Volume 49. March 13, 2024
Sometimes you get the bear. Sometimes the bear gets you.
On February 16, 2024, the bear got Alexi Navalny. After poking Putin for years, Russia’s most prominent dissident died while jailed in a penal colony near the Arctic Circle. He was 47.
History will remember him for one thing: Courage.
His ability to face fear put the Russian bear to shame.
After surviving a state-sponsored poisoning, Navalny could have remained a free man, alive and well with his wife and children in Germany. But he got on a plane and returned to Russia. He knew he was going to die there, but he returned anyway.
Like Jesus Christ or Martin Luther King Jr before him, he went to his own death willingly, for a higher purpose. He died so that his fellow brothers and sisters could live — live a better life.
In Buddhist terms, Navalny roared the Lion’s Roar.
On the morning of his enlightenment, the Buddha made the ultimate sacrifice. He roared the Lion’s Roar. He gave up his ego.
He declared the doctrine of an-atman. There is no permanent self.
The Lion’s Roar is a victory over death. The Buddha, through his Great Awakening, broke the hold death has on us. The Lion’s Roar is entering a state of egoless-ness.
The great question all humans face is: What do you identify yourself with? Your puny little ego or the brilliance of eternity?
When faced with death, when all else has failed us — doctors, family, friends, technology — we humans still cling to our egos.
How can I lose my sense of self? It created the person I am!
My ego will save me!
Buddhism says, let it go. That’s not the real you.
You can’t bring an ego into nirvana.
Vladimir Putin and Alexi Navalny are a study in contrasts.
One crushes freedom. The other cherished it.
One wants freedom for himself. The other wanted it for everyone.
One clings to his ego. The other let it go.
It takes courage to let life go. Bravery is part of the spiritual path.
The hallmark of a person who can roar the Lion’s Roar is courage. That person can act in the world but is no longer of the world.
An enlightened person knows the false self is karma enfleshed, while the true self is the No-Self.
The Lion’s Roar reigns supreme. It silences the howls and growls of lesser creatures. When a lion roars, other beasts listen.
Putin may have gotten Navalny today, but the human cry for freedom is irrepressible. Someday, it will get the Russian bear.
The Buddha Times 