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The INVITATION ... an emperience in the Peace Dome |
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The Nobel Peace Prize Laureates you meet in The INVITATION In 1950, when Tenzin Gyato was 15 years old, troops from the newly established communist China invaded Tibet. China declared Tibet a province but allowed it to keep its religious and political system. Small wars broke out. Being opposed to violence in any form, the Dalai Lama refused to take sides. In 1959, the Chinese imposed a communist government on Tibet, killing monks, destroying monasteries and artwork. The Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala, India, near Pakistan. By 1979 the Chinese allowed Tibetan monasteries to reopen and invited the Dalai Lama to return. Instead, Tenzin realized he could do more in exile and instead elected to continue traveling. His commitment now is to world peace. In 1989 Tenzin Gyatso was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize first and foremost for his continual resistance to the use of violence in his people’s struggle to regain liberty.
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H.H. Dalai Lama As a free spokesman for my captive countrymen and women, I feel it is my duty to speak out on their behalf. I speak not with a feeling of anger or hatred towards those who are responsible for the immense suffering of our people and the destruction of our land, homes and culture. They too are human beings who struggle to find happiness and deserve our compassion. I speak to inform you of the sad situation in my country today and of the aspirations of my people, because in our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess. The realisation that we are all basically the same human beings, who seek happiness and try to avoid suffering, is very helpful in developing a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood; a warm feeling of love and compassion for others. This, in turn, is essential if we are to survive in this ever shrinking world we live in. For if we each selfishly pursue only what we believe to be in our own interest, without caring about the needs of others, we not only may end up harming others but also ourselves. This fact has become very clear during the course of this century. We know that to wage a nuclear war today, for example, would be a form of suicide; or that by polluting the air or the oceans, in order to achieve some short-term benefit, we are destroying the very basis for our survival. As interdependents, therefore, we have no other choice than to develop what I call a sense of universal responsibility. ©1989 The Nobel Foundation, reprinted with permission |
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See the College of Metaphysics performance of
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