Rev. Michael Beckwith, a noted author in New Thought spirituality, has reached millions as a featured teacher in the book and film “The Secret.” He founded the Agape Spiritual Center and is often featured on “Oprah!” Robert Thurman is a professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and president of Tibet House U.S., a nonprofit center that preserves and promotes Tibetan civilization. He also is an author and a close friend with the Dalai Lama.

Last week, Beckwith was in Detroit getting ready to teach a workshop; Thurman was preparing for the Dalai Lama’s visit last weekend in New York. We got them together for a phone interview in anticipation of their joint appearance at the Sun Valley Wellness Festival, which happens in Idaho over Memorial Day weekend. We started with the topic of tolerance, one that is close to both of these spiritual thinkers. Here is what they had to say:

On tolerance:

MB: When individuals have a small perception of themselves, they see themselves separate from other people. They harbor a lot of fear and trepidation. As one begins to do inner spiritual work necessary, they grow in tolerance because they also grow the awareness that the so-called other is actually an extension of themselves. This doesn’t come about without meditation and prayer because people are so conditioned by the external world that they end up inheriting prejudice and bigotry, and preconceived notions. With an interest in spiritual work, those conditions begin to breakdown then tolerance, appreciation and compassion begin to flourish.

RT: That’s exactly the Buddhist teaching, also. When people don’t really care much for themselves, because they’ve been put down so much by their culture and upbringing, they’re very afraid of everyone else. They aren’t actually tolerant of themselves. They loath themselves internally, although they may put up a façade that they’re very proud and this and that, but they’re terribly insecure. Then they immediately blow up in anger and they use that as an excuse to fend people off. So, they group with others like them in some way and intolerant of other people. In the Buddhist and Hindu teachings, tolerance is considered a weigh station toward compassion. In other words, you first have to work on that reactivity and anger and (get to a point) where you can absorb however others feel and be more attuned to what they need. When you’re not reactive all the time, then you can begin to feel compassion, even when those people are harmful to you. That’s the beginning of enlightenment.

MB: I like that idea Robert, that tolerance is a weigh station, because tolerance is just the beginning. As one begins to get over their shame and guilt, and begins to understand that they (are part) of the human condition, you have a greater tolerance for yourself. We are all human. Then you can offer patience, and tolerance and love for everyone else. You can’t give what you don’t have. An individual who is not falling in love with the Creator who made all of us, they can’t then offer that love to anyone. People are always giving their own self-love to others anyway.

RT: True. When they feel bad themselves, they externalize. They think that if they had this or that external possession, or hoard wealth, or whatever it is, if they have a relationship with someone who would aggrandize them then they will feel better. They are greedy and want to possess all those things. Of course, then they perceive others as threats and that gives them an excuse for more intolerance. The spiritual work often involves being a little bit renunciant, not wanting everything and being content with what one has. People think spiritual work is some sort of self-denial and putting one’s self down but actually it’s (about) being content about ones-self without all those different possessions, and therefore not going through the strain of trying to get a lot of extra things. Living simply in a certain way. That’s an interesting paradox. What normally people call renunciation, they think is someone punishing themselves. Actually, they’re rewarding themselves by getting along with less and being happy and not worried about not having the next thing.

MB: It’s becoming aware of that wanting to want syndrome that affects so many human beings. I write about that sometimes.

RT: Yes, in that book of yours (“Spiritual Liberation,” Atria Books/Beyond Words; $26) you did it quite beautifully.

MB: Many people don’t know what they want. They just walk around looking for something to want. That leads to hoarding and self-aggrandizement trying to fill some hole inside them. But they can never fill that hole because the hole is imaginary. If an individual begins to live with a sense of gratitude for what they have, rather than bemoaning the fate of what they don’t have, there is a level of contentment and happiness that is not based on things. It’s based on our real being, our real nature. Then the context is there for us to be generous, to be creative, to be philanthropic, to be prayerful, kind, because we’re living with an overflow of those qualities within ourselves. That filter of wanting, wanting, wanting is beginning to dissolve.

RT: Yes, the consumer culture we have going here. Luckily it’s collapsing.

MB: That’s the upside of the downturn.

RT: This downturn is a blessing, I think, from God, or from Buddha or whoever. Because commercial culture … people are watching TV, 12, 14 hours a day and each commercial is putting you down if you don’t have what they’re selling — the new TV or that driving experience, or this great skin. And so they’re making you feel discontent. Then the news is freaking you out and now everyone is terrified by this influenza. We should be cautious but it’s so over done. Then the fear thing gets aggravated by the news and other media — horror movies, etc. But this false way of living is beginning to curdle and hopefully a new, sustainable economy will grow out of this mess. Before this everyone was being forced to meditate on discontentment, irritation, intolerance and dissatisfaction.

MB: Absolutely. It’s making us shift our priorities as a nation. People are understanding the soft values they’ve been holding. Now they have a chance to turn to something that is more lasting, more eternal. The upside of the downturn.

RT: I’m terribly sad for the people who are losing their homes.

MB: Absolutely. But what I’m happy about is that a sense of community is starting to come back again. People are starting to help their neighbors. They’re starting to realize they have neighbors. They’re talking. Questions like how can I help, how can I serve are coming back into our culture. It seems to come up when there is some sort of crisis, like the tsunami. For a time they ask, how can I serve but then afterwards it’s business as usual. I don’t think we’re going to be able to get back to business as usual.

RT: I’ve been shocking people with my talks in welcoming this disaster. I’m very sad about people who are losing their jobs, I really am. And I’ve lost almost half of my pension that I labored for 45 years for, but the point is when we were flying along, and supposedly the economy was booming, and people were getting these great big bonuses, and we’d stop from time to time in a philosophical moment and say, gee we’re wreaking the environment. Now, there’s a chance to do something about it.

