This is tape TRC 89-5. The East-West Foundation presents Harmonia Mundi, Worlds in Harmony. October 1989 in Newport Beach, California. This is a forum dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This morning and today's topic for discussion is making a difference through compassionate action. We want to reflect on the ways we can use opportunities that come to us in daily life as a means to cultivate compassion, as well as how we can extend from our own personal situation to a broader concern, concern for the community, for the nation, for the planet. And we're going to begin this morning with questions that have come from the people in the groups as a result of yesterday. Go. Good morning, Your Holiness. First question is how can each of us be agents

[01:13]

and helpers for change to foster compassion when we live in a culture that where the public consciousness is so filled with and dominated by preparation for war, violence, and conflict, and going after material possessions. From one perspective, in such a situation as our present

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contemporary situation, one of crisis, there are, as His Holiness has discussed in the past, there emphasizes the importance of reflecting upon the disadvantages of hatred, hostility, and really contemplate the benefits of living with a more compassionate way of life. So on the one hand, it's true that this is a period of crisis when there's a lot of violence and aggression and so forth. On the other hand, there are hopeful signs. We do hear even major politicians, such as someone in the Labour Party in Great Britain, emphasizing the importance of compassion. So there are hopeful signs, too. So it seems there may be an increasing awareness of the

[03:31]

importance of compassion. Sometimes, I think perhaps in early 60s, 50s, if we try to have this kind of meeting, I think maybe less people. So anyway, I think the more, how to say, hopeful sign, I think. And so we should see from in terms of our own experience, let alone our religious affiliation or religious beliefs and doctrines, let alone that, but

[04:32]

purely by our own experience, we should be checking out for ourselves to see the practical benefits of compassion in terms of bringing about greater contentment, mental serenity, well-being. This is what needs to be checked on. This increase in awareness of the importance of compassion in our society stems from the conviction that compassion is very beneficial in one's life, helpful, and so on. So it's very important to try to make this awareness more widespread through media education. A great number of the people who are attending this conference are helpers.

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They are psychotherapists or healers of different kinds. What advice, what information do you have for them in helping them? These are the helpers themselves and how to help the helpers. We're already doing it. And that is by getting together in conventions like this, sharing our experiences. This is the way to help each other.

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Apart from this, if only this has no particular ideas. There's a great deal of concern and thought in the audience about people with addictions of various kinds, addictions, whether it's to drugs or to power or to sensations or security. What specific methods or technologies can you suggest for people to deal with those attachments and addictions? So Hoi San is expecting that this is an individual case. That is, where is it

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happening? What is the individual who's engaged in that addiction and apply specific individual treatment for individuals? He hesitates from any kind of generalization. In Buddhism, we find that there's an ongoing emphasis on assessing the specific predilections, capacities, interests and so forth of individuals and then tailoring, if you like, tailoring the Dharma practice for individuals independence upon that without making generalization. So as this is important for spiritual practice, this will be applicable too for cases of addiction and so on. Apart from that, he doesn't know. One last question from the audience. How can we be, each of us, be comfortable

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with our shortcomings, with our failings? That is, when we see that we've been temporarily motivated by improper or oppressive or deluded parts of ourselves. How do we integrate this dark side? If His Holiness has addressed this from a Buddhist perspective, then the Buddhist

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approach is first of all to reflect upon the false, the destructive influences of mental distortions or the afflictions of the mind, such as attachment, hostility and so forth. This is one element. Also to reflect upon the negative karmic consequences, the long-term consequences of unwholesome activity. By reflecting on this way, it does depress the mind. It does, it does bring about depression, but it can be a fruitful, fruitful depression. So in Buddhism, there is a lot of emphasis on meditating upon the truth of suffering, upon the truth of the source of suffering. And it's not an inspiring kind of thing to think about. It is depressing. It's a downer. If that's all there were to it, if that's all there were to the meditation, is simply meditating on the suffering and the sources of suffering, then it would simply lead to depression and one might think of nothing beyond suicide. But that's not where the story ends. And that is because there is also the possibility, according to the Buddhist experience, there's also the possibility of freeing oneself from the afflictions of the mind, from the unwholesome behavior that ensues from

