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Copyright © 1999 by His Holiness The Dalai Lama
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Chapter Two
NO MAGIC, NO MYSTERY
IN CALLING FOR A SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION, AM I advocating a religious solution to our problems afte
all? No. As someone nearing seventy years of age at the time of writing, I have accumulated enough
experience to be completely confident that the teachings of the Buddha are both relevant and useful to
humanity. If a person puts them into practice, it is certain that not only they but others, too, will benefit.
My meetings with many different sorts of people the world over have, however, helped me realize that
there are other faiths, and other cultures, no less capable than mine of enabling individuals to lead
constructive and satisfying lives. What is more, I have come to the conclusion that whether or not a
person is a religious believer does not matter much. Far more important is that they be a good human
eing.
I say this in acknowledgment of the fact that though a majority of the earth’s nearly six billion human
eings may claim allegiance to one faith tradition or another, the influence of religion on people’s lives is
generally marginal, especially in the developed world. It is doubtful whether globally even a billion are
what I would call dedicated religious practitioners, that is to say, people who try, on a daily basis,
faithfully to follow the principles and precepts of their faith. The rest remain, in this sense, non-
practicing. Those who are dedicated practitioners meanwhile follow a multiplicity of religious paths. From
this, it becomes clear that, given our diversity, no single religion satisfies all humanity. We may also
conclude that we humans can live quite well without recourse to religious faith.
These may seem unusual statements, coming as they do from a religious figure. I am, however, Tibetan
efore I am Dalai Lama, and I am human before I am Tibetan. So while as Dalai Lama I have a special
esponsibility to Tibetans, and as a monk I have a special responsibility toward furthering inte
eligious
harmony, as a human being I have a much larger responsibility toward the whole human family—which
indeed we all have. And since the majority does not practice religion, I am concerned to try to find a way
to serve all humanity without appealing to religious faith.
Actually, I believe that if we consider the world’s major religions from the widest perspective, we find that
they are all—Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and the others—
directed toward helping human beings achieve lasting happiness. And each of them is, in my opinion,
capable of facilitating this. Under such circumstances, a variety of religions (each of which promotes the
same basic values after all) is both desirable and useful.
Not that I always felt like this. When I was younger and living in Tibet, I believed in my heart that
Buddhism was the best way. I told myself it would be marvelous if everyone converted. Yet this was due to
ignorance. We Tibetans had, of course, heard of other religions. But what little we knew about them came
from Tibetan translations of secondary, Buddhist sources. Naturally, these focused on those aspects of
other religions which are more open to debate from a Buddhist perspective. This was not because thei
Buddhist authors wished deliberately to caricature their opponents. Rather, it reflected the fact that they
had no need to address all those aspects with which they had no argument since, in India, where they
wrote, the works they were discussing were available in their entirety. Unfortunately, this was not the
case in Tibet. There were no translations of these others scriptures available.
As I grew up, I was gradually able to learn more about the other world religions. Especially after going
into exile, I began to meet people who, having dedicated their entire lives to different faiths—some
through prayer and meditation, others through actively serving others—had acquired a profound
experience of their particular tradition. Such personal exchanges helped me recognize the enormous
value of each of the major faith traditions and led me to respect them deeply. For me, Buddhism remains
the most precious path. It co
esponds best with my personality. But that does not mean I believe it to be
the best religion for everyone any more than I believe it necessary for everyone to be a religious believer.
Of course, both as a Tibetan and as a monk, I have been
ought up according to, and educated in, the
principles, the precepts, and the practice of Buddhism. I cannot, therefore, deny that my whole thinking is
shaped by my understanding of what it means to be a follower of the Buddha. However, my concern in
this book is to try to reach beyond the formal boundaries of my faith. I want to show that there are indeed
some universal ethical principles which could help everyone to achieve the happiness we all aspire to.
Some people may feel that in this I am attempting to propagate Buddhism by stealth. But while it is
difficult for me conclusively to refute the claim, this is not the case.
Actually, I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I
take to be concerned with faith in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of
which is acceptance of some form of metaphysical or supernatural reality, including perhaps an idea of
heaven or nirvana. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayer, and so on.
Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit—such as love and compassion,
patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony—which
ing
happiness to both self and others. While ritual and prayer, along with the questions of nirvana and
salvation, are directly connected to religious faith, these inner qualities need not be, however. There is
thus no reason why the individual should not develop them, even to a high degree, without recourse to
any religious or metaphysical belief system. This is why I sometimes say that religion is something we can
perhaps do without. What we cannot do without are these basic spiritual qualities.
