In Chinese society today, journalists, lawyers, ecologists, and artists have the courage to confront the authorities. As it undergoes major change, China is rediscovering religion. According to the Tibetan prime minister, Samdhong Rinpoche, there are 300 million Buddhists in China, including the ex-leader of the Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, and the former prime minister, Zhu Rongji. Many businessmen and artists are interested in Buddhism, and books by the Dalai Lama, printed in Taiwan, circulate under cover. While sympathy for and solidarity with the Tibetan cause continue to increase, rich benefactors have financed the reconstruction, in the great Tibetan tradition, of destroyed monasteries and centers of transmission of the Buddha’s teaching.
The Dalai Lama maintains hope for an eventual democratization of China and for justice that would be rendered to the Tibetans by the Chinese people.
The Dalai Lama wonders, “What if spirituality were to overthrow Chinese communism?” He has asked the question many times, for this hypothesis does not seem unlikely to him. It is inscribed in the logic of the spiritual revolution that he advocates and in his three commitments in life. If his work in the service of freedom and peace throughout the world is not finished, his next incarnation, the fifteenth in the line of Dalai Lamas, will take up the torch of freedom, which is not even close to going out—it burns in the heart of a human being whose life does not end with death.
CONCLUSION
I Place My Hope in the Human Heart
We Can Only Live in Hope
IN SPITE OF THE ATROCIOUS CRIMES the Chinese have committed in our country, I have absolutely no hatred in my heart for the Chinese people. I believe that one of the curses and dangers of the present age is to blame nations for the crimes of individuals. I have known many admirable Chinese.
In these days of overwhelming military power all men and women can only live in hope. If they are blessed with peaceful homes and families, they hope to be permitted to keep them and to see their children grow up in happiness; if they have lost their homes, as we have, their need for hope and faith is even greater. The hope of all men, in the last analysis, is simply for peace of mind. My hope rests in the courage of Tibetans and the love of truth and justice that is still in the heart of the human race, and my faith is in the compassion of Lord Buddha.33
BE A SOURCE OF HOPE:
Whatever happens
Never lose hope!
Develop your heart.
In your country, too much energy
Is devoted to cultivating the mind.
Be a source of compassion,
Not just for your friends,
But for everyone.
Be a source of compassion.
Work for peace.
And I tell you again,
Never lose hope,
Whatever happens,
Whatever happens around you
Never lose hope!
This poem was written by the Dalai Lama at the request of the American writer Ron Whitehead, founder of a medical research institute studying the human genome. The Dalai Lama read it at New York University in April 1994 during a festival organized by Ron Whitehead dedicated to world peace.
“Never lose hope,” a slogan taken up by Tibetan youth, is now inscribed on houses in children’s villages and printed on T-shirts.
MAY I REMAIN IN ORDER TO RELIEVE THE SUFFERINGS OF THE WORLD!
May I be the protector of the abandoned,
The guide for those who wander the path,
And for those who yearn for the other shore,
May I be the vessel, the ferry, the bridge;
May I be the island for those who need an island,
The lamp for those who need a lamp,
The bed for those who need a bed;
May I be the wish-fulfilling gem, the vase
With great treasure, a powerful mantra, the healing plant,
The wish-granting tree, the cow of abundance.
As long as space remains,
As long as beings remain
May I too remain
To relieve the sufferings of the world!
34
It was with this last quatrain of the long prayer by the great Indian saint Shantideva, which exalts the Buddha’s love for all sentient beings, that the Dalai Lama concluded his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
Almost twenty years later,35 he confided that at the time of his death he wants to leave this life remembering these lines, his mind bathed in compassion.
AFTERWORD
Winning Peace with the Dalai Lama
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s exile, this book would like to celebrate a victory.
In the history books we learn that one nation wins a war while another loses it. Over the centuries, conflicts have succeeded each other, showing how true it is that no war that has ever been won has signified the end of war. Quite the contrary. Confrontation continues from generation to generation, and the parties that capitulated yesterday hope to become the conquerors of tomorrow. What if the Dalai Lama’s commitment were precisely to break this cycle of conflict? From that point of view, the fifty years that have passed would be neither pointless nor lost. On the contrary, they would represent victory over war.
The Dalai Lama has won peace; he has come away with a victory of peace.
This victory is not proclaimed on the front pages of newspapers, and nations have not given a triumphant welcome to the
