Dalai Lama teachings begin at McLeodganj

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, October 3

The Dalai Lama began three-day teaching on Nagarjuna’s The Precious Garland of the Middle Way at the main Tibetan temple here today. The teaching has been organized by The International Association of Tibetan Buddhist Dharma, Taiwan.

Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland of the Middle Way is a commentary written by Nagarjuna belonging to his Collection of Advice. Nagarjuna originally composed the text as a letter of advice to a king who was his friend. It consists of five chapters in which Nagarjuna offers advice on how to conduct our lives and how to construct social policies that reflect Buddhist ideals.

The Dalai Lama received the initial teaching from Serkhong Tsenshab Rinpoche, who, in turn, had received it from a master in Kham.

Around 6,000 followers and devotees from 61 different countries gathered to hear the teaching from the Dalai Lama with live translations available in Chinese, English, Hindi, German, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Spanish and Russia.

In his introduction to the text, the Dalai Lama emphasised the system of instruction on the workings of mind and emotion in the Nalanda tradition and how the Tibetan Buddhist philosophy remains crucially relevant to modern humanity. He also maintained that all religious traditions espouse the importance of love and compassion and concern for others.

“Despite philosophical differences between them, all major world religions have the same potential to create good human beings. It is, therefore, important for all religious traditions to respect one another and recognize the value of their respective traditions,” said the Dalai Lama.