I bow down to You, who transcend the world, Versed in the wisdom of absence! For the good of the world
You suffered for a long time, with great compassion.
You assert that aside from the simple aggregates
No sentient being exists.
However, O Great Sage, You remain constantly
Completely devoted to the welfare of beings.
An existent thing is not produced,
Nor is a nonexistent thing, nor both together.
It is produced neither from itself nor from something else,
Nor from both, so how could there be production?
First of all, it is not logical for an effect to emerge
From a cause that is itself destroyed;
Nor is it produced from a nondestroyed cause.
So You accept a production that is like a dream.
The emergence of effects from a cause
Through destruction or nondestruction,
This production is like the manifestation of an illusion,
And You taught that this is true for everything.
Whatever is produced in dependence
You maintain is empty,
That it does not exist as an independent entity,
That is what You proclaimed with the lion’s roar,
O incomparable Master.
Since You teach the nectar of emptiness
In order to help us abandon all concepts,
You strongly condemned
The act of being attached to this emptiness.
Since phenomena are inert, dependent, and empty,
Similar to an illusion and born from conditions,
You made it known that they lack reality.
Without entering into meditation,
As the Noble Ones have demonstrated,
Can awareness ever do without signs?
Without entering into the absence of signs
There is no Liberation, You declared.
So You presented the absence of sign
Completely in the sutras of the Great Vehicle.
By praising You, O praiseworthy vessel,
Thanks to whatever merits I have obtained,
May all beings, without exception,
Free themselves from enslavement to signs.12
The tragedy of September 11, 2001, taught me that we must not separate ethics from progress
DESTRUCTIVE EMOTIONS like anger, fear, or hatred can have devastating effects on the world. When current events offer us a tragic reminder of the destructive power of these emotions, we should ask ourselves how we can control them. Of course, they have always been part of the human condition. Humanity has been grappling with them for thousands of years. But I believe that we should seize this occasion to transform them, thanks especially to a collaboration between religion and the sciences. It is with this idea in mind that starting in 1987 I became involved in a series of dialogues organized by the Mind and Life Institute; I found that while scientific discoveries offer a more profound understanding of fields of knowledge like cosmology, Buddhist explanations can help scholars see their own field of research in a different light.
Our dialogue benefited not just science but also religion. Although Tibetans have a valid knowledge of the inner world, we have remained apart from material progress because of a lack of scientific knowledge. Buddhist teachings insist on the importance of understanding reality; therefore, we should examine how contemporary scientists see the reality discovered by their experiments and their quantifications.
At the beginning of these dialogues, there weren’t many Buddhists. I was the only one, working with two translators. But recently we have begun to introduce the study of contemporary sciences in our monasteries, and during recent sessions of dialogue there were about twenty Tibetan monks in the audience.
The aim of these conversations is twofold. One is of an academic nature: developing knowledge. In general, science has represented an extraordinary instrument for understanding the material world, and it has made huge advances in our lifetime, even though many things still remain to be explored. But modern science does not seem to have progressed much with regard to inner experience. On the other hand, Buddhism, an ancient system of Indian thought, testifies to a profound analysis of how the mind functions. For centuries a great number of meditators have conducted what could be called “experiments” in this realm and have obtained significant and sometimes extraordinary results, using all the knowledge available to them. A deeper discussion and joint study carried out by both scientists and Buddhist scholars could be very useful on an academic level in furthering human knowledge.
On another level, if humanity is to survive, happiness and inner peace are essential. Otherwise, the lives of our children and their children risk being unhappy, desperate, and short. The tragedy of September 11, 2001, showed that modern technology and human intelligence, guided by hatred, can lead to immense destruction. Of course, material progress contributes to happiness to a certain extent, and to a comfortable way of life. But that is not enough. To reach a deeper level of happiness, we cannot neglect our inner development. My feeling is that our sense of basic human values must be pursued at the same pace as the recent increase in our material abilities.
It is for this reason that I have encouraged scholars to examine advanced Tibetan meditators in order to determine how their spiritual practice could be more beneficial to others outside the religious context. For it is important to have a better understanding of the world of the mind, of awareness, and of the emotions.
Experiments have already been carried out demonstrating that meditators can reach a state of inner peace and maintain it, even in difficult circumstances. The results prove that they are happier, less subject to destructive emotions, and more receptive to the feelings of others. Contemplative methods are not just useful but inexpensive! You don’t have to buy anything or make anything in a factory. You don’t need medications or injections.
The question that arises is how to share the benefit of these results with non-Buddhists. For it is a matter of not limiting this investigation either to Buddhism or to any other religion, but of understanding better the potential of the human mind. Spiritual methods are
