The Dalai Lama Has Words for Our Youth

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  This week’s item is from the Portland, Oregon, Oregonian, May 15, 2001 with a headline “Dalai Lama tells youth to have faith in yourself.”The Dalai Lama told 8000 high school students Monday that they don’t have to be religious to lead purposeful lives and cultivate “basic human good qualities,” such as tolerance, compassion, and kindness.Even without religious faith, you can be a happy person, but without these qualities you will not be a happy person, said the Nobel Peace Laureate and High Lama of Tibetan Buddhism.He spoke to Oregon and Washington teens at Memorial Coliseum.The event sparked controversy in recent weeks because several Washington legislators and others question whether schools should sanction a speech by a religious figure. The speech drew applause and laughter from the students and attracted only a few sign-carrying, evangelical Christians outside the Coliseum.This has nothing to do with religion. This has to do with us working together to promote peace and peace goes with every religion,” said Rebecca Payne, 18, a senior at ClevelandHigh School.The Dalai Lama spoke mostly in English and joked frequently with his young brothers and sisters, as he called the students.“You have great or immense opportunity to making new shape of the world,” he told the students, “through education, determination, compassion, and self confidence.You should have self-confidence on the basis of your great potential,” he said.

At one point he suggested that the United States should have more nuns and monks.“That’s one way to make contribution to population control non-violently,” he said.“That’s half joke, half serious.” “He made peace sound so simple, and everybody else makes it sound so complicated,” said Carolyn Beck, an eighteen year old senior at SouthRidgeHigh School in Beaverton.Learn to control your anger and turn your energy into positive things.Five Washington legislators last week criticized school districts for spending tax money to transport students to the Youth Summit, arguing that such an endorsement violated a separation of church and state.

Tom:

Dave, this is a man that is highly respected; a friend of the Pope; [and a] well known religious figure.There’s some controversy around this because of who the man is and what he is talking about.On the one hand, there are some religious problems here, on the other hand the man is talking about peace and unity and all those good things.So what could be wrong with that?

Dave:

Well first of all, he claims to be the 14^th reincarnations of the original Dalai Lama.That is a statement he can’t prove.Reincarnation is fiction; it doesn’t happen, there’s no evidence for reincarnation.It is contrary to—directly contrary to the Bible.So here’s a man who is challenging God’s Word.The Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die.He says no, I am the 14^th reincarnation of the original Dalai Lama.They have no way of proving that.Secondly he claims that he’s God.Here’s a man that claims to be God.He shouldn’t have to ride airplanes; he shouldn’t need an umbrella over his head you know, to ward off the rain and so forth.You observe this man, and you can see nothing about him that is supernatural.Now he does talk about peace.But everybody talks about peace.You remember when the hippies made the peace sign: “Give Peace a Chance.”

Tom:

Or “visualize world peace,” as the bumper sticker says.

Dave:

Yes, he says “you have immense opportunity to make a new shape of the world.”Well I guess we have, but Tom it’s like this: if I went to the race track and I bet on the same old nag day after day, week after week, year after year, it could hardly stagger out of the starting gate, and never finished the race, you would have good reason to believe that my loyalty to that horse far exceeded my common sense, right?

Tom:

Yes.

Dave:

[Are] you going to bet on the human race?The problems in the world are here because of the human race.We cause the war, we cause the social problems, we cause the poverty, we cause the ecological collapse that we could be facing and so forth, but now I’m going to bet on this same old nag that hasn’t been able to stagger out of the starting gate, that has brought all the problems upon us and we’re going to say, yes, but you human beings, you have the potential within you.Well, I suppose they have some potential, but we have only been demonstrating mostly, not only, but [there are] a lot people out there that do good things, but mostly the potential for evil becomes more and more apparent.This is what we demonstrate.Then he said you should have self-confidence on the basis of your great potential.Self confidence?Tom, this is the same old line that John Vasconcellos started out in California, you know?

Tom:

On self esteem…

Dave:

The assemblyman out in California that started the task force.If they just had confidence in themselves that would solve all of our problems: drug addiction, pornography, and violence—there wouldn’t be anymore violence.Since they started this whole self-esteem thing the violence in schools has gotten worse and our academic level has gone down.Even some of the students became disillusioned and said, what’s the point of even trying?No matter what you do, they praise you.They say you’re great; you’re the greatest, no matter what you do.Now to tell someone you’re the greatest is not going to help them achieve.To tell them they better work hard and grind it out and tough it out, you’ve got a lot of work to do—that’s going to help someone achieve.They are going to work harder for their grades and so forth.Now to make peace, well he made it sound so simple, this girl says.Really?Yes, I guess it is, but what has the Dalai Lama done to bring peace?I’ll tell you what he did in Santa Monica.He initiated 3500 people in an auditorium into Tibetan Tantric Deity Yoga to teach them that they were all little Bodhisattvas, that they were all deity and that they could create reality with their own minds and I don’t see that it has gotten any better.I don’t see anyone creating reality with their minds. They may be deluding themselves, but they’re not creating reality.

Tom

Dave with regard to the first segment and here’s a good example.We have a religious figure who draws youth from Washington and Oregon and so forth; let’s have a little healthy skepticism here about religious pundits as it were, about what they say and about what they are all about.Let’s check into it.

Dave:

Making big promises that they can’t make good on.