Photo: OHHDL
“Today, we are able to use this marvellous technology to communicate. Many friends have shown interest and requested a teaching, but due to restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic, we are not able to meet physically”, said His Holiness when he resumed teachings in mid May. With the Covid-19 pandemic, national lockdowns and travel restrictions, people across the globe, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, had to start complying with new social norms. His teachings had been suspended for over four months.
Once restarted, his teachings have continued in an online format with virtual audiences. His Holiness’s teachings are broadcast live, with simultaneous translation in more than a dozen languages, making them accessible to people around the world. He has been holding talks, Q&A sessions, dialogues and conversations on an unprecedented scale. Viewers are always requested to observe local social distancing rules.
“How have you been?”, Pico Iyer, a writer, asked His Holiness during a dialogue in mid June. His Holiness answered: “Check my face, listen to the strength of my voice. My regard for the thousands of years old Indian traditions of ‘ahimsa’ [non-violence] and ‘karuna’ [compassion] gives me both self-confidence and inner strength.” His Holiness elaborated on the importance of selflessness to eradicate destructive emotions. “Positive emotions, on the other hand, like ‘karuna’, are based on and can be strengthened by reason.” In a conversation with Gaur Gopal Das, a monk from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, His Holiness further amplified non-violence and compassion as India’s universal values, applicable to everyone in a secular context.
Photo: OHHDL
He took part in a conversation with the Mind and Life Institute*, with a virtual audience of more than 900,000. The Institute members were seeking skills that they could adopt to deal with the anxiety and uncertainty during unease over the global pandemic. His Holiness advised, “We need a stable mind […] If a problem has a solution, we must work to find it; if it does not, we need not waste time thinking about it.” In an answer to the same question, addressed by the Tibetan Buddhist Centre Singapore and young South-east Asians, he shared his three commitments:as a human being, to encourage altruism and oneness of humanity;as a monk, to encourage interreligious harmony and as a Tibetan, to encourage the preservation of the Tibetan language, culture, and natural environment. His Holiness concluded: “Follow my commitments if they resonate with you […] share with other young people.”
On many occasions His Holiness has reiterated his thoughts on two particular problems, that of climate change and global warming, and of the gap between poor and rich. “Today, as part of the global economy, we all belong to one community […] We Buddhists believe that the entire world is interdependent. That is why I often speak about universal responsibility […] to exercise compassion and help.”
His Holiness has been participating in teachings, talks, Q&A sessions, dialogues and conversations in a new way for him: digitally. And he has been reaching far more people than ever before: young people, physicians and yoga scholars and police officers, among many others. Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the recurring concerns are fear, anxiety, loneliness. His Holiness urges us to unite for humanity, practise compassion by caring for one another’s health, well-being and livelihood, and to always relate to logic and reason.
Tibetans observed the 601st anniversary of the death of Jé Tsongkhapa, one of the foremost Tibetans commentators of Buddha’s teachings, on December 10. His Holiness gave an online teaching during which he said that he is aware of the devotion, trust and hope Tibetans have for him, and this makes him hope and intend to live longer. “I’ve been told that Kathok Getsé, a scholar at the time of the Seventh Dalai Lama, predicted that I would live to the age of 113. Because of Tibetans’ devotion I feel I might live until I’m 110 and I make prayers that I will live that long — and all of you should join me in those prayers’, he said.
*The Mind and Life Institute works to bring science and contemplative wisdom together to better understand the mind and create positive change in the world; His Holiness has been closely involved with it since its inception in 1987.
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