From the Editor: article from 31-10-2013!
The Tibetan religious leader quoted words from his book Beyond Religion. Ethics for a Whole World”, which he published in 2011, in which he argues that religion alone cannot provide a successful solution to the world's difficulties.
“Any religion-based solution to the problem of our disregard for our inner values can never be universal, and, accordingly, will be inappropriate. What we need today is an approach to ethics that does not turn to religion for help and can be equally acceptable to both believers and non-believers: this is secular ethics,”he wrote.
As the Los Angeles Times notes in its review of the Dalai Lama, the 77-year-old Buddhist monk, however, does not “expose faith,” but rather highlights the need for universal universal moral values that are rooted in compassion and are relevant in our time.
The metaphor the Dalai Lama likes to use is: “The difference between ethics and religion is like the difference between water and tea. Ethics without religious content is water that is vital for health and survival. Ethics mixed with religion is tea, a nutritious and aromatic mixture of water, tea leaves, spices, sugar and, in Tibet, a pinch of salt."
“No matter how the tea is made, water will always be the main ingredient,” he says. “While we can do without tea, we cannot live without water. Likewise, we are born free from religion, but we are not born free from the need for compassion."
Awarded the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, the Dalai Lama has long been an active advocate of compassion, religious tolerance and the need to unite science and spirituality in the face of suffering in today's world.