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Cultural Revolution has failed, Brute Forces Can Never Subdue People’s Belief: His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Chinese Buddhists

Tibetan spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Photo/OHHDL

BODH GAYA: “Although the Cultural revolution unleashed a decade of violent extirpation of religion and religious institutions in China, today we can tell that it was a total failure. External forces cannot subdue the thousand-year-old spiritual heritage of the Chinese people and today in China, not only Buddhism but other traditions are being revived. People’s faith are only growing,” His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, while he was giving Buddhist discourse to devotees from mainland China today in Bodh Gaya.

Inaugurating his two-day teachings on Diamond Cutter Sutra for the Chinese devotees, His Holiness said that Buddhism has been part of the cultural heritage of the Chinese people and praised their earnest efforts to preserve it.

“Traditionally, Chinese people and culture have been closely associated with Buddhism. The Sanskrit tradition first spread to China, then Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia. In fact Sanskrit tradition flourished in China before it came to Tibet from India. Therefore historically, Chinese have had a natural propensity towards Buddhism. So this is your heriditary treasure, and your preserving this tradition is admirable,” he told the Chinese disciples.

However he insisted that the tradition must be preserved through study not merely through faith. “I have been encouraging Tibetan monastics, whether big or small centre, should become a centre of learning. Even in Tibetan community, not only in the Buddhist universities, but in community of monks and nuns, I have urged them to study the Buddhist philosophical tenets. That’s the reason why we have new graduated geshemas who have spent years on study. I advise the same for our Chinese friends”.

His Holiness criticised the way people tend to see religion as a custom to follow, rather than a subject of study. He pointed out that the Buddha had encouraged his followers to test his teaching as goldsmith tests gold. Experiment, investigation and analysis are the tools to use.

“Many scientists and western philosophers say that Buddhism is a science of mind and not religion; I think there is some truth in it. In the Buddhist investigation of reality, we traditionally employ four principles of reasoning: dependence, function, nature and evidence,” he said, emphasising the parallel approach between Modern Science and Buddhist Science.

Following his introductory remarks, His Holiness started confering the main discourse on the Diamond Sutra text, Dorjee Chodpa. In his description of the text, His Holiness said, “The text is called Perfection of Wisdom, not just to say that it is any kind of wisdom but the wisdom that leads to the final goal of enlightenment. The wisdom is the main factor which actually leads one from lower to higher stages and for making progress along the path. In the same way that diamond cannot be cut, but it can cut all the other objects. Similarly, this wisdom realising of true existence is the wisdom which cuts the root of ignorance because it understands the reality as it is. Therefore it is titled as vajra or diamond.”

The teaching will conclude tomorrow on 23 January.