Sometimes, when facing the sangha, highbrow types discard the teachings because of how it looks. That of course is nothing else than their own karma of pride and refuge in the vedanas, which keeps them immune to the teachings, and is triggered by some unfashionable or simple-minded phenomena they happen to be unfortunate enough to fixate upon.

Having said that, the fact is that the practice of generosity and of the other paramittas does includes "being cool". This is a tricky subject because neither can we strive for coolness (that is the most uncool of all attitudes), nor can we sell the dharma as another superficiality or product of this day and age. If the dharma was fashion, it would go out of style… – well, that will happen — we just hope not so soon. It is meritorious to sustain the interest of beings in ethics and wisdom, and for that we need skilful means.

There is an ongoing debate about what is essential to dharma and what must, by compassion, be adapted to new times and places. Inside this debate there are issues such as cultural traps, political correctness, selling the dharma as a product, etc. The crucial point here seems to be to understand the complete integration of ethics and aesthetics – which is not far from the union of appearances and emptiness of the classical dharma or the new "union of irreverence and elegance" of a stylish lama such as Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

One of the main problems about the union of ethics and aesthetics is our present conception of naïve equality – a problem most salient in the PC agenda. It is quite clear that Buddhism is an elitist doctrine in its roots: the term "arya" leaves no doubt. The very structure of the sanghas throughout the times also is very clear in its verticality. In absolute truth, the truth that only the buddhas access, it is no doubt true that there is no higher and no lower. But in the relative truth, the truth that we live in and must understand in order to develop compassion, there is.

The trouble we automatically recognize in naïve aristocracy is that ego identifies with it, and pride therefore has a (mostly misconceived) justification. About that we can argue that pride is much smarter than this, and even low places commonly become justification enough for false humbleness and hypocrisy.

Then of course – and this is the most common modern Buddhist attitude – we can simply try to ignore relative truth. This puts us in a strange position where our teachers and those higher than us become equal as if by force of will, and we may wish to treat them as normal folks or to be treated as they are treated, and by the same token this very difference is actually enhanced by the taken for granted equality: both the relative and the absolute become even more extreme and incompatible – when they should, in fact, be utterly compatible.

The nobility Buddhism speaks of, the grandiose beings we talk about are glorious exactly because they see – not at all forcing their views upon reality – the true equality of beings, which is not related to any peculiarity in them, but to the very fact that they are all misconceived peculiars. In other words, to be unique is to suffer, and be equal in this sense – and to share a common ground is to have a common possible manifestation, that of Buddha, hence "Buddha Nature", and also equality.

In this way, it seems "equality" has a double edge to it. We have in Buddhism this virtue, "equanimity", which means to maintain the mind in the same (good) place whatever happens. Sometimes it is confused with some idea of equality of beings, and of course, to be of the same good will towards a nasty drug-addict and a fair good-natured person is Buddhist practice par excellence. At the same time, if our action towards these two persons is different, there's nothing wrong with that since their needs are very much different. This means to retain both perspectives: in the mind, exactly the same good will, in action, whatever is best in a given situation.

It seems that to project an image of intelligence and success, especially with creativity and subtlety – we certainly don't need to brag about vulgar successes —, is a good general "arya" endeavor that each Buddhist practitioner should engage at this time in this world in his selfless service of other. Particularly if we are talking about the vajrayana, this is very much part of the compassionate activity we should engage in.

Dharma, as most religions, is filled with sycophant goody-goody distortions. Equality means to be just to everyone according to their differences, not making "the same law for the lion and the ox"¹. If just this kind of distortion were fought more directly, we would have more aryas in the sangha, that is, more people that look good. Since authenticity and honesty are the epitome of cool, there's nothing possibly wrong with it.

Sophistication is what the common vajrayana expression "skillful means" really stands for. That is, to be able to capture the attention of beings wandering in samsara, we need to shine brighter than models, alpha-males (politicians, billionaires, and so on) and academics – that is, in the perspective of the beings needing to be tamed, we need to outshine the three poisons of desire, anger and ignorance.

We need to outshine envy and pride, and this is established through using envy as antidote to laziness and shortsightedness, and pride against naïve equality and separateness.

While dharma focuses upon hippy new agy stuff, we won't be able to help those who need more help – those who are locked upon the confines of pride and envy, and don't even know they need help. Not that new age has no pride and envy, but that it is just so much more simple to obliterate what is naturally weak, it is no challenge.

We must keep the Drala². with us. We shouldn't stand for populist and undignified social actions, we should keep the dharma profound. If ecology is the subject, please do it profoundly – it is a real issue, but how hard is to make it fashionable? Good challenge, let's make ecology fashionable again.

To help others is essential, to see them as close friends, to have a warm heart is true dharma practice. But let's not fall into the idea that we are helping the needy, they're smarter than that. Let's make virtue cool: then the mandala requires no effort.