May 2010

Dear Friends,

Welcome to our May Newsletter which finds His Holiness just returning to India after a five state visit to the United States. His Holiness participated in events in Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and New York including a live interview with the American TODAY Show. During the interview, His Holiness was asked for explanation about intolerance in today's world in the light of his broader message that humanity was becoming gentler.

Ann Curry greets His Holiness the Dalai Lama as he arrives at the NBC studios. Photo/NBC.

His Holiness said that such problems affecting the world are temporary and that in the broader perspective the people in the 21st century are becoming much happier and compassionate as compared to those of the 20th century. Expanding on this, His Holiness said many of the problems in the world are man-made ones and so people would logically have the ability to resolve them, too.

To watch the interview, visit http://today.msnbc.msn.com

His Holiness 75th Birthday

His Holiness will turn 75 on the 6th July and there will be many celebrations around Australia. In the June issue of our Newsletter, we will provide you with details of the many events being held. We hope you will be able to participate and help the Australian Tibetan Community celebrate His Holiness's life. In conjunction with these celebrations and in the lead up to His Holiness's visit to Australia in June 2011, Dalia Lama in Australia in association with the Tibet Information Office, are organising a wonderful photographic & film exhibition – A Man of Compassion & Wisdom, The Dalia Lama's Life in Pictures. The Exhibition will be launched as part of the Festival of Tibet in Sydney on Saturday, 10th July. It will then tour around the country. Stay tuned for details on where you can see the exhibition.

Earthquake Appeal

The Global Development Fund Appeal for the victims of the devastating earthquake in Yushu is open. Your help is still needed to support the recovery efforts and we hope that you will, if you haven't already, consider offering financial support to assist the many thousands affected by this tragedy. Your support will go towards providing on-going assistance during the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the region.

If you wish to donate, please visit www.globaldevelopment.org.au, project number J629 or go directly to the dedicated donation page.

We offer our sincere thanks to you in advance and I am sure you will join us in offering our ongoing prayers to those affected by the quake and to all Tibetans living in exile.

2008 Stages of Meditation Teachings

Many people commented that the 2008 Stages of Meditation Teachings given by His Holiness, were like going into retreat with him. Held in the Dome at Sydney Olympic Park, with many staying on site, the atmosphere created as by the Teachings that His Holiness gave and the 6000 attendees was certainly a wonderful experience for all those involved.

Welcome to Country – 2008 Stages of Meditation Teachings

The aims for the visit were that the Stages of Meditation teachings be accessible to all Buddhist traditions and that they be as affordable as possible. In all just over 6000 people from twelve countries in the Asia Pacific region attended the Stages of Meditation teachings, held over five days at Sydney Olympic Park. And a similar number attended the Public Talk "Finding Purpose in Life" held on the Saturday evening of the visit. Included amongst those who attended the teachings were 280 monks and nuns from the Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan lineages. The Sangha were sponsored to attend the teachings and lunch was offered. Over 250 lay students and 200 Tibetans were also sponsored to attend the teachings. To deepen the experience for those attending, an auxiliary program was also organised. This included guided meditation, chanting, one-on-one question and answer sessions, as well as panel discussions. And the teachings were translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Tibetan and sign language. Between the teaching sessions His Holiness met with some 700 members of the Tibetan and Mongolian Communities, 300 members of the Chinese community, 150 school children, over 100 Community and political leaders and 80 members of the Australian and Chinese Media.

A Conversation with His Holiness

Many Faiths, One Truth - May 25th 2010 New York, NY, USA, 25 May 2010 (New York Times Op Ed by Tenzin Gyatso) - When I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best - and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naive I was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can be today.

Though intolerance may be as old as religion itself, we still see vigorous signs of its virulence. In Europe, there are intense debates about newcomers wearing veils or wanting to erect minarets and episodes of violence against Muslim immigrants. Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold to religious beliefs. In the Middle East, the flames of war are fanned by hatred of those who adhere to a different faith.

Such tensions are likely to increase as the world becomes more interconnected and cultures, peoples and religions become ever more entwined. The pressure this creates tests more than our tolerance - it demands that we promote peaceful coexistence and understanding across boundaries.