Those who practice religion would, of course, be right to say that such qualities, or virtues, are fruits of
genuine religious endeavor and that religion therefore has everything to do with developing them and
with what may be called spiritual practice. But let us be clear on this point. Religious faith demands
spiritual practice. Yet it seems there is much confusion, as often among religious believers or among non-
elievers, concerning what this actually consists in. The unifying characteristic of the qualities I have
described as “spiritual” may be said to be some level of concern for others’ well-being. In Tibetan, we
speak of shen pen kyi sem meaning “the thought to be of help to others.” And when we think about them,
we see that each of the qualities noted is defined by an implicit concern for others’ well-being. Moreover,
the one who is compassionate, loving, patient, tolerant, forgiving, and so on to some extent recognizes the
potential impact of their actions on others and orders their conduct accordingly. Thus spiritual practice
according to this description involves, on the one hand, acting out of concern for others’ well-being. On
the other, it entails transforming ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so. To speak of
spiritual practice in any terms other than these is meaningless.
My call for a spiritual revolution is thus not a call for a religious revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way
of life that is somehow otherworldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather, it is a call for a
adical reorientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self. It is a call to turn toward the wide
community of beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognizes others’ interests
alongside our own.
Here the reader may object that while the transformation of character that such a reorientation implies is
certainly desirable, and while it is good that people develop compassion and love, a revolution of spirit is
hardly adequate to solve the variety and magnitude of problems we face in the modern world.
Furthermore, it could be argued that problems arising from, for example, violence in the home, addiction
to drugs and alcohol, family
eakup, and so on are better understood and tackled on their own terms.
Nevertheless, given that they could each certainly be solved through people being more loving and
compassionate toward one another—however improbable this may seem—they can also be characterized
as spiritual problems susceptible to a spiritual solution. This is not to say that all we need do is cultivate
spiritual values and these problems will automatically disappear. On the contrary, each of them needs a
specific solution. But we find that when this spiritual dimension is neglected, we have no hope of
achieving a lasting solution.
Why is this? Bad news is a fact of life. Each time we pick up a newspaper, or turn on the television o
adio, we are confronted with sad tidings. Not a day goes by but, somewhere in the world, something
happens that everyone agrees is unfortunate. No matter where we are from or what our philosophy of
life, to a greater or lesser extent, we are all so
y to hear of others’ suffering.
These events can be divided into two
oad categories: those which have principally natural causes—
earthquakes, drought, floods, and the like—and those which are of human origin. Wars, crime, violence of
every sort, co
uption, poverty, deception, fraud, and social, political, and economic injustice are each the
consequence of negative human behavior. And who is responsible for such behavior? We are. From
oyalty, presidents, prime ministers, and politicians through administrators, scientists, doctors, lawyers,
academics, students, priests, nuns and monks, such as myself, to industrialists, artists, shopkeepers,
technicians, pieceworkers, manual laborers, and those without work, there is not a single class or secto
of society which does not contribute to our daily diet of unhappy news.
Fortunately, unlike natural disasters, which we can do little or nothing about, these human problems,
ecause they are all essentially ethical problems, can be overcome. The fact that there are so many
people, again from every sector and level of society, working to do so is a reflection of this intuition: There
are those who join political parties to fight for a fairer constitution; those who become lawyers to fight fo
justice; those who join aid organizations to fight poverty; those who care, both on a professional and on a
voluntary basis, for the victims of harm. Indeed, we are all, according to our own understanding and in
our own way, trying to make the world—or at least our bit of it—a better place for us to live in.
Unfortunately, we find that no matter how sophisticated and well administered our legal systems, and no
matter how advanced our methods of external control, by themselves these cannot eradicate wrongdoing.
Observe that nowadays our police forces have at their disposal technology that could barely have been
imagined fifty years ago. They have methods of surveillance which enable them to see what formerly was
hidden; they have DNA matching, forensic laboratories, sniffer dogs, and, of course, highly trained
personnel. Yet criminal methods are co
espondingly advanced so that really we are no better off. Where
ethical restraint is lacking, there can be no hope of overcoming problems like those of rising crime. In
fact, without such inner discipline, we find that the very means we use to solve them becomes a source of
difficulty itself. The increasing sophistication of criminal and police methods is a vicious and mutually
einforcing cycle.
What, then, is the relationship between spirituality and ethical practice? Since love and compassion and
similar qualities all, by definition, presume some level of concern for others’ well-being, they presume
ethical restraint. We cannot be loving and compassionate unless at the same time we cu
our own
harmful impulses and desires.
As to the foundations of ethical practice itself, it might be supposed that here at least I advocate a
eligious approach. Certainly, each of the major religious traditions has a well-developed ethical system.
