December 20 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace
Read the Dalai Lama's book "Beyond Religion"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/beyond-religion-dalai-lam_n_1125892.html
Editor's note: The following is excerpted from "Beyond Religion"
by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Reproduced by permission of Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
I am an old man now. I was born in 1935 in a small village in
northeastern Tibet. For reasons beyond my control, I have lived most of
my adult life as a stateless refugee in India, which has been my second
home for over 50 years. I often joke that I am India’s longest-staying
guest. In common with other people of my age, I have witnessed many of
the dramatic events that have shaped the world we live in. Since the
late 1960s, I have also traveled a great deal, and have had the honor to
meet people from many different backgrounds: not just presidents and
prime ministers, kings and queens, and leaders from all the world’s
great religious traditions, but also a great number of ordinary people
from all walks of life.
Looking back over the past decades, I find many reasons to rejoice.
Through advances in medical science, deadly diseases have been
eradicated. Millions of people have been lifted from poverty and have
gained access to modern education and health care. We have a universal
declaration of human rights, and awareness of the importance of such
rights has grown tremendously. As a result, the ideals of freedom and
democracy have spread around the world, and there is increasing
recognition of the oneness of humanity. There is also growing awareness
of the importance of a healthy environment. In very many ways, the last
half-century or so has been one of progress and positive change.
At the same time, despite tremendous advances in so many fields,
there is still great suffering, and humanity continues to face enormous
difficulties and problems. While in the more affluent parts of the world
people enjoy lifestyles of high consumption, there remain countless
millions whose basic needs are not met. With the end of the Cold War,
the threat of global nuclear destruction has receded, but many continue
to endure the sufferings and tragedy of armed conflict. In many areas,
too, people are having to deal with environmental problems and, with
these, threats to their livelihood and worse. At the same time, many
others are struggling to get by in the face of inequality, corruption
and injustice.
These problems are not limited to the developing world. In the richer
countries, too, there are many difficulties, including widespread
social problems: alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, family
breakdown. People are worried about their children, about their
education and what the world holds in store for them. Now, too, we have
to recognize the possibility that human activity is damaging our planet
beyond a point of no return, a threat which creates further fear. And
all the pressures of modern life bring with them stress, anxiety,
depression, and, increasingly, loneliness. As a result, everywhere I go,
people are complaining. Even I find myself complaining from time to
time!
It is clear that something is seriously lacking in the way we humans
are going about things. But what is it that we lack? The fundamental
problem, I believe, is that at every level we are giving too much
attention to the external material aspects of life while neglecting
moral ethics and inner values.
By inner values I mean the qualities that we all appreciate in
others, and toward which we all have a natural instinct, bequeathed by
our biological nature as animals that survive and thrive only in an
environment of concern, affection and warmheartedness -- or in a single
word, compassion. The essence of compassion is a desire to alleviate the
suffering of others and to promote their well-being.
This
is the spiritual principle from which all other positive inner values
emerge. We all appreciate in others the inner qualities of kindness,
patience, tolerance, forgiveness and generosity, and in the same way we
are all averse to displays of greed, malice, hatred and bigotry. So
actively promoting the positive inner qualities of the human heart that
arise from our core disposition toward compassion, and learning to
combat our more destructive propensities, will be appreciated by all.
And the first beneficiaries of such a strengthening of our inner values
will, no doubt, be ourselves. Our inner lives are something we ignore at
our own peril, and many of the greatest problems we face in today’s
world are the result of such neglect.
Not long ago I visited Orissa, a region in eastern India. The poverty
in this part of the country, especially among tribal people, has
recently led to growing conflict and insurgency. I met with a member of
parliament from the region and discussed these issues. From him I
gathered that there are a number legal mechanisms and well-funded
government projects already in place aimed at protecting the rights of
tribal people and even giving them material assistance. The problem, he
said, was that the funds provided by the government were not reaching
those they were intended to help. When such projects are subverted by
corruption, inefficiency and irresponsibility on the part of those
charged with implementing them, they become worthless.
