DALAI LAMA PROMOTES MATERNAL HAPPINESS IN CONTROVERSIAL VISIT
Michael Scott, CanWest News Service
Vancouver Sun
Friday, September 08, 2006

Original Link

VANCOUVER - The Dalai Lama believes he knows the key to a happier world, and it has nothing to do with political process or balance of power.

The Buddhist spiritual leader, who arrived in Vancouver Thursday for a three-day visit, said that the force that brings the deepest satisfaction to the world is the tender embrace between mother and newborn child.

"I am now 71-years-old, (but) I feel, still, deep in my mind, my first experience, my mother's care. I can still feel it," the Dalai Lama told an audience at Vancouver City Hall, after a private meeting with Mayor Sam Sullivan. "That immediately gives me inner peace, inner calmness.''

The challenge in modern society is to hang on to that deep sense of quiet connection, he added.

"When we grow up, when our brain develops, then our intelligence causes shortsightedness. And I think also the influence of the environment (plays a role): then aggressiveness, fear, jealousy, anger, frustration these things arise. So these (cause our potential to) become submerged."

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has said he only wants greater autonomy for Tibet inside China, is in Vancouver for three days of public discussions and events around the inauguration of an education centre being built here in his honour. China says the Dalai Lama, who in June became the third foreigner in history to be given honorary Canadian citizenship, isn't just a religious leader, but is advocating the separation from the mainland of China.

China has voiced its objections to Canada honouring the Dalai Lama during his visit to here.

The Dalai Lama said repeatedly Thursday that his priority is to promote this quality of human bonding, a force he calls "human value."

"After birth, our first experience is mother's affection. Mother's care. The child at that time, just after birth, may not have the idea, 'This is my mother,' but (will have a connection) because of the biological system or need, feeding, relying on that person.

''And on the mother's side, there is also that sort of tremendous feeling of care and with that milk, also comes (the connection). This is not due to religious faith, but because of the biological factor. That is the basis of our life breath, how our life started.

"So, now the time has come, I feel, that as a result of discussion of exchange, different ideas, different views and as a result of listening to others' problems, and noticing the global level problems, including terrorism, I feel, if we make more effort to sustain our basic value, I think humanity may become more peaceful more compassionate. As a result, differences can be easily solved through dialogue. Through talk. Through mutual understanding. So that is my number one commitment: the promotion of human value."

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