The Dalai Lama: Wisdom Derived From Suffering Essay, Research Paper
The Dalai Lama: Wisdom Derived from Suffering
In His 63 old ages of the current reincarnation, the Dalai Lama has grown from a simple undiscovered kid to a world-reknowned symbol of peace. His doctrines were inspired by the early agonies that are posed the environmental, cultural, spiritual, and political suppressions. The miseries and the troubles that he has encountered lead to his wisdom. Combined with His ceaseless desire to larn and pass on, The Dalai Lama & # 8217 ; s doctrines have non merely touched the Black Marias of the six million Tibetan people, but besides acquired the general credence of the full universe in footings of his instructions of religious and mental enrichments. It is reasonably difficult to conceive of the sufferings that he suffered and the profoundity that contains in His old small organic structure. Nonetheless, dressed in His saffron-and-maroon-colored robes, speech production in an frequently broken English, and peering at the universe through eyes that have lost none of their admiration and decency despite the horrors He has witnessed, the Dalai Lama is apparently out of topographic point in the modern universe. Therefore, the phenomenon stired our wonder to happen out His glamor and manetism to people.
Based on His book & # 8220 ; My Land and My People & # 8221 ; , we follow that the exiled leader has seen all the myriad dangers confronting the modern universe unleashed upon his ain state: wars, ecological devastation, and the trample of human rights, political justness, and spiritual freedoms in the name of supposed political, economic, and ideological advancement ( The Dalai Lama of Tibet 15 ) . Harmonizing to the autobiography of the Dalai Lama, every bit early as 1950, He was confronted with China & # 8217 ; s desire to peacefully emancipate Tibet of its foreign influences. By 1951, this alleged & # 8220 ; peaceable release & # 8221 ; created a antecedently unobserved famishment and heavy rising prices in the Tibetan population ( His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama 85 ) . Because the Tibetan civilization centered on its strong Buddhist heritage, the subsequent combustions of the temples, the ostracism and slaughter of the monastics, and Chairman Mao & # 8217 ; s imposed belief that & # 8220 ; Religion is poison & # 8221 ; all presented a menace to their civilization and spiritual beliefs ( His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama 296 ) . In China & # 8217 ; s point of vew, the spiritual religion of the Tibetans, which they saw as backward and antithetical to the spread of communism. The Tibetans resisted the subjugation, and China responded with barbarous crackdowns, apprehensions, and imprisonments. Last but non least, while in expatriate, the Dalai Lama witnessed China & # 8217 ; s proclamation to fade out the Tibetan authorities and alleviate His right to govern, thereby destructing the political construction that was established and practiced for centuries ( The Dalai Lama of Tibet 172 ) .
It is this first-hand experience with the many faces of enduring that makes the Dalai Lama so reliable a instructor. As the Buddha of Compassion, He held the strong belief that & # 8220 ; compassion is non an component of faith, but a basic feature of humanity & # 8221 ; ( His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama 6 ) . He thinks that compassion is basically a human quality ; so its development is non restricted to those who pattern faith ( Bunson 76 ) . From the book & # 8220 ; Worlds in harmoniousness: duologues on compassionate action, & # 8221 ; we know that He preached that the ultimate end of life is the chase of contentment and felicity ensuing from an interior peace arising from true love of all living things ( His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama 7 ) . He besides thinks that compassion leads to the interior peace ( Bunson 70 ) . Furthermore, He holds the thought that as we learn to stay ourselves in peace, so we can show in society in a manner that makes a existent statement for universe peace ( Bunson 150 ) . Furthermore, He believes that & # 8220 ; Warfare and hatred are ever based on misconstruing about human felicity and on misgiving between people & # 8221 ; ( Bunson 150 ) . He elaberates and promotes his thoughts by going, presenting addresss, and composing books in order to extinguish the spreads and bias among people. This challenge is one that is taken up volitionally and with the full recognition of His protagonists that His words are of benefit to their lives genuinely a merely 1. And yet, the spiritual leader commands the
