Ask Ajna

Sticking with Nonviolence

Dear Ajna: The Dalai Lama is in the news lately because of his cross-Canada tour. He speaks a lot about nonviolence but I can’t see that it’s done Tibet any good. Over a million people have been killed and the Chinese are bent on obliterating Tibet’s culture. They’ve destroyed six thousand monasteries and brought in so many Chinese that the Tibetans are a minority in their own country. This has been going on for over 50 years. How can the Dalai Lama keep promoting nonviolence? It’s not solving the problem.

Dear Critical: It’s hard to predict what’s going to work. Hindsight is always clearer than foresight. What’s important is to stick to your principles. That’s how you live a life of integrity.

Tibet’s history is steeped in the Buddist tradition of ahimsa, a policy of compassion not just for people but for animals, birds, fish -- in fact all sentient beings. To ask them to give that up and focus on trying to find a solution through force would be asking them to erase their own culture.

Tibetans within Tibet are struggling to hold onto their way of life in the face of Chinese aggression. They are showing the power of their faith in very difficult circumstances and upsetting the Chinese authorities by being so difficult to "break."

In Dharamsala, India, the Tibetans who have joined the Dalai Lama in exile work to record and express their heritage, as do the Tibetan refugees in Canada and elsewhere. In his speeches, books, and travels, the Dalai Lama wins converts to the Tibetan Buddhist philosophy by being an inspiring example of one who, through compassion and nonviolent diplomacy, copes with the horror of seeing his people and country decimated. Many who are sickened by the terrorist and military response to conflict in places like Iraq and the Middle East find the Buddhist aproach worth serious consideration.

In situations where force is used to try to correct a problem, the other side usually reacts with force as well. This is because violence tends to beget violence. Practising diplomacy and a nonviolent approach might help the world to avoid mass warfare and the prospect of nuclear annihilation.

The only thing I would add to the Dalai Lama’s message is the power of prayer. Buddhists believe in life after death and reincarnation but not in God as Christians and Jews and Muslims do, or in a Creator as in aboriginal faiths. In April of this year in Vancouver, the Dalai Lama said, "If we insist on appealing to powers on high to save us, we will never change anything: we have to do it ourselves." From personal experience, I know that prayer works, so I would add that to nonviolent action to make a stronger combination.

A byproduct of the Tibetan tragedy is that as Tibetan Buddism has been diminished in Tibet, this religion of compassion has spread its healing influence around the globe.  Ajna