However, the difficulty with tying our understanding of right and wrong to religion is that we must then
ask, “Which religion?” Which articulates the most complete, the most accessible, the most acceptable
system? The arguments would never stop. Moreover, to do so would be to ignore the fact that many who
eject religion do so out of convictions sincerely held, not merely because they are unconcerned with the
deeper questions of human existence. We cannot suppose that such people are without a sense of right
and wrong or of what is morally appropriate just because some who are anti-religion are immoral.
Besides, religious belief is no guarantee of moral integrity. Looking at the history of our species, we see
that among the major troublemakers—those who visited violence,
utality, and destruction on thei
fellow human beings—there have been many who professed religious faith, often loudly. Religion can help
us establish basic ethical principles. Yet we can still talk about ethics and morality without having
ecourse to religion.
Again, it could be objected that if we do not accept religion as the source of ethics, we must allow that
people’s understanding of what is good and right, of what is wrong and bad, of what is morally
appropriate and what is not, of what constitutes a positive act and what a negative act must vary
according to circumstances and even from person to person. But here let me say that no one should
suppose it could ever be possible to devise a set of rules or laws to provide us with the answer to every
ethical dilemma, even if we were to accept religion as the basis of morality. Such a formulaic approach
could never hope to capture the richness and diversity of human experience. It would also give grounds
for arguing that we are responsible only to the letter of those laws, rather than for our actions.
This is not to say that it is useless to attempt to construe principles which can be understood as morally
inding. On the contrary, if we are to have any hope of solving our problems, it is essential that we find a
way to do so. We must have some means of adjudicating between, for example, te
orism as a means to
political reform and Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of peaceful resistance. We must be able to show that
violence toward others is wrong. And yet we must find some way of doing so which avoids the extremes of
crude absolutism on the one hand, and of trivial relativism on the other.
My own view, which does not rely solely on religious faith or even on an original idea, but rather on
ordinary common sense, is that establishing binding ethical principles is possible when we take as ou
starting point the observation that we all desire happiness and wish to avoid suffering. We have no means
of discriminating between right and wrong if we do not take into account others’ feelings, others’
suffering. For this reason, and also because—as we shall see—the notion of absolute truth is difficult to
sustain outside the context of religion, ethical conduct is not something we engage in because it is
somehow right in itself but because, like ourselves, all others desire to be happy and to avoid suffering.
Given that this is a natural disposition, shared by all, it follows that each individual has a right to pursue
this goal. Accordingly, I suggest that one of the things which determines whether an act is ethical or not
is its effect on others’ experience or expectation of happiness. An act which harms or does violence to this
is potentially an unethical act.
I say potentially because although the consequences of our actions are important, there are other factors
to consider, including both the question of intent and the nature of the act itself. We can all think of things
which we have done that have upset others, despite the fact that it was by no means our intention to do
so. Similarly, it is also not hard to think of acts which, though they may appear somewhat forceful and
aggressive and likely to cause hurt, could yet contribute to others’ happiness in the long run. Disciplining
children will often fall into this category. On the other hand, the fact that our actions may appear to be
gentle does not mean that they are positive or ethical if our intentions are selfish. On the contrary, if, fo
example, our intention is to mislead, then to pretend kindness is a most unfortunate deed. Though force
may not be involved, such an act is certainly violent. It does violence not only insofar as the end is
harmful to the other but also in that it injures that person’s trust and expectation of truth.
Again, it is not difficult to imagine a case where an individual may suppose their actions to be well
intended and directed toward the greater good of others, but where they are in reality totally immoral.
Here we might think of a soldier who ca
ies out orders summarily to execute civilian prisoners. Believing
the cause to be a just one, this soldier may suppose such actions are directed toward the greater good of
humanity. Yet, according to the principle of non-violence I have put forward, such killing would by
definition be an unethical act. Ca
ying out these orders would thus be gravely negative conduct. In othe
words, the content of our actions is also important in determining whether they are ethical or not, since
certain acts are negative by definition.
The factor which is perhaps most important of all in determining the ethical nature of an act is neither its
content nor its consequence, however. In fact, since only rarely are the fruits of our actions directly
attributable to us alone—whether the helmsman is able to
ing his boat to safety in a storm depends not
just on his actions—consequence could conceivably be the least important factor. In Tibetan, the term fo
what is considered to be of the greatest significance in determining the ethical value of a given action is
the individual’s kun long. Translated literally, the participle kun means “thoroughly” or “from the depths,”
and long (wa) denotes the act of causing something to stand up, to arise, or to awaken. But in the sense in
which it’s used here, kun long is understood as that which drives or inspires our actions—both those we
intend directly and those which are in a sense involuntary. It therefore denotes the individual’s overall
state of heart and mind. When this is wholesome, it follows that our actions themselves will be (ethically)
wholesome.