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those afflictions. And so it has to do very much with our own Buddha nature, our own capacity for full awakening, which each of us already has. And because of this, regardless of the faults that we have, regardless of the unwholesome behavior that we still succumb to, we have the potential to be free of those. So in terms of the succession of meditations, initially one does focus on the unfortunate, the negative, and this does bring about depression, but then this is designed to give rise to an emergent quality of awareness that says, I want to arise from this, leading to an aspiration for freedom with the faith, faith that, yes, there are faults, but we have also the freedom to be free, the freedom of the capacity to be free and liberated from these. And also, from a Buddhist point of view, no error is impossible to be changed. Always there is a possibility to change. And as a human being, without relating to any sort of, not speaking from any

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particular religious perspective, simply as a human being, because of our physical faculties, physical body, we do have a human brain with human intelligence. Because of that, we can have a self-confidence that we have the ability and capacity to overcome human suffering. So that's the kind of realization of human intelligence could enable oneself to have more inner strength to face situations. This realization of human intelligence and human capacity, I think, is very important. Your Holiness, how then does one go to the next question? If Holiness would like you to respond as well, what are your reflections on that?

[15:10]

They have questions regarding all these questions. Some answer. They should come, should have. I don't know. If the question is, how can we be compassionate when still there's so many parts of us that aren't resolved, that aren't integrated? Could you find other words? One common practice in terms of Buddhist practice is that especially when one feels discouraged,

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feeling, well, I'm too old, I'm not intelligent enough, or I've done too many evil things in the past, I'm simply not good enough. When falling into such type of depression, then a Buddhist practice to look into the centuries and centuries of Buddhist accounts of people who were older than oneself, did heavier evil than oneself, who were stupider than oneself, and find that they too were able to gain, in some cases, they were able to attain liberation by pursuing with enthusiasm and so forth, with confidence, and think, oh, then if they can do it, then I can do it too. So seeing it in relative and not simply regarding oneself as the extreme, I am simply too old, or what have you. In our experience, if we're working with someone who has a profound, the heart, their mind is very aching, maybe from the loss, the death of a loved one, or the situation in their lives that seems unworkable. We find that a lot of people ... Could you give an example of such a situation? I think if one is abused, there is great compassion and a great sense of our own inner power when

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those people who are abused serve others who have been abused. I think that those who have had children die at a certain point, when they have allowed the pain in, they can learn what you're saying, the compassion, the power, the healing power of compassion, the wholeness, in a sense that the compassion we cultivate in the mind is a reflection of our real nature, the nature of our heart, and it's a little bit like priming the pump. You put a little bit of compassion in, and then the natural compassion, the natural goodness arises, and we see people get a lot of confidence. When they experience their own natural goodness, even if they see there's times we're not completely honest, there's times we're frightened, there's times we feel very separate from ourselves,

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and even the thing we love most, so separate, so much an object in the mind, so little in our deeper nature. But when people seem to serve others, there seems to be a confidence that arises that even accepts how unwhole we are, in a very whole way, in a very heartful way. Your Holiness, this touches on a point that I think is very important, that is that people

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who feel themselves unloved, you're saying, to pass the question on, you're saying that when people fall into depression because of having been abused or for whatever reason, that compassion itself helps them to overcome or to rise from the depression? Yes. I see too that often when people are depressed, it's a very good sign, it means the old ways don't work. That's right, the old ways don't work. The ways of self-gratification of I and other, they don't work, they don't make us happy. So when people are depressed, it doesn't depress them. I get that. It seems when people have been perhaps brought up feeling very unloved or have been victimized,

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have been abused by parents or so on, that it makes it very hard, if you yourself don't feel loved, to then find compassion for other people. How can you help someone who first doesn't feel loved themselves to be able to love others, to be compassionate? That's right.

