Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Official Report 917KB pdf

---

Time for Reflection

Good afternoon and welcome back. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Larry Blance, of the Kagyu Samye Dzong.

Good afternoon. I would like to share with you what for Buddhists is the most important thing: altruism based on love and compassion. That is expressed in a short prayer, which we use a lot and which goes like this:

May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.

May they all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

May they all enjoy true happiness which is free from even the slightest suffering,

And may they all develop equanimity without preference for loved ones and aversion towards others.

Actually, the feeling of compassion is important whether you are a believer or a non-believer, because everyone shares or feels the value of love and compassion, and if we are able to practise compassion we feel much happier internally—more calm and more peaceful—and other people reciprocate that feeling.

If we are angry, real peace, friendship and trust are impossible, but through love we can develop understanding, unity, friendship and harmony. Showing kindness to others, we can learn to be less selfish; sharing the sufferings of others, we will develop more concern for the welfare of everyone.

However, we need to balance compassion with wisdom; a good brain and a good heart should work together. The two must be developed in balance. When they are, the result is material progress accompanied by good spiritual development. Heart and mind working in harmony will yield a truly peaceful and friendly human society.

We human beings have a sophisticated brain, as a result of which we have developed much material progress. We certainly are not lacking in terms of the development of science and technology, but we still lack something here in the heart: a real inner warm feeling—a good heart.

Deep down we must have real affection for each other. Since we all live together, why not do it with a positive attitude, with a good mind? Why is it that instead we often feel hatred for each other and bring more trouble to the world?

If we have a real sense of appreciation of humanity, compassion and love and if we develop a good heart, then whether our field is science, agriculture or politics, since the motivation is so very important, these will all improve.

I would like to leave you with another very short prayer that sums up the feeling of openness and willingness to take on anything, no matter how difficult, if it will help our fellow human beings:

As long as space endures,

As long as sentient beings remain,

Until then, may I too remain,

To dispel the miseries of the world.