BEIJING - Foreign activists unfurled pro-Tibet banners at a key Olympics venue Wednesday and spoke out against China’s rights record in Tiananmen Square, in the first attempts to use the spotlight of the games to raise other issues.

One athlete, U.S. swim star Amanda Beard, also made a public political gesture, on behalf of animal rights.

All of the groups tangled with Chinese authorities, who are determined to make sure the communist government’s plan for the Beijing Games to be an international showcase for the country goes off without a hitch.

With the Summer Olympics now upon us, I’ve turned the question of Tibet over in my mind a hundred times, trying to reconcile the grievous actions taken there by the Chinese Communists with the fact that the world is now lauding the Chinese government with an honor that it frankly, in my opinion, does not deserve.

I, for the first time in my adult life, have actually stopped watching the news, tired of seeing a government that has caused so much harm, death and destruction — and that has apparently gone back on just about every promise it made in order to secure the 2008 Games — showcase itself as an internationally sanctioned, Olympic-worthy powerhouse of the 21st century.

I did catch some images of the Forbidden City on the news this morning; Matt Lauer was giving U.S. viewers a first-ever glimpse at a former emperor’s “retirement chamber.” Seeing the wide shots of the Forbidden City, with all its beauty and ancient allure, made a connection in my mind between ancient China and a not-so-ancient Tibet, which was largely isolated from the world until the 1959 invasion by the Communists. Two ancient-but-ultimately-interconnected societies, where religious philosophers explored the inner workings of the mind.

Again, my mind is drawn to the Tibet of old, with its great Buddhist masters who forged a path for the rest of us to explore and contemplate upon. A society — albeit a flawed one — that produced a man best described as a simple monk who has gone on to captivate an entire planet with a message of peace, tolerance and love.

Then it occurs to me that my feelings toward the Chinese government are largely based on my own attachment to something that I’ve never experienced in person, but for which I have poured out so much compassion. I have protested in front of the Chinese embassy here in Washington with native Tibetans and Uyghurs — the people who actually lost their nations and fled for their lives. Yet my attachment to the notion of a free Tibet, where Vajrayana Buddhism can one again flourish, creates negative emotions.

I know that Vajrayana doesn’t need a free Tibet — or anything in Tibet — to be the Diamond Vehicle. The Triple Gems of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha will outlast both His Holiness and the Communists. Our samsaric suffering will continue, even if His Holiness is able to return to Lhasa in this lifetime and, as he has called for, Tibet is declared an International Zone of Peace.

I can not criticize people for taking an anti-China stance on the Olympics. What’s done is done, and my ability to actively seek refuge in Three Jewels does not require me to support or oppose the Beijing Olympics.

What we must realize, however — and these are difficult words for me to type — is that because of our interconnectedness, an attempt to make a political statement about China during the Games could very well lead to even greater suffering. If someone in Beijing tries to do something to embarrass the Communist government, what of the crackdowns that will certainly take place in the monasteries across the old Tibet, and in the back-alley shops in Lhasa?

I read enough from credible sources on the Internet to know of the horrors that are going on right now in prisons around China, and especially in the Tibetan areas. And I know it will get worse when His Holiness dies — the Communists will certainly do everything in their power to take over Tibetan Buddhism by naming his successor, just as they have already done with the Panchen Lama. The youth of Tibet, both inside and outside of the People’s Republic of China, will rise up, leading to even greater suffering, despite calls from their elders to practice pacifism.

Be it now or later, it is inevitable that we will fulfill our destiny as humans by creating more suffering in the name of stopping suffering. There is hope, but that hope exists solely inside the hearts, minds and souls of more than 6 billion individuals, all sharing this shrinking little planet.

For me, I will accept that I can do nothing to change the events that will unfold over the next three weeks. I am sure, in fact, that these Olympic games will bring joy to some people, and perhaps that joy will be enough to spur the innate seeds of compassion that we all harbor deep in our hearts.

I will keep vigil, however, being mindful of those who do not, will not or simply can not share in that Chinese Olympic joy. I will keep Tibet and Tibetans in my motivations and dedications. I will continue to pray for His Holiness’ long life. I will continue to seek refuge, and I will wish nothing but loving-kindness for the Chinese, including their leaders.

To do anything otherwise would defeat the entire purpose of my practice.