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That's right. It's very difficult if this person has never encountered love directed towards himself or herself from any quarter. Simply no one else, no one has ever shown this person love. Very difficult. But if that person can even meet one person who will show unconditional love, simply acceptance and compassion, then the person... And so even at that point, if he hasn't experienced, say, he hasn't experienced compassion himself, if he knows that he's an object of someone else's affection and love, it's bound to make an impact, and this will be appreciated. Because there is a seed, there is a seed in himself, and so it will start to catalyze or to ripen that seed in himself. So a single person loving someone who's been unloved can open the way to compassion. Yes. That's it. That's exactly it. Very good. You know, that's very frequently the position in which a helper, a psychotherapist, finds

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him or herself to really provide that one person who can genuinely, genuinely feel love for this person who comes in suffering, in pain, and who really has no sense of ever having found in him or herself anything lovable. So I often say to students after the first hour when they have seen somebody who's come in great pain and who wants some help, do you like this person at all, really, honestly? And if the answer is, I really don't, then I say, please, let somebody else be the therapist for this person. If you cannot see anything lovable in this person that you can really respond to in a

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right person to be of any use to this person. Yes, absolutely. This is very true. We were to talk about compassionate action today, and I think that it is an especially American attitude to be action-oriented. And you spoke about perhaps a major gift of America being its valuation on freedom. And you've also heard us speak as therapists about the importance of relationship. I think both of those elements come into a relationship with compassion in perhaps a

[27:38]

different way than in cultures or spiritual practices which are more introverted or meditative. So I wanted to raise the necessity at times to act, to act, that it is thinking about our own country and its basis early in its history on freedom from oppression that our earlier forefathers... Forefathers? Well, the people who... foremothers and fathers. They really were forefathers. That the notion of being taxed without representation, oppressed in the economic sphere, led to a revolution, the American Revolution. So that liberty from oppression is a major key in our own culture.

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And I see that if we act from that principle in a compassionate way, it may be to say, you cannot treat me that way. That to be compassionate toward the soul of the oppressor is to say that if I let you keep on, if I allow you to abuse me, not only does it make me feel bad, but it is bad karma and bad for your soul. So that to be compassionate is to act, to say you cannot do that anymore, you cannot hit me, you cannot dominate me. If you are a spiritual teacher or a psychotherapist and you are doing bad to others by exploiting that relationship of power, I will stop it in some way because if I do not act, then I am not being compassionate towards either the good part of yourself or towards those

[29:43]

people that you are going to maltreat. So I feel like there's a very strong need to act compassionately by standing up for what you believe is right, not only for yourself, but for the soul or the karma of the other person. And that's good. May I get out of this? May I get out? Yes? Yes. Because I feel that we have as models often the person who will tolerate suffering, that that makes for sainthood both in all kinds of spiritual practices, and that if you cannot

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help make a difference, it matters that you not be poisoned by what is being done to you. That is, that you maintain compassion or you maintain the kind of attitude in this awful story of this saint who allowed his arm to be cut off and his leg to be cut off and all of that. And if you cannot stop what is being done, then to not be poisoned or turned into a negative person yourself is all you can do. But it seems to me that in our culture most of us have an opportunity now to say, I won't stand for this, and that it should be encouraged. We have a saying that silence is consent, that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. And I think it then takes us out of the personal sphere often to intervene, to act on the behalf

[31:51]

of someone else as well. Personal sphere? Could you just explain what you mean? Other language. I think that we have a strong social context in our particular culture, a strong relationship context. So if I am seeing something happen in front of me that I could change, and I just watch it compassionately, it is not enough. That if I could stop... Oh, absolutely. I mean usually we must speak truth. But now you see some cases if we speak truth, then consequences is something disaster. Then in that case, because of that, because of that limitation where the truth itself

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would injure and really not be a benefit. In that case, it may be better for the time being to remain silent. For example, you see, in a vineyard. I think vineyards would say, for example, one monk here and hunter is pursuing one animal and saw it. And then, when, I mean, that animal went this way. Then later hunter will come, ask, where have you seen the animal? You saw, and as a monk, generally speaking, have speak truth. But now you see here, if monk say truthfully, then hunter will pursue. So now the consequence is kill the animal. So now, under that circumstances, should not tell truth. Let me give another example.

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You're not seeing a deer in the jungle. Let's say you work for a corporation. And this corporation, as it turns out, is cheating people. Or maybe it makes a... No, I think that... The situation is, how many years is this? I think the main demarcation may be in that line.

