Over the course of 35 years, we have met over 30 times and had 15 television interviews. Rarely have I encountered such an empathetic interview subject or one so full of humor. None of them has laughed more than he has. It is no coincidence that he has been voted the nicest person in the world in surveys. Over the last few years, the Dalai Lama has come to consider ethics across religious divisions to be more and more important. And today he goes a step further, making a statement unparalleled for a religious leader: “Ethics are more important than religion. We are not members of a particular religion at birth. But ethics are innate.” In the talks he gives worldwide, he refers to “secular ethics beyond all religions” with growing frequency. Albert Schweitzer had another term for the same concept: “reverence for life.”
The Dalai Lama’s secular ethics transcend national, religious, and cultural boundaries and define values that are innate in all people and apply to everyone alike. Rather than superficial, material values, these are inner values such as mindfulness, compassion, training the mind, and the pursuit of happiness. “If we want to be happy ourselves, we should practice compassion, and if we want other people to be happy, we should likewise practice compassion. All of us would rather see smiling faces than frowning ones,” he says.
His Holiness and coauthor Franz Alt.
One of the Dalai Lama’s central beliefs is this: all people are united in our pursuit of happiness and our desire to avoid suffering. This is the source of humanity’s greatest achievements. For that reason, we should begin to think and act on the basis of an identity rooted in the words “we humans.”
The Dalai Lama believes that without secular ethics, we cannot solve all the problems we face: wars in the Middle East, Ukraine, Somalia, and North Africa, 20 million global refugees, civil wars in Nigeria and Afghanistan, climate change and the environmental crisis, the global financial crisis, and world hunger. He explains and elaborates his revolutionary assertions in the conversation to follow. What the Dalai Lama suggests is a revolution of empathy and compassion – a revolution combining all previous revolutions. Without empathy and compassion, evolution would not have happened in the first place.
In January 2015, appalled at the Islamist terrorist attack at the editorial offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris, the Dalai Lama said, “On some days I think it would be better if there were no religions. All religions and all scriptures harbor potential for violence. That is why we need secular ethics beyond all religions. It is more important for schools to have classes on ethics than religion. Why? Because it’s more important for humanity’s survival to be aware of our commonalities than to constantly emphasize what divides us.” This insight was the spark for the book that follows.
Here is a new message that can change the world.
Franz Alt
Baden-Baden, Germany
AN APPEAL BY THE DALAI LAMA FOR SECULAR ETHICS AND PEACE
FOR THOUSANDS OF years, violence has been committed and justified in the name of religion. Religions have often been intolerant and still are in many cases. Religion is often abused or exploited – even by religious leaders – in order to further political or economic interests. For that reason I say that in the twenty-first century, we need a new form of ethics beyond religion. I am speaking of a secular ethics that can be helpful and useful for over a billion atheists and an increasing number of agnostics. More integral than religion is our fundamental human spirituality. That is the affinity we humans have for love, benevolence, and affection – no matter what religion we belong to.
I believe that humans can get by without religion, but not without inner values, not without ethics. The difference between ethics and religion is like the difference between water and tea. Religion-based ethics and inner values are more like water. The tea that we drink is made mostly of water, but it contains other ingredients as well – tea leaves, spices, perhaps a little sugar, and, at least in Tibet, a pinch of salt – and that makes it more substantial, more lasting, something we want to drink every day. Yet no matter how tea is prepared, its main ingredient is always water. We can live without tea, but not without water. Likewise, we are born without religion, but not without the basic need for compassion – and not without the fundamental need for water.
I see with ever greater clarity that our spiritual well-being depends not on religion, but on our innate human nature, our natural affinity for goodness, compassion, and caring for others. Regardless of whether or not we belong to a religion, we all have a fundamental and profoundly human wellspring of ethics within ourselves. We need to nurture that shared ethical basis. Ethics, as opposed to religion, are grounded in human nature. And that is how we can work on preserving creation. That is religion and ethics put into practice. Empathy is the basis of human coexistence. It is my belief that human development relies on cooperation and not competition. That is scientifically proven.
We must learn now that humanity is all one big family. We are all brothers and sisters: physically, mentally, and emotionally. But we are still focusing far too much on our differences instead of our commonalities. After all, every one of us is born the same way and dies the same way. It doesn’t make much sense to take pride in our nations and religions – all the way to the graveyard!
Ethics run deeper and are more natural than religion.
Climate change, too, can only be solved on a global scale. I hope and pray that the 2015 Paris climate accord will finally bring tangible results. Egotism, nationalism, and violence are the fundamentally incorrect path. The most important question we can ask for a better world is “How can we serve each other?” To make that shift, we need to sharpen our awareness. The same holds true for politicians. We need to maintain positive states of mind. I practice that four hours per day. Meditation is more important than ritualized prayer. Children should learn morals and ethics. That’s more important than all religion.
The primary causes of war and violence are our negative emotions. We give them too much space and give too little space to our intellects and our compassion.
I suggest more listening, more contemplation, more meditation. I agree with Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
In some totalitarian countries, we see that peace can only last if human rights are respected, if people have food to eat, and if individuals and communities are free. We can only achieve true peace within, among, and around ourselves by first achieving inner peace. Part of happiness is developing a universal sense of responsibility and a secular set of ethics.
I will always stand by nonviolence. That means intelligently loving your enemy. Through intensive meditation, we will find that our enemies can become our best friends. By following purely secular ethics, we will become more easygoing, empathetic, and judicious people. Then there is a chance for the twenty-first century to be a century of peace, a century of dialogue, and a century of a more caring, responsible, and empathetic human race.
That is my hope. And that is my prayer. I look forward with joy to the day when children will learn the principles of nonviolence and peaceful conflict resolution – in other words secular ethics – at school.
Far too much stock is placed in material values these days. They are important, but they will not solve our stress, anxiety, anger, or frustration. Still we must overcome our mental burdens such as stress, fear, anxiety, and frustration. That is why we need a deeper level of thinking. That is what I call mindfulness.
Through meditation and contemplation we can learn, for example, that patience is the most potent antidote for anger, satisfaction for greed, bravery for fear, and