Granted, every religion has a sense of exclusivity as part of its core identity. Even so, I believe there is genuine potential for mutual understanding. While preserving faith toward one's own tradition, one can respect, admire and appreciate other traditions.

An early eye-opener for me was my meeting with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in India shortly before his untimely death in 1968. Merton told me he could be perfectly faithful to Christianity, yet learn in depth from other religions like Buddhism. The same is true for me as an ardent Buddhist learning from the world's other great religions.

A main point in my discussion with Merton was how central compassion was to the message of both Christianity and Buddhism. In my readings of the New Testament, I find myself inspired by Jesus' acts of compassion. His miracle of the loaves and fishes, his healing and his teaching are all motivated by the desire to relieve suffering.

I'm a firm believer in the power of personal contact to bridge differences, so I've long been drawn to dialogues with people of other religious outlooks. The focus on compassion that Merton and I observed in our two religions strikes me as a strong unifying thread among all the major faiths. And these days we need to highlight what unifies us.

Take Judaism, for instance. I first visited a synagogue in Cochin, India, in 1965, and have met with many rabbis over the years. I remember vividly the rabbi in the Netherlands who told me about the Holocaust with such intensity that we were both in tears. And I've learned how the Talmud and the Bible repeat the theme of compassion, as in the passage in Leviticus that admonishes, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

In my many encounters with Hindu scholars in India, I've come to see the centrality of selfless compassion in Hinduism too - as expressed, for instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, which praises those who "delight in the welfare of all beings." I'm moved by the ways this value has been expressed in the life of great beings like Mahatma Gandhi, or the lesser-known Baba Amte, who founded a leper colony not far from a Tibetan settlement in Maharashtra State in India. There he fed and sheltered lepers who were otherwise shunned. When I received my Nobel Peace Prize, I made a donation to his colony.

Compassion is equally important in Islam - and recognizing that has become crucial in the years since Sept. 11, especially in answering those who paint Islam as a militant faith. On the first anniversary of 9/11, I spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington, pleading that we not blindly follow the lead of some in the news media and let the violent acts of a few individuals define an entire religion.

Let me tell you about the Islam I know. Tibet has had an Islamic community for around 400 years, although my richest contacts with Islam have been in India, which has the world's second-largest Muslim population. An imam in Ladakh once told me that a true Muslim should love and respect all of Allah's creatures. And in my understanding, Islam enshrines compassion as a core spiritual principle, reflected in the very name of God, the "Compassionate and Merciful," that appears at the beginning of virtually each chapter of the Koran.

Finding common ground among faiths can help us bridge needless divides at a time when unified action is more crucial than ever. As a species, we must embrace the oneness of humanity as we face global issues like pandemics, economic crises and ecological disaster. At that scale, our response must be as one.

Harmony among the major faiths has become an essential ingredient of peaceful coexistence in our world. From this perspective, mutual understanding among these traditions is not merely the business of religious believers - it matters for the welfare of humanity as a whole.

Website Update

We are in the processes of updating our website which will be loaded with information regarding His Holiness's 2011 visit, an expanded What's On section, the addition of a photo and video gallery and a revamped Members Area are a few of the changes being made.

These changes are ongoing, so we ask for your patience whilst this work is taking place and remind you to make sure you visit the site often to keep up to date

What's On

We are currently listing various teachings and events on our website under a section titled What's On. It is our desire to expand this section and list events from around Australia. If you would like your event listed here, please send it through to us at info@dalailamainaustralia.org. Make sure you attached any Jpegs that can be used along with as many details as you are able to provide. In signing off this month, we would like to mention a special event that is taking place in Sydney in early June. Organised by one of our partners, Wake Up Sydney, Mother Earth will be held at the Sydney Town Hall on Thursday 3rd June. Featuring Katie Noonan, Descendance, Uncle Max Harrison, John Seed and Zen Teacher, Susan Murphy, the evening will offer a chance to relax in the present moment and experience a renewed sense of kindness and gratitude towards mother earth.

Proceeds from the night will support Wake Up Sydney's Kindness Card campaign, of which over 25,000 cards have already been distributed. Don't miss out on the opportunity to connect with like minded people. Visit www.wakeupsydney.com.au to secure your seat.

With best wishes,

Dalai Lama in Australia Ltd Board of Directors
& Lynn Bain, General Manager