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The main demarcation is this. And that is, one sees a wrong. If your hesitation to speak out is because of your own self-cherishing, you feel, oh, what will happen to me? Maybe people won't like me. Maybe, maybe this for me. And with that you don't speak out, this is wrong. But if you're really cheaply concerned with others, and here you feel maybe it simply wouldn't be beneficial, and that really is the motivation for not speaking, then this may be appropriate. What about the situation where there's some social wrong, some injustice in society? You're not directly involved in it, but you see it. Is it your duty out of compassion to speak out? Many of us don't bother. There are so many things that we could be speaking out about, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with our daily lives, so we just ignore it. There's a sense of lack of responsibility. A lack of responsibility? I think so. So that's wrong. This is wrong?

[36:06]

Absolutely wrong. I agree. We must change that kind of attitude. Thank you. That's why we're always talking about the sense of universal responsibility. Even if someone says this is our own business, or this is internal affairs, speak out anyway. If it's your own government? Government, for instance. As long as you can. Of course you speak out. Especially as a democrat in the country. That's the principle, isn't it? All right. Speak out. I agree. Good. I would like to return to a comment that His Holiness made early

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when the question was put by Joel Edelman from this group. What are some suggestions to help the helpers? The helpers are often feeling very lonely and very isolated. And His Holiness made the comment, which passed by very quickly. I would like to come back to it, which is the tremendous usefulness of people meeting in a group. Now, he said a group like this. Now, this is a very difficult group to bring together with great frequency, as those who have had to work on it will tell you. And the other part is I'm sure that all the people in this room probably have some group they meet with weekly or perhaps monthly. But I would hope that this comment, that one can derive from the group a kind of support

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that goes away from this loneliness and this sense of isolation as a therapist, as a helper. I would say even as a mediating lawyer, not just... No, seriously, this is a gentleman who tries to deal with divorce cases so that they're not adversarial, so that the people will negotiate with each other and not kill each other and make each other more miserable in the process. Or the children, exactly. So what I'm saying is I would hope that perhaps from this group there would come some continuity after this conference where people would find each other in whatever relevant groupings you find for yourself because that's absolutely true that the support and sense of how can I overcome my shortcomings, how can I be more compassionate will be truly aided by some smaller group meetings

[39:16]

that continue and perhaps we schedule a large conference like this every six months, every year, whatever is feasible because this continuity is tremendously important and makes for cohesiveness within society generally so that even if the aim of the grouping that people would bring about among themselves would be only to address their problems as healers, as therapists, as helpers, that would be a marvelous step in the direction of both responsibility and taking care of themselves as caretakers. It would have a double thing. Now how the logistics of that works, I have no idea. You know. How many?

[40:34]

His Holiness has heard a number of accounts in this country of within a family, whether it's between spouses or parents and children, of murder, simply shootings, with the parents shooting children or vice versa. How do you understand this? What's going on? What is your explanation? What are the real causes? Well, firstly, I want to know, you see, this is something, I mean, in reality, something normal, even in some other places, such things happen. Then, you see, in some places, because of media, you see, these negative things, immediately, you see, make known. Or, actually, more cases, if you make average. If that is the case, then what is the real reason? Your Holiness, you're asking, first of all, is it just because we publicize these things more, or is the actual rate higher? I believe the actual rate is higher, certainly in Western cultures, certainly in America. There are many guns in many families here.

[41:46]

It makes it very easy for a fight to escalate into a killing. Maybe sometimes a half of the calls that police make in certain cities are to settle family fights that sometimes may become murder. The question is why, and that's a very good question for this panel. Is it simply because they have the weapons? There seems to be more child abuse, too, though. There seems to be more, it seems, and I've talked to other people who do this work, Elizabeth Kugler-Ross, people who have done a lot of work over a long period of time and have had access to a lot of intimate stories. She says there is more and more sexual abuse and violence. It may be that, as you were saying before, if we have one friend, it's a miracle in life. If someone loves us, we maybe can touch the love inside of ourselves. But as families have broken up in this country,

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we have moved farther away from the heart, the heart the child felt secure with. And I think there is a loneliness and we just hate it and we feel so separate from ourselves. Some beings at some times feel so separate from anything that is love. They feel so unlovely that they see everything else as an object because they're looking at themselves as objects. Object as opposed to... A thing. A thing. A thing. Yes. Objectivist. Yes, that's it. As something other than themselves. They forget the cause. No, no, no. I can't hear you. No problem. My microphone has gone dead, I guess. Oh. I think they've lost contact with their own great nature.

