Message of His Holiness the Great 14th Dalai Lama
I would like to express my deep appreciation and Tashi Delek to all of you for holding this 2nd International Conference on Body, Mind and Life.
There are more than seven billion people on our earth and all of us desire to be mentally happy and physically healthy. Even a newly born baby wishes to be mentally happy and physically well so does an old dying person. Today right here, you as listeners and I as a speaker, all of us equally wish to be happy rather than sad! Naturally, we all desire happiness and we all have equal rights to achieve that happiness. Not only human beings, but also all the sentient beings who have consciousness want to be happy and avoid suffering.
As Shantideva said, “all the sufferings that we experience are because of our selfishness and all the happiness that we gain are all because of wishing happiness for others.” If we examine properly, when one thinks about only the welfare of oneself, his or her mind becomes extremely narrow. The concept of “I” is very limited. When we apply “we” instead of “I”, it broadens our thinking. We as human beings are by nature social animals and very much dependent on each other.
If you are a Buddhist practitioner in general and a Mahayana follower in particular, or if you have heard about the Bodhisattva Basket or Pitaka, all these talk about ‘every sentient being’. If you observe this concept out of the blue, it would seem as if you haven’t thought much about its meaning. However, the fact is that how much you have altruism and concern for other’s welfare, the same degree of mental peace and happiness will resonate back.
If you have concerns only about ‘I’, there will be a lot of worry. When you are concerned on the welfare of all sentient beings, the courage and peace naturally grows within your mind. When ‘I’ is the main concern, then there would be more suspiciousness, distrust, deceitfulness and bullying to each other. When we think of others’ welfare and treat all others equally, keeping in mind that everyone is same, in terms of wishing happiness and not wishing suffering, there will be no cheating, bullying and pretending . You can be more transparent in your approach. When you are capable of being transparent, there will be more trust. When you are trustworthy, there will be a genuine friendship. Without trust in each other, when concerns are only on ‘I’, you tend to spend your life in doubts and hesitations. There is no delight in that at all.
In order to achieve physical happiness and good health which is our prime goal, it is really essential to have mental peace. Nowadays, scientists are stating that when mind get disturbed or disordered with destructive emotions like anger, doubt or fear, our immune system starts declining. Therefore, remaining mentally calm makes a huge difference for good physical health.
Few days ago, I had a meeting with a German friend who said that I was looking very young. He is 59 years old whereas I am 79 years old. That means he is 20 years younger than me. But, he looks much older than me in appearance. Therefore, he asked me that what my secret behind the youthfulness was, though my age has reached almost 80. I told him, “It is my big secret. I will not tell you.”
In my approach, all the seven billion people on earth are very much same. I consider myself as one of the seven billion people. I never think of myself as a special or a popular person. I never think of me as an important figure or I am Gyalwa Rinpoche. Whenever, I meet people with different background, I consider them as another same human being. There is not any feeling of hesitancy or distance to anybody. So, it feels as if my mind is opened freely.
As a result, there is no fear, nervousness and doubtful thoughts in my mind. It makes a huge difference in my day to day life. That was what I told him. I also told him by teasing, “As a Buddhist monk, I wake up at 3 AM and meditate for a while. I meet people for the day. As a bhikkhu, I skip dinner and go to bed by 6 to 7 PM. My life goes on in this way. But then, you eat dinner late in the night. At the same time, drink alcohol and get drunk”. There is huge difference between our ways of life.
Anyway, the most important thing is to have peace of mind. The root of mental calmness, as I told you before, depends on your attitude. But in our everyday life, it is important to keep our physical body calm and peaceful and try to avoid disorder as well. I told him as a joke, “As a monk, I cannot go to night club”. When our body follows a particular routine in 24 hours, I think that makes a huge difference. So, for good physical health and well being, it is essential to maintain the balance of mind.
To sum up, scientists in our time are immensely curious about the mental peace for physical wellbeing. They are saying that brain can be changed by transforming your mind. Earlier, many scientists maintained a scientific consensus that there is no existence of so called ‘mind’ apart from our body, rather it’s the function of brain. They asserted that the mental state of happiness or sorrow occurs when there is a change in brain and body. Recently, they started to accept that it is not easy to change the brain itself in a healthy way. Instead, it turns out that brain can be changed by training of mind. In the context of neuroplasticity, it says that when there is change in mind, there is a cellular growth or changes in brain.
In general, when we talk about health and fitness, we cannot put the mind aside. The wellness of physical health is very much dependent on the clarity and intelligence of mind. However, the mind and body has the relationship of support and supported. These are unconditionally associated with each other. So, there is a growing interest and curiosity for the relationship between the mind and body. Thus, it is need of time for convening such a conference on body, mind and Life. Not only sharing your knowledge and intellect but also you are practically working on exploring remedies for solving the physical and mental health. It’s wonderful! I would like to thank all the organizers.
