The quality of mercy has the power to transform the world
I believe that at every level of society -- familial, tribal, national and international -- the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities.I try to treat whoever I meet as an old friend. This gives me a genuine feeling of happiness. It is the practice of compassion.
-- His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama from "Compassion and the Individual"
With lines around the block on Ohio Street, fans in search of tickets and scalpers selling them outside the Medinah Temple, it seemed like a rock concert or opening night for a major production at a theater. But the crowds had come on the afternoon of Sunday, July 28, 1996 to see and hear His Holiness, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama -- Tenzin Gyatso, Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of the Tibetan government in exile.
The last time the Dalai Lama was in Chicago was to address an enthusiastic crowd of 30,000 in Grant Park on the final evening of the 1993 World Parliament of Religions. He remains a big draw, and his appearance this year was one of the hottest tickets in town. People who had failed to reserve tickets through Ticketmaster waved signs offering to buy extras. Many in the audience had spent as much as $150 to attend the speech and a private reception with him, hosted by actor Richard Gere, a Buddhist since the early 1980s.
The audience, eager to get into the event as well as the $15 and up commemorative t-shirts, CDs and other items of merchandise on sale at one side of the lobby created an atmosphere of commercialism that was overcome once the audience had settled itself in the Temple's splendid auditorium. Master of Ceremonies Bill Kurtis, well-known for his many years of varied work in TV, led off the afternoon, and introduced world-class musicians Nawang Khechog (Tibetan flute and the universal horn) and Philip Glass (piano), who presented memorable musical tributes to the Dalai Lama. Richard Gere then related how he himself had become a Buddhist and stories of the extreme social difficulties, terrorism and torture encountered by Tibetans who remain in their own country.
The audience stood in reverent joy as the Dalai Lama, dressed in traditional burgundy and saffron robes, mounted the stage from a seat in the audience. He greeted the gathering in Tibetan before switching to English and apologized for his "broken English" which, he joked, became worse with age. Still, he gave his entire speech in clear English with minimum help from a translator.
At the age of 16, the Dalai Lama found himself leader of a country which gradually was being conquered by the Chinese. While leading his people during one of the greatest crises in their history, he also pursued spiritual studies and practices. A year before leaving Tibet, he received his doctorate in Buddhist Philosophy.
Modern Tibetan society was founded on Buddhist principles, and leaders are believed to be reincarnations of past leaders. When the Dalai Lama was two years old he was recognized as the fourteenth incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. A Bodhisattva is one who decides to delay final liberation from the round of births and deaths in order to help others on the path to enlightenment. The desire to serve is central to Tibetan Buddhism. Every Tibetan Buddhist is to take the Bodhisattva Path, enduring suffering through many lifetimes in order to work for the good of all.
The Dalai Lama has been in exile since fleeing from his country on March 10th, 1959. On that date, several thousand courageous Tibetans surrounded his residence in Lhasa to prevent him from attending a cultural show that the Chinese had invited him to at their military base. For fear of Chinese reprisals if he were to refuse, he had agreed to attend. Since the Chinese had refused to allow the Dalai Lama to be attended by guards, the invitation was believed to be a kidnapping attempt.
Although the Dalai Lama had never been any real threat to the Chinese military occupation of Tibet, the Chinese forces feared that he would prevent them from taking over and abolishing the ancient Tibetan culture. Thanks to the courage of those who came to surround his palace, he was saved from harm. The uprising of the populace allowed the Dalai Lama and 80,000 of his followers to flee to exile in India and Nepal. From there and in other countries all over the world, small communities of Tibetan exiles have worked tirelessly to keep their civilization and deep commitment to Buddhism alive -- while informing the rest of the world of the continued attempts at genocide in their homeland. There now are approximately 130,000 Tibetans living in exile in India and Nepal.
In Tibet today, Chinese behavior has been one of the modern world's worst cases of human rights abuse and attempted cultural genocide. Tibetan exiles estimate that 1.2 million Tibetans, or one in five, have died as a direct result of the occupation. In the 1960s, during the upheavals of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, almost all Tibetan religious and cultural places were destroyed. Presently the Chinese are pursuing their final solution in Tibet, moving millions of Chinese into the country in order to make the Tibetan people a minority in their own land. Most recently, the Chinese even abducted the incarnated Pancha Lama and his family. The Pancha Lama, a reincarnation of an important Tibetan leader, is only six years old, making him perhaps the world's youngest political prisoner.
Though the Dalai Lama is a Buddhist spiritual leader, he did not once mention Buddhism during his nearly two-hour talk. Instead, he focused on the power of compassion and the need for altruism. He stressed that if there is ever to be world peace, compassion is the essential element.
