We can never obtain peace –The Dalai Lama

We can never obtain peace

We can never obtain peace in the world if we neglect the inner world and don’t make peace with ourselves. World peace must develop out of inner peace. Without inner peace it is impossible to achieve world peace, external peace. Weapons themselves do not act. They have not come out of the blue. Man has made them. But even given those weapons, those terrible weapons, they cannot act by themselves. As long as they are left alone in storage they cannot do any harm. A human being must use them. Someone must push the button. Satan, the evil powers, cannot push that button. Human beings must do it.
–The Dalai Lama, in The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness

 

the thing is, the buddha didn’t go – he stayed

my birthday present from HH Dali Lama & Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to YOU

November 11 was my 61st birthday. One of my birthday presents from Shelly and Morgan was a book called The Book of Joy. It was a weekend visit between His Holiness the Dali Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu as recorded by Douglas Abrams. It was marking the 80th birthday of His Holiness. I would like, as my own birthday gift to the world, to share a few lines. I can only speak for my self wen i say i found them profoundly helpful , not so much because of my feeling old but because it was just after the presidential elections in my homeland.

Anyway by way of background on the two men this from the front fly leaf of the book:

“Noble Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dali Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships – or, as they would say, because of them – they are two of the most joyful men on the planet.

In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dali Lama’s home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness’s eightieth birthday and to create this book as a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question : how do we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering? “

So I don’t get past their little introduction note before I found this gem. I share it here to hope it will bring you benefit and perhaps inspire you to look to our own self for the power of joy –

 

” No dark fate determines the future. We do. Each day and each moment, we are able to create and re-create our lives and the very quality of human life on our planet. This is the power we wield.”

 

and i would add it is not something some one can give you, or take away from you. it is something you can find within your self or loose by surrendering your self to others. these guys come from serious oppression and violence and yet they say there is a way to joy and it is up to each person to choose. how much easier should it be then for those of us who benefit from the abundance , security and freedoms in our Western cultures to be living a life of joy?

“Lasting Happiness cannot be found in pursuit of any goal or achievement. It does not reside in fortune or fame. It resides only in the human mind and heart, and it is here that we hope you will find it. “

through the book they speak of their own personal experiences, that of theistic and non- theistic as well as citing scientific research and analysis. there by truly making it a gift to the world.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29496453-the-book-of-joy