At the time of our interview he was especially concerned about society’s overemphasis on material things and the real danger of people losing real human values, “so the human being becomes part of a machine. A very sad thing”, he shook his head. People could be poor but as long as they had a spirit of warm-heartedness they could be happy.
“If you lose warm-heartedness and kindness, despite the materialism (you may enjoy) you will not have a happy life. If you have compassion, thought or love, then you will not only get more happiness and mental peace, your friends and neighbours will be happier. In this way you affect the whole community or society.
“I tell people (of the) realisation of the oneness of all mankind. Humans are basically the same.” Different politics, races, systems, faiths and so on, were only secondary things. They were all meant to serve human benefit.
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“Communism, Buddhism, capitalism, any ideology - what is the real purpose? The answer is the benefit of humanity.
“If you sacrifice human dignity in order to achieve an ideology or faith, that is wrong,” he said.
“People get the impression that love, compassion and kindness is religious. This is not a religious matter - it is a matter of humanity, whether you believe it or not.”
He thought Tibetan Buddhism might not be suitable for the West.
“We rely on the teaching, not on the person. Teaching must rely on the meaning, not on the word. In meaning we have to rely on the deeper meaning, not the superficial.” A person’s teaching was good when it was useful and relevant to daily life and if a religion created mental peace, it helped people face their problems.
His biographical notes encourage diversity, “I always believe that it is much better to have a variety of religions, a variety of philosophies, rather than one single religion or philosophy. This is necessary because of the different mental dispositions of each human being. Each religion has certain unique ideas or techniques, and learning about them can only enrich one's own faith.”
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A man of soft words but sharp intelligence, he has survived the distance from being an unknown god-king of a remote country, escape as a spiritual leader of a mediaeval feudal system, a refugee in a foreign land - to become one of the world’s most noted voices. That has called for a high degree of awareness, acumen and subtlety.
Early in 2006 it was hinted that he might soon be allowed to visit his homeland if he made it clear he had abandoned the idea of independence for Tibet. It seems Beijing might welcome talks to avoid a power vacuum - when the Dalai Lama dies - that could provoke action by violent young separatists. However, talks over four years have not been successful.
Champa Phuntsok, the chairman of the Chinese-controlled Tibetan government, was sceptical. He claimed that although the Dalai Lama said he wanted to retire to his homeland and would not seek a political or religious position, he was, in fact, still bent on achieving independence for Tibet.
This article is one of Judy Cannon's stories about travellers and travelling from a work-in-progress collection.
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