His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet: On Love and
Compassion
Thursday, 11 June 2015 14:29 Angana Chakrabarti, Tibet Post
International
His Holiness the Dalai Lama with fellow panelists on stage
during the Happiness & It's Causes conference in Sydney,
Australia on June 10, 2015. Photo/Rusty Stewart
Brisbane, Queensland - Speaking on the difference between love
and compassion, His Holiness the Dalai Lama Wednesday said "a basic
sense of love which tends to be mixed with mixed attachment, that
depends on how others respond to you. However, through thinking and
training it's possible to develop compassion that can be extended
to everyone.
The conference at Luna Park, held on June 10, 2015, was attended
by an audience of 1700. The moderator, well-known Australian radio
presenter Richard Fidler, opened the conference by questioning His
Holiness about how he kept maintained a calm, peaceful mind.
"I use my intelligence and common sense," was the reply. "And
while life as a refugee has had its sad moments, it's also provided
opportunities to meet other people and learn from their different
experiences."
Fidler asked if he just accepted things he couldn't change to
which His Holiness quoted an 8th century Indian philosopher who
said, "If you're faced with a problem, examine it. If it can be
solved there's no need to worry about it and if it can't be solved,
worry will be of no use."
"Very realistic isn't it?" he exclaimed. "This is good advice
that I try to follow. For example, when my beloved Senior Tutor, my
main teacher, passed away, I was shocked and sad, but there was
nothing to be done. He was the rock I leant upon. But then I
realized that what I needed to do was to work to fulfill his
wishes."
When asked the difference between love and compassion he spoke
of a basic sense of love that tends to be mixed with attachment,
and which depends on how others respond to you. It's limited; it
can't be extended to others. However, it's like a seed, because on
the basis of that, through thinking and training it's possible to
develop a sense of compassion that can be extended to everyone.
Fidler wanted to know if anything had ever infuriated His
Holiness who responded by narrating two accounts on which he was
unable to suppress his anger. The first, he said, was during an
interview with a New York columnist whose persistent questions
about his legacy led him to lose his temper.His Holiness confided
that when he met the same journalist again a year later, they both
looked at each other and laughed. The second occasion, he
recounted, took place while in India where he had been invited to
teach a group of Indian Buddhists.The friend who had organized the
meeting told him that on a previous occasion these people had found
his talk difficult to understand. He asked if this time it could be
easier. Again His Holiness said he lost his temper because he felt
that if he were only to teach about what they already knew there
wouldn't be much point in teaching at all. Turning to Fidler he
chuckled and said:
"So, if you don't mind me saying so, if you ask me foolish
questions, maybe I'll lose my temper with you!"
Noting that as a young man he'd grown up in a confined situation
and had later been exposed to the wider world as he began to
travel, Fidler asked if anything had surprised him. He
answered:
"Not much, because the previous Dalai Lama had left a collection
of picture books and magazines that I looked through. So I was
already familiar with New York, London, Berlin and Paris from their
pages. And in addition to that we'd had these two Austrians in
Tibet who'd escaped from wartime internment in British India. One
of them, Aufschnaiter was engaged in hydro-electric and irrigation
projects for the government, the other, a younger Austrian named
Heinrich Harrer came to look after various machines at my
residence. He used to talk to me about Western culture and the way
of life in Europe, so I wasn't surprised when I went there.
"However, there was one thing. When I first went to the USA in
1979 I made several friends and met their wives and children. The
next time I came, I was surprised to find some of them had new
wives and when I came again, some of them even had third wives. I
was also surprised to meet people with important, prestigious jobs,
who, because of stress and worry, were unhappy. It showed me that
material rewards, good reputation and a high salary were no
guarantee of inner peace and happiness.
"On the other hand, I met a Catholic monk at Montserrat near
Barcelona who had lived as a hermit in the mountains for five years
living on little more than tea and bread. I asked him what he'd
been practicing and he told me he'd been meditating on love. When
he said that his eyes sparkled and his face glowed with joy. With
almost no physical comfort he was completely happy. There are
practitioners like this in India too who meditate naked high in the
mountains. During the last Maha Khumba Mela, a great Hindu
spiritual gathering that takes place once in 12 years, I'd hoped to
go and meet some of them and hear about their experiences. However,
due to bad weather I was unable to travel."
HIs Holiness finally commented that modern education is
propagating a materialistic way of life.We should ask ourselves if
it is really an adequate basis for a happy society. In British
Columbia, however, guidance about the importance of
warm-heartedness has been introduced in all schools."
Richard Fidler then invited four additional panelists to join
him and His Holiness on the stage. The first to speak, Barbara
Fredrickson, explained her team's work examining the physical
effects of different kinds of happiness. She distinguished between
hedonic well-being, which stems from the pleasure you get from a
satisfying yet superficial experience like eating delicious food,
and eudaemonic well-being, which comes from thinking that your life
has a purpose and that you're making a contribution to society.
They found that hedonic well-being was associated with increased
expression of genes involved in inflammation, while the way genes
expressed themselves in association with eudaemonic well-being was
the opposite - a much healthier response. The conclusion was that
doing good, having meaning and purpose is associated with better
health.
His Holiness remarked that he had also heard of findings that
show that constant fear, anger and hatred have the effect of
eroding our immune system. He suggested that a useful area of
investigation would be the distinction between sensory
consciousness and mental consciousness. He pointed out that
pleasant sensory experience has little effect on mental unrest, but
that if we have calm minds we can cope with physical pain and
discomfort.
Professor Paul Gilbert, who pioneered research about compassion
and was one of the first to initiate Compassion Focused Therapy,
suggested that we are at our most flourishing when we experience
and feel we are cared about, wanted and valued, and when we care
for, help and value others. His Holiness agreed and recommended
that modern education pay more attention to such understanding of
the mind and emotions.
Dr Sue Knight, a chief evaluator of the Primary Ethics trial in
NSW schools and creator of the Primary Ethics curriculum that
currently involves 29,000 children, suggested that it is through
the development of well-reasoned and ethically-grounded thinking
that education fulfills its individual and social goals. The
Primary Ethics program is concerned with teaching children how to
think rather than what to think.
His Holiness agreed with this and added that on our planet
today, many problems and much suffering we face is essentially
contrived by us. Wars transpire in the name of religion. He said
that it's contradictory that we all want to live a happy life and
still continue to create trouble for ourselves. Falling in line
with the suggestions broached by the panelists, His Holiness
stressed on the need for an education mindful of secular ethics
that is respectful of all religious traditions.
Charlie Scudamore, a visionary educator and Vice Principal of
Geelong Grammar School said that he represented every teacher who
wanted to help children change their lives, and make the world a
better place. In the face of an increasing drive for assessment,
encouraging flourishing is what education should really be about.
Quoting Marty Seligman, pioneer of positive psychology, he said "We
can experience three kinds of happiness - pleasure and
gratification; the embodiment of strengths and virtues and meaning
and purpose."
HIs Holiness concluded the session by expressing his gratitude
to the panelists, "I feel really encouraged to have met and
listened to you all. I'm convinced that through education it is
possible to change the world for the better. I don't expect to live
to see the result in the next 20 years or so, but this is very
good, wonderful, thank you."
His Holiness is set to hold a teaching on Nagarjuna's 'Precious
Garland' in Brisbane tomorrow, and attend multi-faith prayers in St
Stephen's Cathedral.