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He met with Pope Paul VI, and they found common ground in their conviction that faith brings meaning to life regardless of the belief system.
But in his observation, freedom and individuality were not always good things when taken to an extreme. They could lead to broken families, alienation, and loneliness.
The middle way describes a way of life that blends elements of capitalism and communism. A pathway between the two extremes is the most likely road to prosperity and happiness, he believes.
By “global ethics,” the Dalai Lama means that all people must take personal responsibility for ensuring human rights, fairness, equality, and environmental protection, regardless of their belief system. He believes that people need not embrace Buddhism to live good lives. Often he says that practicing Buddhism is unnecessary. Everyone can find the keys to a purposeful and moral life within their own culture and religious framework.
everyone must take responsibility not only for their own family and community but also for the problems of the world, which include overpopulation, environmental degradation, and human rights violations.
His message was that educators must find a way to teach compassion and moral values apart from a religious context.
The Dalai Lama teaches that the self lies somewhere beyond our bodies and our minds. He preaches that human nature is essentially good. Only the affection of a mother allows a child to survive. Only the baby’s affection for his mother drives him to feed from her breast. This shows, the Dalai Lama explains, that we are born into compassion and sustained by it. So our essential nature is compassionate.
But these days, he does a lot more than simply dispense Buddhist philosophy. He also deplores the sharp distinctions between rich and poor that exist in many countries. He notes that the world’s population has accelerated wildly since 1950. At present, the earth may have enough resources to sustain the six billion people there are now, but it does not have enough to sustain another doubling of the population. The solution, he says with a smile, is to have more monks and nuns. The other solution, he adds more practically, is to use birth control.
The Dalai Lama has also suggested that the fifteenth Dalai Lama could be female.
He noted that we are all humans who share a common emotional concern: we all want to be happy. But our happiness depends on the actions of the rest of the world, so it behooves us to develop global perspective. Many of our problems—poverty, bullying, and violence—are man-made problems that are within our control. These problems emerge because we forget the oneness of humanity. We need to look past the secondary level of differences and make sacrifices, he explained.
