Copenhagen, Denmark, 10 February 2015 – As darkness lay on the sea around Trondheim this morning, His Holiness the Dalai Lama met with Tibetans who had come to see him.
“Just as the Chinese love their culture, we Tibetans love our culture and language and seek to preserve them. Some Chinese have told me that although they also claim to follow the thought of Nagarjuna, they are unable to articulate it in the way it is clearly laid out in Tibetan. The Chinese also follow the Nalanda tradition, but not as rigorously as we do. While young Chinese today can’t even read their classical Buddhist texts, we can elaborate the different philosophical points of view. This is something to be proud of.”
His Holiness also recalled seeing the place in Xi’an where the Lhasa Jowo came from. There was an empty space where it used to sit. He saw too the place on the city wall that marked the point at which the Tibetan army stopped in 763CE when they occupied the city and installed their own Emperor. His Holiness observed that although Tibetan military power declined and the country fragmented politically, from a religious point of view Tibetans remained united. He said:
“Nevertheless, I always tell Buddhists I meet that we should try to be 21st century Buddhists. Simply folding our hands and praying without understanding what the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha or the Four Noble Truths are isn’t much help. We need to know what cessation is and what the steps of the path are. We have no belief in a creator god, we are our own masters. But the Buddha cannot give us realization; he can only indicate the path by which we may pursue it ourselves. This is why I tell our Chinese brothers and sisters, as well as Tibetans, that praying to Amitabha or reciting Mani is not enough. We need to understand the Buddha’s teaching, so we have to study.”
His Holiness observed that followers of the Pali or Theravadin tradition are the senior students of the Buddha. However, in the Sanskrit tradition, and maybe the Pali tradition too, it is recorded that the Buddha counselled his followers not to accept what he taught blindly out of devotion, but to investigate, analyse and examine it to see if it is true. In this case the experiments are to be done not in a laboratory but in the mind.
After lunch His Holiness met with the organizers and members of Tibet Support Groups. He acknowledged the active work Lakha Rinpoche and his wife have done both in India and Denmark and expressed his thanks. He discussed archaeology and the origin of the Runic alphabet, earliest examples of which date to 150CE.
An encounter with protestors from the pro-Shugden group at the door of the hotel prompted His Holiness to speak about the Shugden issue.
Concluding with the observation that he might be nearly 80 years old, but doctors tell him he is fit, he told his listeners they shouldn’t worry about him. He advised them to be happy. While in Copenhagen His Holiness will give a public talk and an explanation of the ‘Eight Verses for Training the Mind’.