The Dalai Lama

The other day I watched a documentary called, "10 Questions for the Dalai Lama". I now wonder how the Dalai Lama can be so at peace. It seems impossible that someone can have so much faith in anything. How can he sit idly by and watch as everything is taken from him and his people? How does he resist the urge to fight back? Or does he not have that urge at all?

When the Dalai Lama was fifteen years old, many changes were occurring in China. These changes were the beginning of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The Chinese leader Mao Zedong was determined to rid China of its "superstitious" beliefs and its past by destroying any evidence of it. He was also bent on absorbing Tibet into China.

Tibet had long been under the rule of Buddhist leaders called Dalai Lamas. Tibet's whole existence was formed under the impression that they would be a Buddhist community. In Mao's eye, an entirely religious community ruled by a spiritual leader was dangerous. Mao believed that "religion was poison" and that religious governments were not fit to rule. Under the justification that he was liberating Tibet, Mao destroyed thousands of monasteries and killed many Tibetans. At this time, the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetans fled to exile in India where they now inhabit a small northern portion of the country. 

Now, how would you feel if this happened to you? If your entire way of living and country was taken away from you. I know my first instinct would be to fight back. However, for the Dalai Lama, he feels no impulse to do so. In fact, he has forgiven the Chinese and immerses himself wholeheartedly in discussions with them. He does this because he believes that if the Tibetan people do not fight and go on with their daily lives, this will shame China. Still, I don't understand how this could be possible for anyone. 

I realized that he does all these things because he has faith that one day, due to their own corruption and faults, the Chinese regime over Tibet will fail and Tibet will be there for the Tibetan people once again. There will be no bloodshed in order to fight. Patience and the faith in the ability of the truth to shine will win in the end even if it means years of waiting in exile. It is true that people who do not desire things will not have the need to fight for things that they desire. They are at peace with what they have and if losing their homes and livelihoods so that no loss of life or tainting of the soul occurs, then so be it. The Dalai Lama has taught his people to want little and have little because you have little to fear if that is so and plenty of reasons to be happy. 

Though, if you want nothing, how do you persevere? If you have no dreams to keep you going, how? I think, that it's not that you can't have dreams, its just that you must understand that your dreams, if they are meant to happen, they will, if not, they won't. But you must not fight for your dreams if that means discontentment and misery. Feeling as so means that you are fighting against life, or the universe. Yet, if fighting is your tendency, find peace with life, or the universe through something that eases your mind.