This example shows very clearly that even when a system is sound, its
effectiveness depends on the way it is used. Ultimately, any system,
any set of laws or procedures, can only be as effective as the
individuals responsible for its implementation. If, owing to failures of
personal integrity, a good system is misused, it can easily become a
source of harm rather than a source of benefit. This is a general truth
which applies to all fields of human activity, even religion. Though
religion certainly has the potential to help people lead meaningful and
happy lives, it too, when misused, can become a source of conflict and
division. Similarly, in the fields of commerce and finance, the systems
themselves may be sound, but if the people using them are unscrupulous
and driven by self-serving greed, the benefits of those systems will be
undermined. Unfortunately, we see this happening in many kinds of human
activities: even in international sports, where corruption threatens the
very notion of fair play.
Of course, many discerning people are aware of these problems and are
working sincerely to redress them from within their own areas of
expertise. Politicians, civil servants, lawyers, educators,
environmentalists, activists and so on -- people from all sides are
already engaged in this effort. This is very good so far as it goes, but
the fact is, we will never solve our problems simply by instituting new
laws and regulations. Ultimately, the source of our problems lies at
the level of the individual. If people lack moral values and integrity,
no system of laws and regulations will be adequate. So long as people
give priority to material values, then injustice, inequity, intolerance
and greed -- all the outward manifestations of neglect of inner values
-- will persist.
So what are we to do? Where are we to turn for help? Science, for all
the benefits it has brought to our external world, has not yet provided
scientific grounding for the development of the foundations of personal
integrity -- the basic inner human values that we appreciate in others
and would do well to promote in ourselves. Perhaps we should seek inner
values from religion, as people have done for millennia? Certainly
religion has helped millions of people in the past, helps millions today
and will continue to help millions in the future. But for all its
benefits in offering moral guidance and meaning in life, in today’s
secular world religion alone is no longer adequate as a basis for
ethics. One reason for this is that many people in the world no longer
follow any particular religion. Another reason is that, as the peoples
of the world become ever more closely interconnected in an age of
globalization and in multicultural societies, ethics based in any one
religion would only appeal to some of us; it would not be meaningful for
all. In the past, when peoples lived in relative isolation from one
another -- as we Tibetans lived quite happily for many centuries behind
our wall of mountains -- the fact that groups pursued their own
religiously based approaches to ethics posed no difficulties. Today,
however, any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of
inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate. What we
need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion
and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a
secular ethics.
This statement may seem strange coming from someone who from a very
early age has lived as a monk in robes. Yet I see no contradiction here.
My faith enjoins me to strive for the welfare and benefit of all
sentient beings, and reaching out beyond my own tradition, to those of
other religions and those of none, is entirely in keeping with this.
I am confident that it is both possible and worthwhile to attempt a
new secular approach to universal ethics. My confidence comes from my
conviction that all of us, all human beings, are basically inclined or
disposed toward what we perceive to be good. Whatever we do, we do
because we think it will be of some benefit. At the same time, we all
appreciate the kindness of others. We are all, by nature, oriented
toward the basic human values of love and compassion. We all prefer the
love of others to their hatred. We all prefer others’ generosity to
their meanness. And who among us does not prefer tolerance, respect and
forgiveness of our failings to bigotry, disrespect and resentment?
In view of this, I am of the firm opinion that we have within our
grasp a way, and a means, to ground inner values without contradicting
any religion and yet, crucially, without depending on religion. The
development and practice of this new system of ethics is what I propose
to elaborate in the course of this book. It is my hope that doing so
will help to promote understanding of the need for ethical awareness and
inner values in this age of excessive materialism.
At the outset I should make it clear that my intention is not to
dictate moral values. Doing that would be of no benefit. To try to
impose moral principles from outside, to impose them, as it were, by
command, can never be effective. Instead, I call for each of us to come
to our own understanding of the importance of inner values. For it is
these inner values which are the source of both an ethically harmonious
world and the individual peace of mind, confidence and happiness we all
seek. Of course, all the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on
love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness, can and do
promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that
grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I
believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality
and ethics that is beyond religion.
