The Dalai Lama
My
Spiritual
Journey
Personal Reflections, Teachings, and Talks
Collected by Sofia Stril-Rever
Translated by Charlotte Mandell
CONTENTS
FOREWORD: Listening to the Dalai Lama’s Appeal to the World by Sofia Stril-Rever
PART ONE: As a Human Being
1. Our Common Humanity
I Am No One Special
I am just a human being
In our blood, a vital need for affection
My mother, a compassionate woman
It’s time to think in human terms
Every person we meet is our brother or sister
Loving-kindness, the condition of our survival
I pray for a more loving human family
We are all alike
Until My Last Breath, I Will Practice Compassion
What do we mean by “compassion"?
True compassion is universal
The power of compassion
I am a professional laugher
I am a devoted servant of compassion
Compassion, path of my happiness
I love the smile, unique to humans
2. My Lives Without Beginning or End
I Rejoice at Being the Son of Simple Farmers
My everyday life
I was born on the fifth day of the fifth month …
I can see into the humblest souls
My parents never thought I might be the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
I recognize my rosary
I successfully pass the tests of remembering my previous life
My Childhood in Lhasa
I climb up onto the Lion Throne
I find my teeth
Childhood memories
I indulge in illegal treats
I almost looked like Moshe Dayan!
My Reincarnation Lineage
I am summoned to become the Dalai Lama to serve others
The Tibetans will decide if they want a Fifteenth Dalai Lama
My Dalailamaship
Why shouldn’t a very beautiful woman be my next incarnation?
We are without beginning or end
I could reincarnate in the form of an insect
PART TWO: As a Buddhist Monk
3. Transforming Oneself
My Ideal: The Bodhisattva
My identity as a monk
My monk’s vows
The daily meditations of a Buddhist monk
Living as a bodhisattva
Spiritual practice in order to become better human beings
Temples of Kindness in Our Hearts
Toward brotherly exchanges between religions
Politicians need religion more than hermits
My pilgrimages, from Lourdes to Jerusalem
A life of contemplation on love
Temples inside
Transforming Our Minds
Analysis of the mind as a preliminary to spiritual practice
Impermanence and interdependence, or seeing the world as it is
Transforming our mind on the Buddha’s path
Actualizing our potential
Training our emotional life
4. Transforming the World
I Call for a Spiritual Revolution
We can do without religion, but not without spirituality
Spiritual revolution and ethical revolution
The sickness of duality
The disregard of interdependence by Westerners
I Do Not Believe in Ideologies
Humanity is one
Interdependence is a law of nature
A sense of responsibility is born from compassion
War is an anachronism
Everyone must assume a share of universal responsibility
My Dialogue with the Sciences
Why is a Buddhist monk interested in science?
Humanity is at a crossroads
Ethics in the sciences to save life
The tragedy of September 11, 2001, taught me that we must not separate ethics from progress
5. Taking Care of the Earth
Our Ecological Responsibility
As a child, I learned from my teachers to take care of the environment
The Tibet of my childhood, paradise of wildlife
In Tibet the mountains have become bald as monks’ heads
Reflections of a Buddhist monk on our ecological responsibility
Our Planet Is One World
The Buddha in the Green Party!
Human rights and the environment
Mind, heart, and environment
Taking care of the Earth
Interdependence as seen from space
PART THREE: As the Dalai Lama
6. In the Dalai Lama Meets the World
I Was the Only One Who Could Win Unanimous Support
At sixteen, I become the temporal leader of Tibet
We wrongly believed that isolation would guarantee us peace
I endorse the Kashag’s appeal to the United Nations
The motherland, a shameless lie
Mao’s personality impressed me
March 10, 1959, a day of insurrection in Lhasa
My Children, You Are the Future of Tibet
Forced exile
My priority is stopping the bloodshed
Children of hope
I am a proponent of secular democracy
Liberty, equality, and fraternity are also Buddhist principles
I love the image of swords transformed into plowshares
Human beings prefer the way of peace
What would Gandhi have done in my place?
7. I Appeal to All the Peoples of the World
I Denounce the Sinicization of Tibet
I ask the world not to forget that thousands of Tibetans were massacred
In the name of humanity, I appeal to all the peoples of the world
The Han-ification campaign in Tibet
Five hundred Tibetans perished while fleeing their occupied country
Tibet, Sanctuary of Peace for the World
My people’s contribution to world peace
I propose that Tibet become a sanctuary of ahimsa for the world
In the name of the spiritual heritage of my people
My weapons are truth, courage, and determination
Tibet is still suffering from flagrant, unimaginable human rights violations
In China, I see that change is on the way
To all my spiritual brothers and sisters in China
CONCLUSION: I Place My Hope in the Human Heart
We Can Only Live in Hope
AFTERWORD: Winning Peace with the Dalai Lama
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Acknowledgments
My Three Commitments in Life
Editor’s Note
Copyright
About the Publisher
FOREWORD
Listening to the Dalai Lama’s Appeal to the World
The Dalai Lama is fourteenth in a lineage of reincarnations that came into being with the first emanation of enlightened compassion, Gendun Drup, in 1391.1 The Dalai Lama discusses the anecdotes and accomplishments of his previous lives as naturally as he relates his childhood memories. He maintains a living link with his thirteen predecessors, often mentioning their beloved, familiar presence. He is seventy-four years old, but since he took on the burden of spiritual and temporal leadership of Tibet, his awareness encompasses seven centuries of history. In this book we meet the Dalai Lama at a time when he is reflecting on his next incarnation, for he knows that his present existence is drawing to an end. But he also knows that his life will not stop with death.
He asserts, however, that he is “no one special” but “a human being” like everyone else. Meeting him calls many certainties into question, for his “human” dimension does not exhibit the ordinary limits of our condition; I have often wondered whether the essential teaching we receive from him is simply about becoming fully human.
I asked myself this question again on March 10, 2006, in Dharamsala, as I listened to the speech the Dalai Lama was giving to commemorate the Lhasa insurrection. I had the feeling that his words carried far beyond the cloud-wrapped mountains and the hundreds of people gathered in a
