India’s ancient wisdom of compassion and nonviolence is essential in today’s world. We need both not just for us humans, but all sentient life, the Dalai Lama told Mayank Chhaya, his biographer.
At age 88, the Dalai Lama, who has lived nearly six and half decades as a stateless refugee, has distilled his wisdom down to two fundamental principles—Karuna or compassion and Ahimsa, nonviolence.
Quite remarkably, in the last decade and more, the Dalai Lama has shifted his focus to broader spiritual themes, particularly Karuna and Ahimsa as the ultimate tools to conduct oneself in life. In many of his public discourses, he emphasizes the importance of exercising compassion in all walks of life. Coupled with compassion is what he calls “warm-heartedness” where exuding warmth and affection toward fellow humans as well as fellow sentient life is the guiding principle.
Interestingly, he has also spoken about the importance of Karuna in governance. “India’s ancient wisdom of Karuna and Ahimsa are very essential in today’s world. We need both not just for us humans but even animals and other creatures,” the Dalai Lama told me in one of the many interviews he gave me.
“I now devote and dedicate my life totally to Karuna and Ahimsa,” he said.
Historically, over the last six centuries, both the institution and the person of the 14 Dalai Lamas have come to gather a great deal of mysticism around them. However, Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama who is 14th in the unbroken lineage of succession, has been, by the very nature of his circumstances, the most minimalist in terms of what he offers as his life’s learning.
“Once you practice Karuna and Ahimsa as your core principles, your life becomes free from suffering and the need for manipulation. Not just us as individual human beings, but as government and institutions we must incorporate these two principles as the ultimate guiding principles,” he said.
at the Main Tibetan Temple in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India on September 5, 2023.
Photos by Tenzin Choejer, courtesy Dalailama.com
Once you practice Karuna and Ahimsa as your core principles, your life becomes free from suffering and the need for manipulation. Not just us as individual human beings, but as government and institutions we must incorporate these two principles as the ultimate guiding principles.
—The Dalai Lama
The Buddhism school Dalai Lama comes from
There is, of course, a rich history of mysticism within Tibetan Buddhism. At the root of the mystical aspects of the Dalai Lama’s life lies the way in which Buddhism came to Tibet and evolved within the specific context of the nation’s already existing religious practices and rituals. The Dalai Lama as a mystic is as much a product of Buddhism as he is a product of what Tibet was before Buddhism arrived.
By their very definition mystics dwell in an uncharted world. The world of Tibetan mysticism, in particular, is one of the most intriguing. Bonism, shamanism, animism, Tantrism, and Buddhism live in each other’s shadow, making it hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Because of its spiritual and intellectual underpinnings, Buddhism stands out from the rest, but it too has its own mysterious practices known as Tantra. Stories abound about Tantric practitioners who can travel hundreds of miles in a second, possess telepathic powers, and command extraordinary sexual prowess. The veracity of these claims is hard to establish. Nevertheless, Tantric phenomena are part of Tibetan mysticism. The popular Tibetan response to skepticism about such fantastic claims is refreshingly open-ended. They exist if you believe. They don’t exist if you don’t believe.
One of the main contentions of Sakyamuni, or the Buddha, was that nonattachment to the material world was a primary condition for attaining enlightenment. He defined enlightenment, insomuch as it could be defined, as consisting of “neither fullness nor emptiness, being nor nonbeing, substance nor non-substance.”
While enlightenment could not be defined specifically, the process of seeking it could be explained and defined. The one seeking enlightenment needs an environment that fosters purity of thought, words, and action. Such purity needs an ecology to grow to its full potential. That in turn necessitates monasticism and monasteries.
A minority among those who have followed the Buddha’s teachings have attained enlightenment. They were known as arhats or the “worthy ones.” The concept of arhats created a spiritual elite in the 6th century, and the rest of the society was essentially excluded from pursuing goals loftier than what their mundane struggles imposed on them. These learned men did not care to share their knowledge with others and believed in knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Their school came to be known as Theravada. It is a more conservative and purist strand of Buddhism. The lack of compassion and consideration toward others in this strain of Buddhism prompted other followers of the Buddha to introduce Mahayana, or the bigger vehicle, a more inclusive school of Buddhism.
As a differentiator, the Mahayana Buddhists created a system of bodhisattvas, who were regarded as beings higher than arhats. Bodhisattvas are those who could have led a life of enlightenment if they chose but decided instead to postpone attaining nirvana in order to help others. Their motivating force was compassion toward others. The Dalai Lama is considered a bodhisattva who has of his own volition chosen to be of assistance to whomever he can.
Even within Mahayana Buddhism, which is a more liberal version of pure Buddhism, attaining enlightenment is quite a grueling process, and because of its inherent intensity, most people are filtered out. According to the Mahayana school, nirvana can be achieved over many lifetimes. Tantrism, on the other hand, came as a kind of shortcut to nirvana, ensuring that one can attain enlightenment in one’s lifetime.
The first Tantric texts reached Tibet in the 11th century and began diluting the more purist forms of Buddhism that had arrived earlier. On the turnpike to enlightenment, Mahayana is for those who do not care to buy a monthly pass. They choose to slow down and drop in a few coins at every toll booth. Tantrism, on the other hand, is for those who want to use an easy express pass. One must slow down a little at the toll booths but need not stop.
Tibetan Buddhism is a derivation of Mahayana Buddhism with a generous dose of Tantrism. Tantric techniques include making and contemplating mandalas, fasting and other forms of penance, saying prayers and mantras in meditation, and performing rituals. These practices require a learned teacher and hence the teacher-student relationship in the monasteries is very important.
The introduction of Buddhism to Tibet in the 7th through the 11th centuries was met with serious resistance from the adherents of the Bon religion. Nature worship, spirit worship, and shamanistic rituals were all part of Bon. The focus was on propitiating spirits found in trees, mountains, springs, and lakes. Shamans and other practitioners of such worship were part of the society’s royal structure that sought blessings of nature spirits, both out of belief and because it was politically expedient. Priests and shamans routinely presided over royal ceremonies.
Tibetan Buddhism is a derivation of Mahayana Buddhism with a generous dose of Tantrism. Tantric techniques include making and contemplating mandalas, fasting and other forms of penance, saying prayers and mantras in meditation, and performing rituals.
While the motivation behind the decision to involve shamans and priests in royal proceedings was more political than religious, by the time that King Songtsen Gampo introduced Buddhism in the 7th century, Bon had struck deep roots in the system of governance. It was necessary that Buddhism and Bonism were harmonized for Tibet to retain religious equilibrium. In the 8th century Indian Buddhist master Padmasambhava, locally known as Guru Rinpoche, played a significant role in incorporating the Bon pantheon of deities into Tibetan Buddhism. Rather than treating them as antagonists, Padmasambhava converted the Bons into protectors of Buddhism known as Dharma Pals, or “Defenders of the Dharma.” The presence of the fierce-looking deities in Tibetan Buddhism, including Yamantaka whose ferocious image the Dalai Lama was reported to have seen during his meditation just before Mao’s death.