attending of the universe by using its most advanced methods of communicating and transit. He travels on jet aircrafts, writes books and articles, speaks on telecasting, and has even encouraged his embassies ( the offices of Tibet ) to hold their ain sites on the World Wide Web ( Thurman 1 ) . He foremost visited the United States in 1979 and now makes an one-year trip to Washington, D.C. , to run into with American learders ( Bunson 14 ) . He besides delivers addresss all around the universe where He finds welcome ( Bunson 18 ) . As a prolific writer, He has written extensively on Tibetan Buddhism but is possibly best known for his two autobiographies, My land and My Peoples ( 1964 ) and Freedom in Exile ( 1990 ) ( Bunson 18 ) . He aslo participated in the redaction of the books that are of or about His thoughts and doctrines ( Bunson 17 ) . It is this profound deepness of His belief that has permitted Him the forbearance and the compassion to forgive His enemies, to be ceaseless in His optimism for peace, and to bear upon Himself the torment of the Tibetan people. These attempts, nevertheless, are mere tools to show the same challenge to all whom He meets: to fall in a pursuit for interior peace and religious attainment that defies the passing modern age and focuses the bosom and head on what is existent and ageless ( Bunson 210 ) .
The Dalai Lama & # 8217 ; s continued attempts on behalf of peace earned Him widespread acclamation and were decisive factors in His being honored with the 1989 Nobel peace award. The Nobel commission declared in its commendation: & # 8220 ; The Dalai Lama has developed his doctrine of peace from a great fear for all things populating and upon the construct of cosmopolitan duty encompassing all world every bit good as nature & # 8221 ; ( Bunson 247 ) . In Thurman & # 8217 ; s point of position, the Dalai Lama has come frontward with constructive and advanced proposals for the solution of internaional struggles, human rights issues, and planetary jobs ( Thurman 2 ) . In my ain sentiment, this award is besides acknowledgment to Dalai Lama Himself every bit good as his attempts of prophesying the thoughts of love and compassion continuously. Furthermore, it indicates that what he has insisted is worthy contending for. The attempts of him besides made the Tibetan leader one of the best known and most well-thought-of religious figures in the modern epoch.
Today, the Dalai Lama is still transporting out His missions. He continues to go to any state where He finds welcome and where His instructions about Buddhism, compassion, and the waies to inner peace will be heard. Using His acquisitions and personal experiences, Dalai Lama developed a alone doctrine that has made him, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Pope John Paul II, one of the genuinely surpassing religious figures of the 20th century. Like these three singular instructors, the Dalai Lama has been able to make beyond his Buddhist fans to happen a cosmopolitan relevancy. Although He is a Nobel laureate, a beloved and influential spiritual leader, and, for Tibetans, the populating embodiment of the Buddha of compassion, He remains in all necessities precisely what He describes himself to be: & # 8220 ; a simple Buddhist monastic, no more, no lupus erythematosus, & # 8221 ; populating in his abode, a little cattage, in Dharamsala ( Bunson 248 ) . He has followings from among the Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, and even atheist communities. As people all over the universe came to cognize the lama, they realized the profusion of His message beyond the entreaty for Tibet, such as his instructions refering peace, compassion and interior peace. Those who revere him make non needfully follow Buddhist patterns, but virtually all derive religious and mental enrichment from his penetrations on peace, compassion, and justness.
Plants Cited
Bunson, Matthew E. The Wisdom Teachings of The Dalai Lama. New York: Penguin, 1997.
His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama. Worlds in harmoniousness: duologues on compassionate action. Taipei: New Century, 1996.
His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama. Freedom in Exile: the autobiography of the Dalai Lama. Taipeh: Lan-gin, 1997.
The Dalai Lama of Tibet. & # 8220 ; My Land and My People. & # 8221 ; New York: Warner, 1997.
Thurman, Robert. & # 8220 ; A Brief Biography of the Dalai Lama. & # 8221 ; MoJo Wire 17-23 March 1998, Mother Jones Online. Online. 20 Mar. 1998.
