WHAT IS HAPPINESS? SUNSHINE IN OCCUPIED TIBET

WHAT IS HAPPINESS? SUNSHINE IN OCCUPIED TIBET

What is Happiness? Without access to Sunshine, can people of Occupied Tibet find Happiness in their Living Experience?

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162 USA
SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

OEN OpEdNews.com

OpEdNews Op Eds 6/22/2016 at 08:53:29 The Dalai Lama addresses joint session of California Legislature By SHAWN HAMILTON 

Note to Readers: The Dalai Lama isn’t always easy to understand due to his accent, and I hope this general overview helps people better appreciate the message he delivered to California’s top politicians. I have added brackets to indicate omissions or additions of words required to make the prose easily readable. In some cases I had to listen to a segment three or four times before I could determine a word). The Dalai Lama begins to speak about 15 minutes, 30 seconds into the video. Shawn Hamilton

The Dalai Lama greets members of legislature, California Capitol, 20 June 2016
(image by SHAWN HAMILTON )

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalia Lama, opened his June 20th address to the California legislature (15:30) acknowledging “respected leaders” and the general audience as “brothers and sisters”. He light-heartedly kidded the legislators about their official formality before presenting a major theme of his talk–that we should concern ourselves with the welfare the 7 billion member family called humanity. Mentally, emotionally, and physically, he said, we are all the same, and assuring others’ happiness is key to our own.
“Since we are social animals, the best way to take care of oneself [is to] take care of others. Others–community–is the basis of our own happy future,” he said. Throughout his talk, he stressed the common factor of the innate humanness behind people of all religions and ethnicities, indicating, specifically, various sects of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. “This religion, that religion,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

Dalai Lama, California Capitol, 20 June 2016
(image by Shawn Hamilton )

Another of the Dalai Lama’s themes involved the importance of children feeling parental love after their birth, and he made an interesting, and perhaps controversial, observation. He pointed generally to the assembled legislators and said that many successful people pursue ambitions tenaciously to compensate for their inherent lack of security.

He said he’d talked with scientists who had demonstrated that compassion is the natural state of humankind. Anger, jealously, and the other “poisons”, as they’re referred to in certain Buddhist teachings, arise out of “disturbance[s] of mind” rather than being innate qualities of a healthy human being. It’s an important point. Anger and violence, greed, jealousy, etc. are not normal modes no matter how much we rationalize and justify the actions that spring from them.

This is a cause for hope, the Dalai Lama said, reminding us that happiness and peace are internal states, which external riches, titles, influence, etc. can’t ultimately provide. Again he seemed to subtly let some air out of some inflated legislative egos when he said that even homeless people can be happy if they are surrounded by a community of friends who care about them–“happier even than successful businessmen or politicians,” he said smiling. “My number one commitment is [the] promotion of human love and compassion, irrespective of whether someone is a believer or non-believer, or between this believer and that believer,” he said.

A particularly interesting part of his talk comes at about 29:15. He specifically defends Muslims, apparently trying to coax listeners out of their prejudices.

Unthinkable! Using religion as an excuse for killing, Dalai Lama
(image by Shawn Hamilton )

“More than five decades I spent in India. In India you can see [different
types of] believers live together.” He admitted that occasionally there are some problems, but he said (with a twinkle in his eye) that it is understandable, considering there is over a billion people living there. There’s bound to be a few problems. “India’s not heaven,” he said. “It’s part of the world. Some mischievous people must be there.” He went on to make his larger point that religious harmony in India is generally pretty good.
“Indian Muslims [are] wonderful. It is wrong [to persecute Muslims]. We create some bad impression [that[ “Muslim” [and] “Islam” are “militant. I have a number of friends from the Muslim community. Wonderful people! All religious traditions have [the] same potential–to create a sensible human being, a compassionate human being,” he said.

The Dalai Lama also spoke about the importance of protecting the global environment. “This planet is the only place we can live happily, “breathe happily” he said, adding that the moon is beautiful but we can’t live there. Our only hope is to take care of Earth. “There’s no other choice except [to] fully protect our own home,” he said, taking the opportunity to say that those working for the benefit of the environment are engaged in something very important and necessary.

One controversial topic the Dalai Lama raised was gun control. “Real gun control must start here,” he said, pointing to his heart. He said that in order to demilitarize the world, there must be inner disarmament, an inner demilitarization. He cites anger and jealousy as examples of two internal causes of external violence. He showed a serious and firm side of himself when he mentions how people sometimes exploit religious faiths as a rationale for killing. “Unthinkable! “In the 20th century our way of thinking is [that] whenever we have some differences, some conflict, we always think [we
can] to solve this by force That way of thinking is out of date,” he said confidently. “In this century, any problem [has to be] solved through talk–meet[ing] face to face. Now some of these people who create some sort of problems–so-called terrorists–these [problems] also have to be solved through human contact. [Keeping a] distance and using force, I don’t think, is the proper solution. That’s my belief,” he said, adding, “It’s our problem and our responsibility. Make some contribution for a better world, a happier humanity.”

Shawn Hamilton is a reporter and teacher in California. He began his teaching career in Taiwan (ROC) in 1989 when large rallies were supporting the protesters at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.