[43:54]

They've even lost trust that there is such a thing. They don't believe it. They come to this and they say, those people are full of it. There is no liberation. You don't want me to expand on that, I don't think. No, no, no. No, no, no. I think we feel so separate that we're able to cause injury to another because we're so unable to touch the injury in ourselves. And I think there is a lot more violence and I think there is a lot more hatred and fear in the world, it seems, than maybe there ever has been. And so it's easier to do violence. There's less reason not to. There's less of something inside of us that would stay, that would stop the violence.

[44:57]

The heart doesn't meet the mind's confusion. There's just imbalance. It's him. Yeah. When's it come to the child abuse? If this is a major source... And why is it increasing? Is it more cases? The answer to that is complex. There are many factors which go into this and some of them are well understood and some of them are not well understood. But to list, for example, several of the things that we know, Stephen is mentioning one of those examples

[46:00]

and that is that in a society like this where there's a breakdown of community and also family organization, when people... Family organization. Yes. That's right. That's right. Yes. When people feel more isolated, they tend to treat others in a less personal, less humanized way. That's one factor. The second factor that we know well is what we call social modeling, that is, seeing examples of violence. For example, there were studies, research studies done where they took children and they had adults punch a plastic doll, punching and punching. And then after that, they would observe the children in spontaneous play punching others because they saw others do it. And that served as a model of example.

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And then they gave a kind of permission to imitate this behavior. Some people feel that the emphasis on violence in television, in the movies, is an example of this social modeling. Then a third factor that's well understood is what Danny's talking about, which is the availability of weapons and other means of violence. A fourth factor is something to do with the state of consciousness. That is, that in domestic violence, when people fight and they get to the point of hurting or murdering a spouse or a child, it's because they are in an altered state of consciousness, a different state of consciousness. Sometimes that state of consciousness can be induced by alcohol or drugs, particularly alcohol or cocaine.

[48:04]

Sometimes it's a state of consciousness that's not induced by drugs, but by the level of emotions. That is, that they get into such a high state of anger that they simply do not perceive the other, their partner, the spouse, as a person. The state of anger takes over, and in that state they can do things which they, after, when they are in a normal, ordinary state of consciousness, they may not even remember, or if they do remember, they remember with some guilt. But it's being in that state and not having control over that state that seems to be one of the important factors. Some people have talked about that as a kind of intense panic and rage, where they feel out of control and there's no sense of self and other. Now, why those states increase more, we don't know,

[49:05]

but we do know that in intimate relationships, close relationships, like what we were talking about yesterday, there is a greater intensity of these, the greater energy to these feelings and these states. There's one other important factor, that's a social and economic one. Over the last 20 years, the rich people in this country have gotten much richer, but the poor people have gotten much poorer. And there are many, many more families that are a single unmarried mother and several children who have no income except for what the government will give them, which is not enough. They're living on the edge of desperation. They're much more easily pushed over the edge because their life is so hard. And so it's more easy for so many more people to get into this kind of state. Well, except... what we really are seeing is violent men behaving violently

[50:09]

towards women and children. Not that women aren't involved from time to time, but the great picture, the question is, why are men doing this? And it has something to do with a lack of bonding or compassion with their own children or with their wives. How is it that they can beat up someone or sexually violate some small person that is their own child or their own wife? How is it that they can do that is the major question. And it does seem like men in our culture are lonelier and angrier and more isolated than women as a group. But there's something about the way we raise boys into men that is very sad. There seems to be some change.

[51:11]

I mean, there is a great grieving of boys for contact, good father contact, which they don't have. And it's changing now to some extent when fathers are present in the delivery rooms when their babies are born. Some kind of father instinct is motivated. Some compassion for the little child grows. I mean, if you have that feeling towards your child, you wouldn't dream of abusing that child at three or four or six. The problem is that feeling of love and compassion is not engendered. It does not grow in so many American families because there is this notion of what was done to you, you turn around and do to the next generation. And the man who does violence to his children

[52:11]

was probably done... violence was done to him. And so how to change that, how to bring about feelings of love rather than anger because you're not loved is a major problem we have. Do you think there are any hereditary influences here?

