Spirit of Compassion: The Dalai Lama at 90
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 7 Jul 2025
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
The Dalai Lama at 90 – CNN
6 July marked the 90th birth anniversary of Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, celebrated with the traditional “Long Life” prayers at his monastic center in the Himalayan town of Dharamshala, India, where he lives.
Today, Dharamshala is the center for the more than a hundred and fifty thousand Tibetans who live in exile world wide. There are some six million Tibetans who live in historic Tibet now under the administration of the Chinese government which considers Tibet as a “core interest.”
The Dalai Lama’s vision is that compassion, a key Buddhist virtue, should be the basis of world politics. He has written “Based on such genuine human relations – real feeling for each other, understanding each other, we can develop mutual trust and respect. From that, we can share other peoples’ suffering and build harmony in human society. When we encounter human suffering, it is important to respond with compassion rather than to question the politics of those we help. Instead of asking whether their country is enemy or friend, we must think ‘These are human beings, they are suffering, , and they have a right to happiness equal to our own.’
The problems human society is facing in terms of economic development, the crisis of energy, the tensions between poor and rich nations and many geopolitical problems can be solved if we understand each others’ fundamental humanity, respect each others’ rights, share each others’ problems and sufferings, and then make joint efforts.
Without compassion, human society is in a very difficult state; without compassion, in the future we will face tremendous problems. Compassion mist be the center of human life.” (1)
NOTE:
1) Quotations from Tenzin Gyatso “Compassion in World Politics.” Transnational Perspectives, Vol 11, Number 4, 1985
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René Wadlow is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. He is President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation and problem-solving in economic and social issues, and editor of Transnational Perspectives.
Tags: 14 Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, Buddhism, China, India, Tibet
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 7 Jul 2025.
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