MB: I think there’s some shift happening …

RT: Yes, shift sure does happen. (Laughter)

MB: At the turn of the last century there was a headline that said society as we know it is coming to an end because there were no more wild mustangs. And there was the burgeoning of the era of the automobile. Now people are bemoaning their fate because the Big Three are going down. However, there is an upswing of green, sustainable ideas and renewable resources. We’re in the middle of this no-man’s land: the death of an old culture and the beginning of a new sustainable one. It is setting of an evolutionary trigger to make us go forward. That is the silver lining in the downturn of this economy, which is fueled and funded by non-renewable resources. There are a lot of new jobs coming in the green sector, and it’s not for research. It’s for actual jobs. What we’re looking at is the end of an old culture and the seeds and sprouts of something trying to happen in which our economy will be fueled and funded by renewable resource.

DO: So, given this paradigm shift, how do you shift your attitude?

RT: There’s a Tibetan expression, when someone asks you how you are, you say, “well, I’m just barely not dead.” It’s a bit of a joke but it’s commonly used. That’s where one starts. Maybe one has lost a job, one loses something, but wait a minute, you say, “I’m alive. My family’s alive and we have to manage it.” You have to start to see it half full, see the positive. If it’s your neighbor, and you say, ‘this could be happening to me,’ and you turn to help them. So, you have to see the half-full, you have to see the positive.

MB: One thing I say is that a good crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Whenever there is a crisis there is an opportunity for transformation, an opportunity to shift rapidly. During this particular time we have to ask empowering questions: What is seeking to emerge at this time in our lives individually, and, what is trying to happen on a national scale, on a global scale? We live in a progressive universe. Something is always evolving, always progressing. When there is a crisis afoot on a personal scale or on a national scale, there is something that’s trying to break through. So, we have to ask what is trying to break through? Knowing we have infinite potential within us, because we are infinite beings, and that through intuition, reflection, contemplation and prayer, we start to get hints about what potential is trying to happen in us.

Instead of seeing the glass half full, see that the glass is always full. It’s full of manifestation and potential. It may be half full of water, but the other half is air. In our psyche, the water is manifestation of what you can see, but the potential is the air; it’s what you can’t see. It only comes into manifestation if you ask the right questions. I don’t really believe in positive thinking. I believe in affirmative realization that you’re having a realization around that which is real, that which eternal, that which is forever. When you have that insight by asking the right questions, then your life begins to take on that timber, that vibration and you begin to see opportunities and possibilities where you once only saw roadblocks. You look out and see the devastation, and it is providing an enormous opportunity for change in the sustainable sector, in different ways of doing things, community gardens, people coming together and helping each other, co-ops, investing in economy that is sustainable and not just a get rich quick scheme.

People get into the stock market and they’re supporting companies that are tearing down the rainforest. Why would do put money in to get a quick profit when you know it’s not going to help your grandchildren?

RT: That’s so great, Michael. I agree with you on this. I want to highlight something you said. As a spiritual thing, it can get caricatured as if you’re saying that you can have a fantasy about whatever you want and your wish will be fulfilled and therefore when it doesn’t happen you feel really bad and think that maybe you somehow didn’t have the right wish and there is something really wrong with you. That’s not it at all: positive thinking is being very realistic and looking at the holistic picture. Why do you want a quick profit and pretend that they’re doing something for their grandchildren, when what they’re really doing is leaving them to inherit a devastated planet.

Instead of that, they should feel blessed that they now have to struggle to do what they really need to do to save this planet for those people. Do the positive thinking should be connected with the realistic thinking. Thank you very much Michael.

MB: Yes, you know recession renews resourcefulness. So whenever there is a recession, the universe is calling us to be resourceful and innovative, to activate the genius within us to find the challenge and capacities within us that heretofore we weren’t paying attention to because we were lazy. We were apathetic. We were in some kind of fantasyland that the television was giving us. But when seemingly hard times come there is an opportunity to access a talent, a gift and a quality we weren’t paying attention to before.

You know, when you talk to great people, you find they developed their character in hard times. They didn’t develop their character on the beach, sipping a mai tai. You know? Some of these people developed their character when they were falsely in prison politically. People developed certain qualities during difficult times and that sustained them the rest of their lives. When you ask them what the turning point in their life was, they’ll say it was when I lost that job or something bad happened to me. That’s when they discovered the gifts that were in them. Now it’s time for all of us as a nation and as a planet to discover the gifts within us and understand that it’s not having three or four cars or 20 pairs of shoes, or empty calorie food. It’s about discovering what’s real and valuable so we can express it and share it. Because the gifts that are within us don’t belong to us. They belong to the community.

DO: How do you teach mindfulness to a 12 year old?

MB: I raised kids, too. I think if you put it in language they can understand. I try to get them interested in excellence in some area of their life. I try to teach them, not to do anything half way, to put their full attention into everything they do. Then the reward is in a job well done, but also you develop a habit that carries you through the rest of your life. You become interested and mindful in everything you’re doing. It becomes almost a meditation. Athletes learn this in terms of developing a mental or physical skill and so when you translate that same kind of attention into the seemingly superfluous things kids have to do it is a powerful thing.

RT: I’m at the grandfather stage and it’s hard to have that much input, but you get back to the most important thing parents do, which is model.

MB: Ah!

RT: To teach your children to be mindful, you be mindful, you be very focused and aware and you share that with them. You show them the fruits of that, naturally, without even talking about it. That will really be helpful to them. Ultimately, kids model on what the grownups in their lives do.

MB: That’s right. When I’m christening a child, I often remind the parents that you’re children won’t always do what you say, but they will ultimately do what you do. So, they see you living a life like that, even if they go off track, it’s inside them like a GPS system and they will come back to it because it’s ingrained in them.