BEYOND RELIGION - The Dalai Lama

Ta-Wan

BEYOND RELIGION: Ethics for a Whole World

Part 1 (Part 2 will be reviewed later)

Whether or not a person can move on from death into a new birth does not matter as ultimately all of these persons must resolve further to a complete oneness and so any stating of separateness, a person or otherwise, is not itself useful to the complete vision, that of the undivided.

That a person can be lifted from a poor family and educated in such a way that they grow to become a wise and happy person is very valid, it shows that the ethics required for a peaceful and happy world can be taught and learned. In this way the Dalai Lama hopes to teach and have the world learn how to make best use of our innate inner qualities, not to just look at the world and see how it could be better, but to act and reap the better.

In part one of this new book, Mr Lama does not say a word I could disagree with as he steps the reader through wise points, observations and examples of why we see the world in the state it is and how inner values are the solution to bringing about a better way. He spends time nursing readers of all backgrounds, the religious, in their many persuasions and the non-religious in their many forms, into a position where he can say that the qualities we have inside us all and the qualities we need for a better world are not exclusive to the religious or the non-religious and we can now move as one interdependent world to a better way.

Mr Lama uses a very nice metaphor, that of tea and water, when he says (I paraphrase for the sake of laziness) that: "The essential and life giving ingredient to all tea is water, you may even just drink water. Tea can have many flavours and many additives, additives from milk to sugar and spices, even salt and these may provide sustenance, water though is the essential ingredient and what unites all of these drinks." What we have then is the idea that religions and non-religions all have the same essential ingredient, the human qualities of compassion and the wishes to be happy and avoid suffering and in this way we can move as a whole toward the one goal we all share by accepting and allowing others to flavour it how they wish.

Sir Lama looks at the world in a very nice way, half-Marxist he says, where he wishes for the happiness of all and sees that all problems arise from poor vision of some who act without a holistic enough take on their inner wishes for happiness and the avoidance of suffering. He states that in the world we live in now, one where we are so connected and intermixed that war is both outdated and now vastly more dangerous than before. It is time to grow up and build on our shared humanity.

Part 2 is on bringing this about and I'm about to read that.

Recommended reading.

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