There is a reason why topics like religion and politics are taboo for most informal gatherings where people have just met each other: you simply don’t know one another’s history. A subject that could be a passing fancy for one person could elicit deep, strong and even uncomfortable feelings from another.

In those situations, I wonder if the person who is the offendee ever stops to recognize the offender’s intent. The very nature of human emotion makes it nearly impossible for the offendee to even pause, once the emotional chords have been struck.

I think about this today after unintentionally offending someone I met last night. He is a professional musician; I seriously considered a career as a musician in high school and college, but decided against it for a number of reasons, chief among them my mother’s constant nagging that musicians just don’t make any money. So I approached the conversation with said musician with a lot of respect for his accomplishment.

“You actually get paid to play the oboe full-time,” I asked, a tone of amazement in my voice as I realized this guy seems to have a pretty comfortable life in expensive Washington, D.C., putting in his weekly 40-plus on the backside of a musical instrument. What a sweet life, I thought, to get paid for doing nothing more than feeding one’s own artistic passion.

The question plucked something that was lurking pretty deep in the guy’s head; he snapped back about how he was tired of people not giving him respect (whether it was because of him playing the oboe or working full-time as a military musician, I’ll never know). But as I thought about it later, it occurred to me that I had hit one of his hot-button issues, and that he didn’t have time to think about the context of my question. He simply reacted.

I don’t fault the guy, especially since I’ve spent the better part of five years trying to get one step ahead of my own head, only to fall into the same trap of emotionally charged, spontaneous reactions when someone hits one of my own buttons. If anything, what I have learned is to recognize when this happens in other people, and when put in the same situation, I hope to be able to see the response coming in myself in order to blunt it or eliminate it entirely.

It all goes back to mindfulness. If I am as mindful of what I say as I am of how people react to my words, then I’m in pretty good shape. Of course, wanting to be that mindful and actually doing it are two different things.

This quote from Zen priestess Shundo Aoyama, delivered to my inbox last month via Tricycle magazine’s Daily Dharma, gave me a chuckle, but also caused me to contemplate how one’s perspective and attitude can shape his or her perception of something as basic as the divide between heaven and hell:

I once heard a story about a visit to heaven and hell. In both places the visitor saw many people seated at a table on which many delicious foods were laid out. In both places chopsticks over a meter long were tied to their right hands, while their left hands were tied to their chairs.

In hell, however much they stretched out their arms, the chopsticks were too long for them to get food into their mouths. They grew impatient and got their hands and chopsticks tangled with one another’s. The delicacies were scattered here and there.

In heaven, on the other hand, people happily used the long chopsticks to pick out someone else’s favorite food and feed it to him, and in turn they were being fed by others. They all enjoyed their meal in harmony.

At one point during a recent conversation with friends, someone made the insightful remark: Sean, that may all work well and good for you and the other 350 million Buddhists on the planet, but not everyone shares those beliefs, so what’s the solution that works for everyone?

Just before my friend said this, I had explained how one of Gandhi’s main messages, that we must be the change we wish to see in the world, made so much sense to me because, as I have written here before, I truly believe that one act of kindness can and will (someday) have a ripple effect that spreads across the globe and changes humanity as we know it. Hence, the remark from my friend above.

As I think about his statement more closely, however, I find myself wondering how different Earth would be if every man, woman and child practiced any one of the three branches of Buddhism. But then again, my mind concludes, what if everyone were Christian, or Muslim, or Jain, or whatever else. If we ALL had the same shared system of values and morals and beliefs, then my guess is there would be no war, exploitation of resources and each other, etc.

So what is the solution for all mankind? Where is the intersection between a planet full of belief systems? My guess is that it’s as simple as having respect for your fellow man and for the Earth.

I have co-workers who have very, very strong Christian faith, and while we’re quite friendly within the confines of the office, I have no idea what they think, in their heart of hearts, of me as a non-Christian gay man. But regardless, I respect them for their choices, especially since I see how much strength these men and women are able to draw from their faith in God and Jesus. And I honestly feel these same people respect me for who I am.

When the going gets tough, they turn the prayer — and who’s to say that Christian prayer isn’t just another form of the Buddhist practice of generating compassion and loving-kindness for all beings via setting our motivation and dedication before and after our own practice?

Respect as the antidote — as the solution that works for everyone, as my friend asked — seems so far-fetched, but it’s all I can offer.