His Holiness Gives Buddhist Teaching and Talk on Cultivating Inner PeaceSunday, 3 May 2009, 4:47 p.m.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s address was about the path to peace and happiness. In the morning, he gave a lesson about the teachings of Buddha and The Four Noble Truths. The Patriots cap was a big hit. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

Massachusetts: On
May 2, 2009 His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave a commentary on the
Buddha’s Four Noble Truth and a public talk on Path to Happiness and
Inner Peace to over 13000 people.In the morning, His Holiness
departed to Gillette Stadium, the venue of the events, where he was
received by Congressman Bill Delahunt, member of the United States
Congress from Massachusetts, and children of the Tibetan community in
Boston area who sang welcome songs.  Representatives of the Boston
Tibetan Association made the Mandala offering. Dr. Lobsang Sangay of
the Boston Tibetan Association made introductory remarks and welcomed
Congressman Delahunt to make his remarks. In his address, the
Congressman expressed his pleasure at His Holiness’ visit to the region.His
Holiness began by saying that there are three points that all religions
deal with and they relate to three questions, namely i) what is I or
self? ii) Does the self have a beginning? iii) Does the self have an
end? He said both theistic and non-theistic religions have some answers
to these three questions.He talked about the theistic religions
believing in some form of self whereas non-theistic religions like
Buddhism does not believe in the existence of an independent self. On
the second question of whether the self has a beginning, theistic
religions posit that there is one since God created everything. His
Holiness said that this belief is powerful because it brings the
humankind closer to God. He said God in this case is infinite love and
the closer feeling one has to something related to infinite love means
that the more desire it generates to imitate the positive quality.

According
to non-theistic religion, since they believe in the law of causality
and everything arose out of causes and conditions, they do not believe
in the self having a beginning.On whether there is an end to
the self, the theistic religions believe that there is an end. In terms
of non-theistic religion His Holiness said Buddhists have a few
different views. One view holds that when you reach final salvation,
consciousness ceases while other views hold that there is no end.Talking
about the four noble truths, His Holiness said they can be divided into
two categories suffering and joyfulness. The truths of suffering and
the cause of suffering form the first part and the next two truths of
cessation and the path to the end to suffering form the positive aspect
of joyfulness. His Holiness listed four characteristics of suffering,
namely impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, emptiness, and no self. He
said that one can achieve the cessation of suffering by knowing that
the cause is ignorance pertaining to the ultimate nature of reality and
by cultivating a wisdom that sees through this ignorance.His Holiness concluded the morning session by giving the pledge of Bodhichitta.His
Holiness had his lunch at the venue of the events. During the break,
several Tibetan performing artists, including troupes from the Boston
Tibetan Association, Phurbu T. Namgyal, Kalsang Marstrand, Nawang
Khechog, and Penpa Tsering, performed for the gathering.The afternoon public talk began with a song and dance performance by the Boston Tibetan community.In
his talk on Path to Happiness and Inner Peace, His Holiness began by
highlighting the commonality in humanity. He said differences in
ideology, color, nationality, etc. are secondary.Everybody
appreciates warm-heartedness, he said adding that friendship comes from
warm-heartedness. His Holiness said the question is whether such values
can be produced by machines or acquired through injection or drugs, or
available to be bought. He said the answer is no.He said we all
are off-springs of our mothers and in the immediate years of our birth,
our survival depends on the care extended by our mothers. He then
talked about cultivating compassion and the impact that can have on an
individual. Giving his own experience, His Holiness said some people
may think the Dalai Lama has the power to perform miracles. That is
nonsense, he said. Some other people may feel that the Dalai Lama has
healing power, but that is a mistake, he said. He referred to his
gallbladder surgery and said that if he had healing power he would have
healed himself without undergoing surgery. However, he said due to his
efforts at practices to cultivate compassion over many years there
seems to be some impact on him. Talking about his surgery he said he
had contested his surgeon referring to him as a young patient, saying
he was 73 years old. But the doctor responded saying he knew his age,
but that his physical body appeared to be that of a 60 year old person.

His
Holiness outlined some ways to cultivate inner peace.  He said one
should strive to serve others as much as possible adding that if one
cannot do that one should restrain from harming others.One
should strive to promote secular values, His Holiness said. He added
that secularism does not mean rejection of religion. He gave the case
of Mahatma Gandhi, who devoted his life to promote secularism while
personally he was a man of faith, leading the singing of hymns, etc.Following
his address, His Holiness answered some questions collected from the
audience. In answer to a question on how to deal with tragedy or a
problem, His Holiness suggested the taking of a broader perspective. He
said some problems seem unbearable at close range, but once you start
looking at them from a broader outlook, the perception will be
different.On another question about extending love to others
when they react negatively, His Holiness talked about the two levels of
compassion, biological level that is biased and limited, and the
compassion that is cultivated through training, which is not biased or
limited.On a question on what could be done to help Tibet, His
Holiness thanked the questioner for the gesture. He said he looked upon
people supporting Tibet as being pro-justice and not necessarily
pro-Tibet.Saying that he admired the European Union model, His
Holiness said that Tibet was materially backward while being rich
spiritually. Therefore, if full protection of the Tibetan culture,
including spirituality, is given, Tibetans would benefit by being with
the People’s Republic of China, he said. His Holiness said some of the
Chinese leaders are hardliners who had a narrow minded perspective and
did not have a long term vision.His Holiness said that the
Chinese Government claims Tibet in the past 50 years is better than
during the time under the Dalai Lama and that the Tibetans are happy.
If this is true, then the Chinese authorities should show this by
allowing the international visitors to see things for themselves. His
Holiness urged the people to visit Tibet and to investigate the
reality. He called on the media to visit Tibet and see the situation.
He said the Chinese authorities should not put restrictions on visitors
and they should have access to go wherever they want.After the
conclusion of the talks, the Boston Tibetan Association representative
Tenley Palsang, made a thank you offering to His Holiness, which he
returned back as a donation to the Association. The Association
President Sonam Shartsang gave a brief report of its work. Following
this, Tenzin K Phunkhang, accountant of the association, presented an
overall financial statement saying that they were following the
tradition established by His Holiness to have a transparent and open
page on such matters. The Association said the total projected income
was $ 597,766 while the projected expense was $157,393 and the balance
of $ 440,373 will be used for the Tibetan Heritage Center project (more
details of the project can be had from www.bostontibet.org).Thereafter,
His Holiness returned to the hotel. His Holiness departs from Boston on
May 3 morning for New York City for the next leg of his tour. –Report filed by Bhuchung K Tsering of ICT