From this description, it is clear that it is difficult to translate kun long succinctly. Generally, it is
endered simply as “motivation,” but this clearly does not capture the full range of its meaning. The word
“disposition,” although it comes quite close, lacks the active sense of the Tibetan. On the other hand, to
use the phrase “overall state of heart and mind” seems unnecessarily long. Arguably, it could be
a
eviated to “mind-state,” but this would ignore the wider meaning of mind as it is used in Tibetan. The
word for “mind,” lo, includes the ideas of consciousness, or awareness, alongside those of feeling and
emotion. This reflects an understanding that emotions and thoughts cannot ultimately be separated. Even
the perception of a quality, like color, is held to ca
y within it an affective dimension. Nor is there an idea
of pure sensation without any accompanying cognitive event. The inference is rather that we can identify
different types of emotion. There are those which are primarily instinctual, such as revulsion at the sight
of blood, and there are those which have a more developed rational component, such as fear of poverty.
The reader is asked to remember this point whenever I speak of “mind,” of “motivation,” of “disposition,”
or of “states of mind.”
That this is so, that the individual’s overall state of heart and mind, or motivation, in the moment of action
is, generally speaking, the key to determining its ethical content, is easily understood when we conside
how our actions are affected when we are gripped with powerful negative thoughts and emotions such as
hatred and anger. In that moment, our mind and heart (lo) are in turmoil. Not only does this cause us to
lose our sense of proportion and perspective, but we also lose sight of the likely impact of our actions on
others. Indeed, we can become so distracted that we ignore the question of others, and of their right to
happiness, altogether. Our actions under such circumstances—that is to say our deeds, words, thoughts,
omissions, and desires—will almost certainly be injurious of others’ happiness. And this in spite of what
our long-term intentions toward others may be or whether our actions are consciously intended or not.
Consider a situation where we become em
oiled in an argument with a family member. How we deal
with the charged atmosphere which develops will depend to a large extent on what underlies our actions
at that moment—in other words, our kun long. The less calm we are, the more likely we are to react
negatively with harsh words, and the more certain we are to say or do things which later we regret
itterly, even though we feel deeply for that person.
Or imagine a situation where we inconvenience another in some small way, perhaps by bumping into
them accidentally while walking along, and they shout at us for being careless. We are much more likely
to shrug this off if our disposition (kun long) is wholesome, if our hearts are suffused with compassion,
than if we are under the sway of negative emotions. When the driving force of our actions is wholesome,
our actions will tend automatically to contribute to others’ well-being. They will thus automatically be
ethical. Further, the more this is our habitual state, the less likely we are to react badly when provoked.
And even when we do lose our temper, any outburst will be free of any sense of malice or hatred. The aim
of spiritual and, therefore, ethical practice is thus to transform and perfect the individual’s kun long. This
is how we become better human beings.
We find that the more we succeed in transforming our hearts and minds through cultivating spiritual
qualities, the better able we will be to cope with adversity and the greater the likelihood that our actions
will be ethically wholesome. So if I may be permitted to give my own case as an example, this
understanding of ethics means that in striving continuously to cultivate a positive, or wholesome, mind-
state I try to be of the greatest service to others that I can be. By making sure, in addition to this, that the
content of my actions is, so far as I am able to make them, similarly positive, I reduce my chances of
acting unethically. How effective this strategy is, that is to say, what the consequences are in terms of
others’ well-being, either in the short-term or the long-term, there is no way to tell. But, provided my
efforts are continual and provided I pay attention, no matter what happens, I should never have cause fo
egret. At least I know I have done my best.
My description in this chapter of the relationship between ethics and spirituality does not address the
question of how we are to resolve ethical dilemmas. We will come to that later. Rather, I have been
concerned to outline an approach to ethics which, by relating ethical discourse to the basic human
experience of happiness and suffering, avoids the problems which arise when we ground ethics in
eligion. The reality is that the majority of people today are unpersuaded of the need for religion.
Moreover, there may be conduct which is acceptable to one religious tradition but not to another. As to
what I meant by the term “spiritual revolution,” I trust that I have made it clear that a spiritual revolution
entails an ethical revolution.
HIS HOLINESS THE
Dalai Lama
.. • • • •
'II •
• •
• •
• THE UNIVERSE •
• IN A SINGLE ATOM •
• • •
• THE CONVERGENCE OF SCIENCE •
• AND SPIRITUALITY •
• •
• •
• •
• + • • ..
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