[Loi Eberle, M.A., Educational Consultant, Woodbury Reports, visits an Interfaith Gathering with the Dalai Lama, In Bloomington, Indiana on September 6 & 7]

Recently I attended a dedication ceremony that featured two people described as “warriors for peace”, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, and former Heavy Weight Boxing Champion of the World, Mohammad Ali. They were part of a somewhat unlikely assortment of people gathered in Bloomington, Indiana for a dedication ceremony of a temple for interfaith cooperation and dialogue. The recently completed temple has been a longtime dream of the Dalai Lama’s brother, Thubten Norbu, a retired Indiana University professor and founder of the Tibetan Cultural Center. Religious leaders representing most of the world’s major faiths were there to offer their prayers in a half a dozen languages and each one presented the Dalai Lama a symbol of their religious faith, to be placed in the temple.

In the afternoon a panel that featured the Dalai Lama’s sister, Jetsun Pema, President of the Tibetan Children’s Refuge Village, and six adolescents who were winners of the “Let Peace Begin With Me” poetry contest. Their poetry had been selected in an arts-based competition by judges from Indiana University and the Bloomington Area Arts Council. A different guest celebrity read each poem, then asked each poem’s author some questions about peaceful conflict resolution.

Jetsun Pema read the first poem, written by Cassidhe Hart, a home-schooled junior. In her poem, and in her response to Pema’s questions, Hart described how God led her to see how she could create a more peaceful world through her day-to-day interactions with other people. Jetsun Pema then talked about creating a “Zone of Peace.” Pema, also known as the “Mother of Tibet”, cares for 15,000 children, including 2,000 in exile in India, through the Tibetan Children’s Village. She described how her brother, the Dalai Lama, had called for making Tibet a “Zone of Peace” in his the five-point peace plan for Tibet that he presented in 1987 to the U.S. Congressional Caucus on Human Rights. Pema then spoke about how she has applied his idea in each of the schools in the Tibetan Refugee Children Village. Each school has created a zone of peace that is clearly marked, where the children are directed to go to resolve their difficulties, using meditation and dialogue. In the “zone” no conflict is allowed; they are instructed to be friendly with each other and think about why they are fighting. According to Pema, this idea has been so successful, they are now establishing a zone of peace in each of the homes of the children’s foster families. The “peace zone” is where children go to calm themselves, and where the family holds discussions about resolving conflict.

The other poems read that day also reflected the adolescents’ need to feel peaceful themselves, before they could resolve differences with others. One adolescent, Olivia El-Awady, whose family is from Egypt, wrote her poem about the death of her grandfather in a war before she was born. She described the suffering caused by prejudice and violence, saying “as a Muslim, it’s painful to see my religion used to justify hatred and murder.”

In the Dalai Lama’s closing remarks, he spoke about how the younger generation has a very important role in the future of humanity. Saying that peace is a question of our survival, he said the potential for our destruction is immense and there is hardly any boundary between “us and them”. If we destroy them, we are destroying ourselves. Adding a note of levity, he described humans as troublemakers, and we have two ways we can respond. One way is through violence, a choice which usually results in death. He urged that we make the other choice, which is to TALK, and realize that when we have a conflict, “their” interest is our interest.

When the Dalai Lama spoke earlier in the day to the 4,000 people who attended the dedication ceremony, he described the central themes in all religions: love, forgiveness, contentment and self-discipline. The fact that so much variety exists between the different philosophical and metaphysical belief systems should not cause anxiety, he said, because this diversity adds to the enrichment of mankind. If these basic themes are practiced in all aspects of one’s life, not just on Sunday morning, then when people experience conflict, they are more likely to remember to apply these principles to resolve their differences.

The Dalai Lama encouraged people to practice forgiveness in times of conflict, self-contentment when tempted by greed, and self-discipline when in a position to do harm. Self-discipline he said should not be seen as a burden; it is a means of protecting one’s long term well being. He described the need to be inclusive rather than exclusive, describing war as being due to our inability to overcome violence in our own hearts. People who don’t embrace religion, he said, will still benefit from cultivating a “warm heart,” a habit of compassion, a commitment to dialogue and a willingness to compromise in times of conflict.

When Mohammad Ali joined the Dalai Lama on stage, the two men were introduced as possibly the most recognized and beloved figures on the planet. It had been pointed out, however, that early in his career Ali had been called a crude loudmouth, a disgrace to his sport, a heretic, and a traitor. One of the speakers, U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind. said Ali had sacrificed his world title in the name of peace. He had been stripped of the World Heavyweight Championship for refusing to submit to the military draft during the Vietnam War, due to his religious beliefs. Ali, who now suffers from Parkinson’s disease, threw a few shadow punches in jest as he entered the stage. But a passage from the book that Ali is writing, which was read by his daughter, Hana Ali, conveyed a message very similar to the Dalai Lama’s. “If it is peace we wish to attain, then peace must start within… with peace in our actions, peace in our thoughts, peace in our voices when we speak and peace in our hearts.” He also wrote that we have learned “great lessons from looking at nature; those are the moments that inspire change. Listen to your inner voice; follow your dreams, never give up. If you encounter skeptics, prove them wrong. Everyone has the kingdom within. We decide whether we will let it rise or fall.”

The day before the interfaith event, Robert Thurman, gave a lecture near the Indiana University campus. Thurman is Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and is a prolific translator and writer of both scholarly and popular works. He spoke about education as enlightenment, explaining that it is consistent with religious ideas that the only way to really find true happiness is by understanding reality. Saying that the quality of life is determined by the quality of one’s understanding, he called education an evolutionary tool. Once understanding is developed then information can be used in a beneficial way. To increase the beneficial use of information, he felt there needed to be moral code at the core of education and government. He felt it was important to study all religions to learn what they teach about developing ethicality and insight. He felt this should be the heart of education. Too often, he said, there is a tendency to educate the brain, which can be dangerous unless one also educates the heart. When I asked him specifically about what curriculum approached these ideas, he felt the work in emotional growth and emotional intelligence education was moving in the right direction.

The entire weekend’s event once again reminded me how the basic themes that are woven throughout the world’s religions and ethical codes are basically about having a happier life. It is really no surprise that there is congruence between the values taught in emotional growth education and the central themes described by the Dalai Lama, those of love, contentment, understanding and self-discipline. It does seem to explain why emotional growth education can truly reduce the amount of struggling experienced by our adolescents!