[53:17]

Not purely physical. It's certainly clear that health conditions do influence the body which influences the whole personality. But do you think that there may be hereditary influences here just right through the genes from parent to parent? Your Holiness, I think the evidence is more that it's social influence, not biological, that causes this. However, to get back to a point you made, Jean brings up the child who was beaten as a child who then grows into the parent. The question is why do some of those children become parents who beat their children and why do some not? And the strongest influence that has been found to make the difference one way or the other

[54:18]

is if the child who was being beaten felt loved by one person in their life, maybe a relative, maybe a neighbor, those are the children who don't go on to repeat the violence. I would not totally agree with your statement that I have been very impressed by people I've worked with who were badly abused and treated and I wondered why they weren't in turn abusers. One, they were more women than men. It seems like women do not do what was done to them in the same way that boys do. They don't identify as much with the parent who beat them. But the other is, it's almost as if there is a part of some people that has more of an old soul about them that is more in touch with an archetype

[55:19]

or a pattern of meaning in themselves and so even as children, as they are being abused, they have a notion that they do not deserve it. As soon as you can introduce the notion of previous rebirths, then it's a whole different situation. Now you can open it up completely. This holiness is limited when you can't do it. Your Holiness, would you explain a little more how that makes a difference? This is a new theory for Western psychology, you realize. We need to learn from you. So from the Buddhist perspective, of course, we assert the existence of previous lives, previous rebirths,

[56:20]

and this has a very profound influence upon children and upon the whole life and society. Your Holiness, some years ago I spent... ... But please do not misunderstand the concept of karma. There's a tendency, it's only found in the West, and that is saying, oh, it's karma, oh, it's my karma, and then to roll over and feel apathetic, fatalistic. This is not the point. That is, we can say, okay, this is karma, but who's karma? And if it's something you're experiencing, it's something you have brought forth. Who creates your karma? It is you that creates your own karma. And so once you've engaged even in an unwholesome action,

[57:22]

there is never any point at which you can say, oh, now it can't be remedied, there's nothing you can do about it. You can always do something about it. So the understanding of karma must not lead to a sense of apathy, but rather even greater vigor. In that way, a psychotherapist is someone who helps a person deal with the bad karma that they have. Your Holiness, just... No, watching it. No. That's quite true. Yes. Your Holiness, returning for a moment to your question about personal crime, some years ago I spent a few years studying crime, and the principal way that I did that was to spend time with the police and riding around with the police and going on many calls because we noticed that probably more than 75% of all the violent crime,

[58:25]

murders and rapes and assaults, were by people who were family members or who were supposedly friends or her neighbors or knew each other. This is the essence of the real personal crime. Yes. What we noticed when we went to the homes to intervene was that there was no moderating influence at all. There was no spiritual context for most people, that there was no extended family, that they were caught in a very compressed situation, not much money, they were greatly influenced by television and newspapers where when you pick up the newspapers, most of the headlines are about violence and war and people hurting, and when there's no moderating influence, these have a great...

[59:26]

and it's amazing to see the violence that people will do to each other even when the police are standing there. They don't care. They just want to go ahead and use knives and guns and fists. It's quite a scene. Yes. Attempts have been made more recently to introduce moderating influences in the case of violence and abuse in the home. For example, now, every state in the country has a law that if a professional or anybody in the community has the suspicion of child abuse or sexual abuse in the home, then it is the law, it is their duty now

[60:27]

to report this to our Child Protection Agency. And the Child Protection Agency then has to, by law, do an investigation to find out whether or not this complaint is real or not. Now, this system is still very imperfect because sometimes when the Child Protection Agency goes into the home and they disclose the secret of the abuse, it has a disruptive influence on the family, and the family then blames the child of the abuse, and they feel traumatized again. And that sometimes... Yes. Sometimes also the district attorney's office, the court, then does an investigation, and the family may need to be put on trial, the offender would be put on trial, and maybe even go to jail. And again, that causes a disruption in the family. It causes sometimes disorganization, sometimes a threat to the financial stability

[61:29]

as well as the whole structure of the family. Nevertheless, even though this is something that's still very imperfect in this country, some people say that there is a value still, and the value is... Yes.

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