Three leaders: the Dalai Lama, Donald Trump and Francis of Assisi

As author of the novel ‘Advocate of the truth’ and supporter of compassionate social leadership, I could not resist to compare three leaders who had and still have a significant impact on society. I will start with some quotes.

A quote from the Dalai Lama:
• We can live without religion, or ideologies, or even wisdom, but we cannot live without love and compassion.

Quotes from Donald Trump:
• The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.
• The point is, you can’t be too greedy.
• I don’t like losers.
• My fingers are very beautiful, as, it has been very well documented, are various other parts of my body.
• My IQ is one of the highest — and you all know it!
• The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

Quotes from my novel about Francis of Assisi:
• This is the essence of what Francis stands for: Loving your neighbor – unconditionally – without expecting anything in return
• Francis understood that detachment was the path to true happiness. We’re taking the exact opposite approach. We want to claim everything for ourselves. Material goods, loved ones, status. We want to be appreciated and validated by others. Everything has to serve our happiness. Francis saw what that does to us. He rejected every form of ownership. Yes, it’s extreme, but it symbolizes true freedom.

Is it fair to compare the wisdom of two mystical and compassionate leaders with the (so-called) president of the largest democracy of the western world? Probably not, the quotes speak volumes. Power, greed and narcism versus love and compassion. Yet it may help to determine how we should respond to the chaos that took over since January 20.

Trump appears to be living in Plato’s cave, chained to the wall where the shadows of his perceptions are projected. He is certainly not alone in that cave. In my novel Thomas, the protagonist, explains to a friend what this cave looks like in the 21st century: “In his allegory, Plato urged people to leave the cave of their limited perception. But we stay put, crowding in closer and closer. The cave is our comfort zone. We use television, Internet and social media to choose the information and images that suit us. We cherish our seclusion, we feel no need to move beyond it. This is how we create our own vision of the world.”

The Dalai Lama and Francis of Assis would not condemn Trump. They would judge him with compassion and would reach out to him, and show him that the universal bond between all people should be his guide.

Thomas would recommend Trump to read Corinthians 13, after replacing the word “love” by “I”:
“I am patient, I am kind. I do not envy, I do not boast, I am not proud. I am not rude, I am not self-seeking. I am not easily angered, I keep no record of wrongs. I do not delight in evil, but rejoice in truth.”

Trump is not an advocate of the truth, Thomas is.