The 14th Dalai Lama said people are taking kindness for granted and there is a need to raise a more compassionate generation while speaking on the theme ‘Concept of Maitri’ at an international conference at the Mumbai University on Wednesday.
The Dalai Lama said, “Women are inherently more sensitive to the pain of others. No matter how dear the father is, it’s only the mother who can feed milk to a child. I learnt my first lesson of loving kindness from my mother. Since mothers are the first teachers of a child, they have to make the effort to teach their children about peace and compassion.”
The Dalai Lama said that at this moment there is peace, but some human beings are being killed in some parts of the world like Yemen. He said, “Innocent children are facing brutality and starvation in Syria and many countries in Africa. We don’t care that our fellow humans are suffering somewhere and sometimes it’s also deliberate in the name of national and religious interest. We are making too much distinction on the basis of religion and nationality.”
Violence begets violence
He said that people have not learnt to stop indulging in violence despite suffering through world wars and civil wars and witnessing the death of over two million people. The Dalai Lama said, “Whenever there are obstacles and tensions, we resort to force and use it as a weapon. The trend of some countries buying and selling too many weapons is very dangerous. It shows we have not learned from the violence of previous centuries.”
The Dalai Lama said the 21st century should be a century of peace. “There will always be problems among humans as it is human nature but the solution to the problems should be to use the human nature of kindness and not weapons. Offering dialogue with respect is the only way to solve problems, and for that to develop we need a certain kind of education. There is a need for special effort and not through religious teachings but education.”
The Dalai Lama observed that there is a need to revise education. He said, “Modern education is too much about material value, when it should include inner value and moral education. In kindergarten, we have lessons on hygiene, now is the time to include education about the hygiene of emotions, which is more relevant now.”
Power of oneness
He said the Indian education system should try to combine modern education that deals with material values with ancient Indian knowledge that brings inner peace. “We are in a world facing with too many human-generated problems, the biggest of them being, ‘we’ and ‘they.’ It is important to understand all of us seven billion people have to live on the same planet. So we might as well do it with oneness.”
Concluding his address, the Dalai Lama said, “Physically, I am not an Indian, but mentally I have thousands of years of old Indian knowledge. Also, modern India is physically Indian but mentally westernised. And it is through the education of inner values that we will be able to raise a more compassionate generation.”
The vice-chancellor of Mumbai University, Suhas Pednekar, said, “We feel honoured to listen to his holiness, whose work for maintaining peace and harmony in the world is well known. The University of Mumbai is one the universities of the country completing 161 years. The concept of Maitri is not just the essence of Buddhism but also goes deep in ancient Indian knowledge.”
