Only during a time when we have so little faith in one another, so little confidence in the willingness of others to do what is right, can a strong voice emerge to dispel disillusionment and show us hope. It takes a person of great courage, such as the Dalai Lama, to face these times and say there is hope. There is an argument to be made for basic human goodness. The number of people who spend their lives being violent or dishonest is tiny compared with the number… More >>
While I admit it takes lack of humility to criticize the writings of such an important world leader, I cannot say the book made the profound impact on me it seems to have made on others.
His message is loud and clear: Follow “the golden rule” and the world will be a better place to live in. I do not wish to dispute this gem of wisdom when it comes to everyday dealings with people. I do, however, think his application of this on the international political level is misguided, wrong, and quite frankly, none of His Holiness’ business.
He does not seem to recognize that war is not a manifestation of a lack of compassion in people. Rather it is the only means ever known to man for oppressed peoples to gain dignity and to ensure the conditions for their continued prosperity. Americans who pride themselves as such would certainly be hypocritical to disagree with this viewpoint since it is only with past successes in war that America is what it is today and it is only with the worlds largest nuclear arsenal can it ensure its position going forward. This is as much a fact of the human condition as our vital organs and biological functions. Remove any of these and we cease to be human. Even the Dalai Lama admits that this is an unsolvable paradox.
The view that everything and everyone is interconnected is a truly inspiring perspective, as is the recognition that we all want to be happy and avoid suffering, but sometimes short term suffering needs to be endured in order to achieve longer term lasting happiness. War is one example. Another is NOT providing aid to impoverished nations. By giving bits and pieces of food and medicine to poor countries we are alleviating suffering for a few people for a few moments but are prolonging the suffering of entire populations for generations to come. This perspective is almost purposely ignored in the book, giving the impression that the true purpose of the book is akin to that of any major religion — ie to instill guilt on the masses to keep them focused on themselves so they don’t consider threatening the world’s power centers –taking care, however, to leave out the hocus pocus not because of any new revelation, but because the falsehood of any hocus pocus can be easily verified by schoolchildren with the advent of modern telecommunications.
If you, the prospective reader, can sympathize with my comments, save your time and money and watch about an hour of CNN International. The message is exactly the same.
Rating: 2 / 5
You can read the gushing praise in other reviews, so I’ll only mention the major failing.
He advises staying with the dominant religious beliefs of your culture. That means accepting the idea of free will, which is critical to the justification for the prevalence of violence and torture under Judeo-Christian(JCM) rule. (Buddhism too has faults, although this one may be less significant; Communism we all know; of others I know nothing.) Free will means that anyone who does bad things must be a tool of the devil, and should therefore be punished severely as a lesson for others to obey those more esteemed in the hierarchy of their religion. Conversely, those who do good should be rewarded by their Supreme Being and revered by us. Thus we can have in the US a “compassionate conservative” who, without hypocrisy, can advocate ever harsher punishments (even for victimless “crimes”), more deaths, more guns, tax benefits for the rich, a “Christian Nation”, etc. The doctrine may destroy civilization, but it is a mere article of faith without a shred of evidence or any viable proposed mechanism.
The cycle of repression, war, and genocide will never be broken so long as the doctrine of free will reigns supreme.
BTW, “His Holiness”, however fine a person he may be, is no holier than you or I. Few more obvious beneficiaries of good fortune can be found anywhere.
Rating: 3 / 5
This book was a major disappointment and source of frustration.Perhaps in the East people are capable of “…think,think,think[ing]…” their way to compassion and harmony.In the West we need something more experiential and practical to bridge the split in body-mind that lies at the heart of our individual and collective psychopathology. There is nothing in this book that hasn’t been available to us for many years through western spiritual tradition and it fails for the same reason those traditions do.The heart of compassion is not a philosophical concept,it is a felt experience.It can only become a way of being in beings who have achieved a degree of balance and integration in body/mind/spirit. Books that are much more valuable on the path to wholeness…
Rating: 2 / 5
I read half the book and kept falling asleep as I was reading. The book struck me as naive, tending toward Pollyanna. Excuse me, all you admirers of this book, but this is honestly how I felt about it. I find life to be so much more complex than his thesis seems to propose – not that there isn’t some truth to what he says. I like what Alfred North Whitehead said, “Morality…. is what the majority then and there happen to like and immorality is what they dislike”. The Dalai Lama seems to say it is absolute, but I see it as relative.
Rating: 2 / 5
Ethics for the New Millenium is an awesome book. Allow the Dalai Lama to show you a glimpse into both his own mind and Buddhist upbringing, but also into a holy interpretation of the world as we know it today.
Rating: 5 / 5