Again, that word place. And being in that place is what makes it sacred. Now, that opens up on my final thought. And those of you who are into Zen will know this very well, that as we approach the enlightenment now i'm very gingery about using that word and i think i'm going to pause there i hadn't planned to but i recently got word from his holiness the dalai lama and someone had been with him a couple of months ago and finding out that he was, that person, visitor, was from the Bay Area, he said, well, please go to see Houston Smith and give him my regard.

[01:14]

Well, he was in my living room, my cemetery, and I asked him about his holiness and what was going on. And he said a few things, but the one that I'm going to relate to you is, he said, the burdens of my people are so heavy that I can only meditate two hours a day. I would like to become enlightened before I drop this body. on the side. All Tibetans think he's an incarnation already, but that's not internally by him. I would like to get be enlightened before I drop this body. But then my emissary said, he lowered his eyes and said softly, almost to himself,

[02:25]

Well, maybe enlightenment isn't very important after all. You know, there you get the measure, the stature of the man. What is important is coping with the problems of his people. That's important. Personal enlightenment, not at all. I come to these two quotes that all familiar with Buddhism will remember. I'll preface by saying the closer, and that's all I'm going to say incrementally, the more we see the sacredness of everything. And the first quote is... This ground upon which I stand is the very promised land, and this body is the body of the Buddha.

[03:42]

The second quote is snow falling, flake by flake. Each flake lands in its own proper place. Those are profound, and I just invite you to let the meaning of those two statements sink in to you. And now I'm going to ask Phil Cousineau to come up here and dialogue with me, for he knows as much about this as I do. So, thanks. Phil has worked with Native Americans.

[04:48]

He's made films on them, written on them, And I'm going to invite you, Phil. I saw you taking a note or two. If what I said sparked any thoughts about the Native American, I hope you will supplement what I said. Good evening, everyone. Houston, it's very gracious for you to ask me up to share the stage with you. As wise as you have been already this evening, you've also been very modest about your work with Native people. So maybe I can help fill the audience in a bit. Besides teaching and writing, completely rewriting his masterpiece, The Religions of Man, into what we now have as the world's religions, which includes a final chapter on the primal religions, Houston has also dedicated a great deal of time and heart and energy to working with me and our film partner, Gary Rine, just passed away, on a series of films on Native American issues.

[06:05]

The first one was completed in 1990 called Wiping the Tears of Seven Generations about the Bigfoot ride. It was an old Lakota Sioux purification ritual that which allows you to get through personal or collective trauma by wiping the tears of the grief away. And that film was only out for a year when Indian country, it's often called Indian country, was dumbfounded by a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which forbade the use of peyote. in sacred ceremonies, a religion that Houston himself has said is possibly as old as 10,000 years. Well, a man named Ruben Snake, who Houston has described as the American Indian Dalai Lama, decided that with a $10,000 budget on the Winnebago reservation, he was going to go after the U.S.

[07:07]

Supreme Court. and overturn that decision. And so he had two means of going about this. One was to contact Houston Smith to ask him to come in as an ally, to be able to go to the U.S. courts and say, American Indian religions, primal religions, are on a par with the historical religions. It's one thing for the natives to say that. It was another to have Houston with his credentials to come up and say that. And the second stroke of genius was to say the courts and the U.S. public has to have something imagistic. It needs a film, a movie to show the story of this prodigious faith, the history of the religion. So... They called Houston and I and Gary in for a meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1992. And we pitched a film that we would all do together.

[08:09]

About 20 minutes. We just told how we would interview so-and-so. We would film some reenactments of ceremonies. And it was the fastest pitch ever. that I've ever done in my film career, we had the whole thing funded in 20 minutes. Because the Native people at this point were so exercised about going forth with this that we had very quickly the support not only of Indian country, but of all of the other major faiths who came in lockstep behind us. And the anecdote that I want to pass on to you is that when we went down into the mountains of Mexico, old Mexico, 25 different tribes from Canada to Central America came in to perform four straight nights of peyote ceremonies for us so that we would get them the right film footage, that I as a screenwriter would write the proper language, that Houston would be inspired in our interviews with him to say things that would help sway the opinion.

[09:20]

of the courts. It was a deeply moving period of our life. And I'm here to tell you that Houston, although he was ill at the time, sat up for 12 hours each night, ramrod stiff in the middle of these amazing ceremonies as the top of the teepee was coming off, offering up his suffering so that we might make a movie that made a difference. It was very impressive for the native people to see this dedication. So we got our first footage there, we filmed for another year, and we took... the film in three different versions to Washington. So for any storytellers or political activists in the audience, here's a lesson for you. The final film was actually 60 minutes for television and for movie theaters. We took that version, but we didn't think anybody in Congress would actually sit through an hour. So we had a 30-minute version of the film. So when we were told, we have no time for you, we're very interested in helping, but we don't have time, well, we have a 30-minute version.

[10:24]

No one had time for that. But they did have time for an eight-minute version. The greatest hits of the commentary of Ruben Snake and Houston Smith and all. So enough people in Congress actually watched our film and then heard testimony from leading Indian people across the country and Houston's testimony to overturn the Supreme Court decision in 1993, which gives Native Americans the right to practice, arguably the world's oldest known religion. And Bill Clinton signed it into law in the backyard of the White House. And we have a copy of that bill on our wall. So we went on from that, and together with Houston, we did a film on one of the raging brush fires in Indian country, and that's the problem with drugs and alcohol.

[11:31]

So we made a film called The Red Road to Sobriety, in allusion to the difference between what is often called the Black Road, which is the road of selfishness. It's an interesting metaphor. The Blue Road is the road of spiritual pursuits. The Red Road is the road, metaphorically speaking, that you follow... for not only your own spiritual salvation, but also for the good of the community, the tribe, the family, the clan. So then The Red Road to Sobriety becomes a 90-minute film which has played on public TV and many TV stations. But also, together with Houston's help, we got a special grant that allows us to send this film for free. to any native people in America who says, we have this problem with drugs and alcohol, and we would like to use your film as a kind of talking circle device. And this film has made quite a bit of difference in American Indian country because it's a starting point.

[12:34]

Let's begin this dialogue with this problem using a film divided into 15-minute sections. And then in 1999, Houston and I went to Cape Town, South Africa for the Third World Parliament of Religion with eight American Indian leaders, ranging from Charlotte Black Elk, the granddaughter of the great medicine man Black Elk, Douglas George, who spoke on the problem with salvaging Indian religions. This was the Third World Parliament of Religion, and they... targeted South Africa because that was the scene of the greatest injustice. And Gary Rine raised enough money to propose that we take eight Native American activists to show the world that

[13:40]

These devastating color and culture problems are not located only in Africa. We have the same problems up here. And we called our symposium America's Shadow Struggle, which was very honest on our part and very... tantalizing for the world audience. There were 7,000 people who came from all over the world for this conference. And of course, the rest of the world knows a great deal of our shadow. However, very few people abroad know of this issue about the struggle for American Indians to have religious equality.

[14:26]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_98.39