His Holiness told the audience that man is the most dangerous animal on earth. Not only is man a danger to himself and other people, he said, but a danger also to the planet as a whole. He admitted thinking at times that if man were to disappear, the planet would be a much safer place. He differentiated between what makes man dangerous and what makes an animal like a tiger dangerous: the tiger kills when it is hungry and is peaceful when it is not. Only man kills when it is not necessary. Only man is capable of violence, killing for some reason other than survival.
But humans, he said, become dangerous because they are unhappy. If humans were happy, they would have no need to exert power to harm others. The Dalai Lama stressed that all humans want happiness, but few seem to find it . . . because they are looking for their individual happiness, which only leads to attachment. People and things are impermanent, and attachment to them will inevitably lead to further suffering. Only through practicing compassion, putting others first, can we find happiness. Compassion is seeing that all creatures "are sentient beings just like myself" who suffer and want to be happy. He returned to this theme again and again -- that all creatures suffer and all wish to be happy. Just as only man can be violent, so can he also be happy and compassionate.
The Dalai Lama stressed that each of us is responsible for our own heart, and only through working on our own minds can we develop compassion. He went on to say that only happiness and compassion can solve our social problems. He pointed out that children raised in happy, compassionate families are happier, better behaved and perform better in school. Compassion in the home can solve many of our current social problems.
As people develop compassion, society becomes more effective. People cease to be a danger to themselves, to their fellow humans and to the world as a whole. They become better members of society. Society itself, therefore, becomes better. A society of compassionate people is itself compassionate.
Violence such as wars can be eliminated from a world filled with compassionate societies. Leaders who negotiate from compassion see their adversaries as having legitimate needs and are willing to accommodate those needs. The needs of all citizens become equal and are seriously addressed.
Various organizations have sprung up around the United States to aid the Tibetan cause and these have begun to bring Tibetans into American cities. There are, for example, 100 Tibetans in Chicago who have been brought in through the efforts of the Tibetan Alliance of Chicago, the organization that sponsored the talk at the Medinah Temple. Still, Tibet faces daunting odds: the Chinese seem bent on continuing to carry out a combination of cultural and physical genocide there.
In negotiating with China, the Dalai Lama has constantly stressed the quality of compassion. He emphasized that he has approached the Chinese with an open mind and an open heart and found they were not at all receptive. Still, he has continued to stress the importance of remaining compassionate towards them. He told the story of a monk who was imprisoned by the Chinese for eighteen years; after his release and escape from Tibet, the monk was asked whether he ever felt he was in danger. Yes, he said, he was sometimes in danger of losing his compassion for the Chinese.
The present position of the Chinese makes it impossible to negotiate a just solution to the situation in Tibet. They have "some organ of hearing missing," the Dalai Lama told the audience, and use "only the mouth, lecturing us all the time." Because of this, he concluded that it was necessary to turn to the world for help. He has begun an international campaign for support, hoping people will demand that their leaders pressure the Chinese to relax their position and make concessions to the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama reminded the audience that after all, the only true export of Tibet is spiritual growth.
The approach of His Holiness is similar to Desmond Tutu's method during the 1980s of building world support against apartheid in South Africa. He has found that the governments in Europe and the United States have been supportive: several European parliaments and both houses of Congress have passed resolutions condemning the Chinese actions in Tibet.
Unfortunately, fear of insulting the often sensitive Chinese government has prevented these resolutions from being supported by heads of state. For example, the Dalai Lama is not allowed to enter the White House through the front door and must use the back entrance instead. Referring to this fact, he stressed the importance of increasing support in the United States for his country. Only when the Chinese see danger to their profitable relations with the West are they likely to show much interest in negotiating.
His Holiness is confident he will prevail against the Chinese and promised that upon greater independence of the country, he will turn his power as head of state over to the Tibetan people to create a democratic government. When asked whether he feared criticism under a democracy, he stressed that though democracy is imperfect, it remains the best form of government. Dissent will not be a problem in a compassionate society where the views of all are respected and true communication is possible -- thus preventing disputes from becoming violent or extreme. The important thing is not to try to find the perfect system of government, but to develop compassion within ourselves.
Before the Chinese invasion, there had been no war in Tibet for centuries. Yet before becoming a Buddhist country, Tibet was infamous as a land of brutal warriors. In the 9th Century, the Tibetans conquered a large empire containing parts of India, China and the Middle East. Then in the16th Century, the Grand Lama of Lhasa established himself as ruler of Tibet, creating a Buddhist society. Over the centuries that followed, Buddhism transformed the people and culture of Tibet into the first society to permanently banish warfare and dissolve its military. Never before or since has a country undergone such a transformation, proof to all humanity that world peace can be obtained through compassion and spiritual practice.