John Cleese has opened up on GB News about a fascinating discussion he once had with Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama is a title given by the Tibetan people to the spiritual leader of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Cleese discussed the topic of Buddhism on his GB News show, The Dinosaur Hour, as well as his interest in religion as a whole.
“I was once lucky enough to interview the Dalai Lama”, he said.
“A person on a different level. I said when I noticed Buddhists, they smile and laugh a lot.
“He said to me, ‘I think when people laugh, they can have new ideas. That’s quite important in Buddhist texts as well.
“The Buddha would sometimes get somebody to see something by making a joke out of it, so basically undermining people’s fixed views by showing them a funny side.”
Cleese went on to explain what “appeals” to him about Buddhism, explaining the spiritual benefits it entails.
“What appeals to me about Buddhism is the fact that people are working on themselves and having spiritual exercises”, he said.
“Most of them are meditational which enables them to process negative feelings and turn them more into positive feelings.
“There’s a lot of people, younger people now, who are saying always trust your feelings.
“That doesn’t seem to me to be very good advice.”
Cleese delved into the topic of religion on his GB News show, The Dinosaur Hour, where he discussed the “unfair” nature of Jesus bring crucified.
“There was one subject at school that made me anxious. Religion”, he said.
“There was this chap called Jesus who suggested we should all be kind to each other and not obsessed with power and money.
“He got crucified for that… seemed a bit unfair.
“I get frightened that something so important was completely incomprehensible.
“I decided it was all rubbish so I became an atheist for 25 years.
“Then I read a book by Aldous Huxley which said there are two approaches to religion.
“One was to do with people hoping to have an experience of the divine, the other was the religion of words and symbols, which seemed to me to boil down to crowd control.
“That first bit got me interested.”