply amazing.

What is you favorite book by Geshe Kelsang?

Maybe Guide to Dakini Land, but I think the real answer is "whichever one I'm (re)reading at the moment." The first time I opened a book of Geshe-la's I was a bit daunted, as it seemed so detailed. It wasn't at all like Allan Watts or Surya Das or Chogyam Trunkpa, who talked about the ambiguities of life in the modern world. But now, I often look down at one of Geshe-la's books in my hands and feel such deep appreciation at my good fortune. Geshe-la's books are so much bigger than the sum of their words -- that's perhaps a silly way to say it, but it has become so clear to me that this is the work of a super-human mind. And then you notice that there are nineteen of them! How could this not be the product of miracle powers?

With which historical Kadampa Buddhist practitioner do you most identify, and why?

"Identify" may not be the right word, but I'm really fascinated by Marpa and all his achievements. He was an amazing scholar and a realized Tantric Adept, yet he was also a married man with ten children, and actively engaged in the secular world.

What aspect of the Bodhisattva's way of life most inspires you?

I'm so preoccupied moment-to-moment with my own likes and dislikes, and such a prisoner of the fear of discomfort that even most worldly attainments are beyond my grasp. Bodhisattvas are free of themselves to the point that they can be completely absorbed in the concerns of others. I marvel at that.

What's the first thing you're going to do when you become a Buddha?

Zero-sum thinking -- the notion that one person's gain is necessarily another person's loss -- makes for many of the problems in the world today. If there were some way to dispel that idea in worldly thinking, remove it from 'conventional wisdom,' I think it would be a big step in dismantling our ordinary problem-filled world (otherwise known as samsara).