Remarkable Things About The Dalai Lama

In Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, also known as Tenzin Gyatso, is the most important figure and there are many remarkable things about His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, that are worth knowing. He turned 80 on July 6 and celebrated his birthday with a forum to last for three days. The forum’s theme is compassion and His Holiness will be conducting lectures on climate change, creativity and education during those three days. He is the longest serving Dalai Lama, having been selected to hold the position since 1950.

The festivities for his birthday and the forum launch started on Sunday in Anaheim, which was attended by popular public personalities, including Iran’s Shirin Edabi, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her works on human rights, George Lopez and Sharon Stone.

Love, happiness and compassion

In the Tibetan language, “lama” means guru, which is tailor fit to the man whose life is dedicated to teaching people the ways to be happy. He himself has many things that contribute to happiness.

The Dalai Lama believes that you have to have self-love first and foremost before you can spread love to others. He said that even people who hate themselves could also learn to love themselves eventually.

While he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, he humbly accepted his award but says that it does not matter where people come from because each one is the same – a human being, someone who avoids suffering and wants to seek happiness, someone with the same concerns and basic needs as everyone else and someone who prefers to have freedom and the right to choose his own destiny.

While attending the Global Compassion Summit in Anaheim, he told reporters who interviewed him that Buddhist monks do not think about leaving a legacy. For them the most important thing is to know the reason for being alive. Each person should be doing something that would be useful to other people instead of creating problems for them.

He loves science and is a self-taught mechanic. He loves to smile, saying that being happy helps a person cope with discouragement, anger, insecurity and day to day anxieties. Likewise, he teaches that you can be ethical even if you are not a religious person. He’s tolerant of other religious beliefs and credits many people, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, who influenced his life.

Image Copyright : Phaendin Chuenmongkolsakul