Dr. Lewis Lancaster Commencement Speech

Dr. Lewis Lancaster is Emeritus Professor of the Department of East Asian Languages at the University of California, Berkeley, and has served as President, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies, and Chair of the dissertation committee at University of the West since 1992.

The Department of Buddhist Chaplaincy at University of the West celebrated its senior class on Wednesday, May 27, 2020. The occasion took place on Zoom, where many activities have found a home at since our shelter in place began. The ceremony was particularly memorable with speeches by Roshi Joan Halifax and Dr. Lewis Lancaster, both whom generously offered encouragement and wisdom for those who are forging a path of service.

The following transcript is from Dr. Lancaster’s speech:

Commencement is usually a time when older people get to tell graduates about how life works, what they are to expect, and a list of “best practices” for the future.  This year is different.  When the pandemic shut down activities and our crowded freeways became empty highways, and we had days of being isolated from family and friends, and ZOOM and Skype became our major virtual connections with the world, and we watched in anxiousness as death and illness struck in every corner of the world, it has left us with a major unanswered question….what is the world like that we are beginning to experience as the door once again is opening.  It is not the same as the one we had last year.  Therefore, as an elderly man I join with you in facing the unknown where long held patterns of living and action are no longer guaranteed.  This year, young and old, we are partners in this journey into a new experience.  We are all well aware that Buddhism teaches that everything changes.  But sometimes we have to remind ourselves that while things change, it does not mean that things disappear…they are just different. The loss of the world as we had come to know it is frightening and people are in a form of grief. There are expressions of anger and rage and the inclination to strike out and forcefully try to recover the past.

Now comes the larger issue, what does Buddhism say about living with the change?  The differences that we face are not mere intellectual constructs, they are confrontational and immediate.  Buddhist teaching and practice puts forward the need to be mindful and aware and awake and present in every moment.  When life was not so challenging, it was possible to think of this mindfulness and awareness as something nice to enhance our living experience.  Today, mindfulness of our world is not just enhancement, it has become a necessary aspect of our survival.  We are challenged not to just live in the future but in one sense we must save the future, whether it is a fragile environment for our very life or the survival during periodic appearances of novel microbes that technology of travel can soon spread throughout the earth. As you go out to serve as chaplains, be aware that Buddhist practice and thought have the potential to focus attention on human experience and the human karmic acts that have their origin in those moments of experience.   If we are to survive and thrive, it is this teaching from the distant past first given to listeners under the trees in the Gangetic basin, that may well be our best hope to deal effectively with each moment of our future. Being “awake” to the truth and reality of our situation was the goal of the Buddha who had the insight that while “There is Suffering and Dissatisfaction”, there is also a Way of living that allows us to express wisdom and compassion.  We are all together in this new world.  My wish for all of us young and old, is the ability to bring this wisdom and compassion to sentient beings struggling to understand what is happening around them.