Written by: Spandan Bhattarai - 21127, Grade XII
Posted on: 12 August, 2020
Why are we still being led by hearts of stone rather than hearts of love? Do our leaders reflect our own lack of values? Perhaps. -Dalai Lama
Before starting to talk on this topic, we must know what ‘human values’ mean. Human values are the virtues that guide us to take into account the human elements such as respect, acceptance, consideration, appreciation, listening, openness, affection, empathy, and love towards others when we interact with each other. The 14th Dalai Lama (religious name: Tenzin Gyatso), advocates the cultivation of warm-heartedness and human values such as compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment, and self-discipline. Neglecting these values will surely prevent the world from getting to a place of peace and understanding. His holiness is concerned with encouraging people to be happy, helping them to understand that if their minds are upset, less are the physical comforts.
He said that secular ethics is rooted in scientific findings, common experience, and common sense and can be smoothly integrated into any nation’s education system. Religious fundamentalism, which lacks these basic human values, creates a hostile environment between us and them eliminating tolerance and hope for peace. He spoke about the experiments scientists have conducted on young infants. He set up situations in which one gives help and/or hinders it or obstructs it and aided the example of help and setting up our status as social animals whose survival depends upon others giving the concept of community and feel that fosters along with it such as love and affection also the feeling that destroys the concept of a community like anger and jealousy that creates distance and separation between the people by harvesting a sense of concern so that we can learn to use our intelligence practically.
Among the seven billion people alive in the world today, 1 billion of them believe that they have no such beliefs. His holiness put on a saying that the question is how to educate such people to believe in love and compassion and also suggested that adopting a secular approach that expresses unbiased respect for all the religions and even for the people who affirm no faith. His holiness even stated that the people who engage in love, compassion, warm-heartedness show a drastic decrease in stress and blood pressure and there is a significant increase in social interaction with people around them and used this as an example that it is possible to educate people on the basis of scientific findings, common experience, and common sense. “Graduating with a formal education won’t guarantee happiness, but committing to finding inner peace will have the greatest influence on life”, he said. The Nobel Peace Prize winner is known to insert religion and Indian values into his approach to the world and has often brought it upon his speech. Reminding people that being happy, satisfied in life can grow in a healthy way. Although it wouldn’t be easy, it could be reached with determination, optimism, and willpower.
In the afternoon of 22nd of November, 2014, when his holiness was invited to address a meeting held by an independent, non-profitable organization, Ananta Aspen Centre, he outlined his own three commitments. First, he talked about the promotion of human values as a source of happiness and physical health, saying that the main source of happiness is the mind and also brought into attention that our lives begin with our mother’s care and affection and as social animals, it is care and affection that brings all the people together.
He described his second commitment as the promotion of inter-religious harmony, taking international figures like Mother Teresa, whose dedication to benefit the community by helping the poor and needy as an expression of their faith. He even said that religions may have different perspectives but at last, they all share the same common goal that is to maintain peace between all the living beings.
Acknowledging that he is Tibetian and many Tibetians have placed their trust upon him while being wholly retired from politics, he clings onto a concern for flourishing the Tibetian culture as it is a culture of peace, non-violence, and compassion. He said that the concern for Tibet also extends to its natural environment, noting that a billion people across Asia are dependent on the water that flows from Tibet’s rivers. As human beings, we all need to take responsibility for creating a better world and more peaceful humanity.
He said that secular ethics is an approach to inner values that does not disturb or come as an obstacle to the concept of god or religious tradition and even called it an appropriate approach for those who don’t value any type of religious traditions or spiritual beliefs and does not mean any disrespect or distance from any religion but is an approach where he can bring people following different religions to help the humankind to achieve a single that is to maintain peace with every people in the community. Love, compassion, forgiveness, and kindness are not religious values but are human values. With the people of the world being one whole family, the people here cannot remain indifferent. We have created these problems and we must make new efforts with different ideas and vision and it is our responsibility to change that problem.
His Holiness elaborated on his thoughts about secular ethics, the importance of human values such as compassion, kindness and also talked about changes taking place in China and the fact that the people in the world depend on each other on how we exert ourselves. He said that exploring to find the source of happiness is within us and we just need a map of emotions and feelings to find it. We must develop a sense of emotional hygiene and understand how to manage our emotions. How to counter negative emotions and cultivate positive emotions and it is the only way to find peace within and save humankind for good.
