Secular Ethics

Blog Prompt 12: What are the Dalai Lama’s main commitments? What are their benefits? Do you share any of his commitments?

The Dalai Lama’s main commitments are to are self discipline, compassion, contentment, forgiveness, tolerance, and religious harmony. The Dalai Lama wishes that the children of the future can learn that the “idea that dialogue, not violence, is the best and most practical way to solve conflicts” rather than what we see more of today, countries at odds with one another do not give other countries much of a chance to speak or make a statement.

This emcompasses self discipline, being able to stay in the present and to be able to handle what is going on today without being completely controlled by fantasy or things out of our reach. Compassion for other does make us vulnerable, but it is better for those who need compassion the most, and for those who don’t know they need it. Compassion is not only about pity, it’s about trying to understand what someone may be going through, and showing care in that they are truly struggling, whether or not you’ve been through the same. I think that the worst pains you suffer happen in situations where people aren’t showing you compassion or try to write off your troubles as if they didn’t exist. For a long time I was self conscious and struggling with the fact that I was underweight, I didn’t like for people to mention it because no matter what I did I couldn’t make it to average. When my own family started making jokes about it I couldn’t handle it, we had our talks after but it was hard for me to deal with that momentary lack of compassion. You see worse acts throw away compassion, such as when the government had to clarify how they handled cyberbullying. When someone online would harass someone to the point that in their struggle they take their own lives, the law had to get involved over the volume of cases and the complaints. These cases were issues of the first amendment, but were unprotected due to the fact that the words typed meant harm, and the outcome was death. If the world was able to show compassion for each other, it would help improve the lives of others not just online, but globally. I can’t imagine how great that would feel. Compassion has a lot to do with forgiveness and tolerance, to forgive people for the sake of yourself and to be able to accept differences between you and others without hasty judgements.

The commitments I find that I share with the Dalai Lama is compassion, tolerance, and religious harmony. Personally I understand that I come off harsh, or rash, but I would hate for someone to feel as I have in the past under little compassion. I think that many people could be living happier and more confident to date if even a few people showed them more compassion. Tolerance for me is something I’ve been taught, to treat people how I would want to be treated and to simply respect people. I try to respect people whether or not they at the moment are respecting me, I have to understand that they have something bothering them that has nothing to do with me. If it seems to, I have very few times had to sit down with someone and ask what was up in order to get everything in the air and to cool down a situation. I personally have little ties to religion, but I know some of my family has heavier ties. I am not the person to bring someone down for a religion that they believe in that brings them comfort and direction in life. Sometimes I may not understand, but by no means do I get to put someone down for a religion. I don’t think religion or anyone should subjugate people, but that is a disagreement with a specific concept and not with the idea of following a religion.

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