While the following commentary by the Dalai Lama may sound right and
wonderful to the average worldly reader, the ecumenical message it contains
is both deceptive and dangerous, as is the title of the commentary.

Yes, there is indeed one truth; and while compassion is a part of that
truth, it is not the truth itself; for as all Christians know, the truth --
and Eternal Life -- is found only through faith in Jesus Christ, who died
for the sins of the world.

I have warned about the Dalai Lama's message before. While it is good and
well that he speaks of love, peace and compassion, as long as he continues
to reject the main ingredient -- Jesus Christ, and the meaning of His
Sacrifice for all men everywhere -- then what he preaches is a deception,
because it leads no one to Eternal Life.

In short, what the Dalai Lama preaches is basically a call to a One World
Religion; and we all know where that will eventually lead: "Bow down and
worship me, and get your 666 or die!"

Thanks, but not thanks!


Many Faiths, One Truth

By TENZIN GYATSO - NYT

May 24, 2010


WHEN I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the
best -- and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naive I
was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can be today.

Though intolerance may be as old as religion itself, we still see vigorous
signs of its virulence. In Europe, there are intense debates about newcomers
wearing veils or wanting to erect minarets and episodes of violence against
Muslim immigrants. Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who
hold to religious beliefs. In the Middle East, the flames of war are fanned
by hatred of those who adhere to a different faith.

Such tensions are likely to increase as the world becomes more
interconnected and cultures, peoples and religions become ever more
entwined. The pressure this creates tests more than our tolerance -- it
demands that we promote peaceful coexistence and understanding across
boundaries.

Granted, every religion has a sense of exclusivity as part of its core
identity. Even so, I believe there is genuine potential for mutual
understanding. While preserving faith toward one's own tradition, one can
respect, admire and appreciate other traditions.

An early eye-opener for me was my meeting with the Trappist monk Thomas
Merton in India shortly before his untimely death in 1968. Merton told me he
could be perfectly faithful to Christianity, yet learn in depth from other
religions like Buddhism. The same is true for me as an ardent Buddhist
learning from the world's other great religions.

A main point in my discussion with Merton was how central compassion was to
the message of both Christianity and Buddhism. In my readings of the New
Testament, I find myself inspired by Jesus' acts of compassion. His miracle
of the loaves and fishes, his healing and his teaching are all motivated by
the desire to relieve suffering.

I'm a firm believer in the power of personal contact to bridge differences,
so I've long been drawn to dialogues with people of other religious
outlooks. The focus on compassion that Merton and I observed in our two
religions strikes me as a strong unifying thread among all the major faiths.
And these days we need to highlight what unifies us.

Take Judaism, for instance. I first visited a synagogue in Cochin, India, in
1965, and have met with many rabbis over the years. I remember vividly the
rabbi in the Netherlands who told me about the Holocaust with such intensity
that we were both in tears. And I've learned how the Talmud and the Bible
repeat the theme of compassion, as in the passage in Leviticus that
admonishes, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

In my many encounters with Hindu scholars in India, I've come to see the
centrality of selfless compassion in Hinduism too -- as expressed, for
instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, which praises those who "delight in the
welfare of all beings." I'm moved by the ways this value has been expressed
in the life of great beings like Mahatma Gandhi, or the lesser-known Baba
Amte, who founded a leper colony not far from a Tibetan settlement in
Maharashtra State in India. There he fed and sheltered lepers who were
otherwise shunned. When I received my Nobel Peace Prize, I made a donation
to his colony.

Compassion is equally important in Islam -- and recognizing that has become
crucial in the years since Sept. 11, especially in answering those who paint
Islam as a militant faith. On the first anniversary of 9/11, I spoke at the
National Cathedral in Washington, pleading that we not blindly follow the
lead of some in the news media and let the violent acts of a few individuals
define an entire religion.

Let me tell you about the Islam I know. Tibet has had an Islamic community
for around 400 years, although my richest contacts with Islam have been in
India, which has the world's second-largest Muslim population. An imam in
Ladakh once told me that a true Muslim should love and respect all of
Allah's creatures. And in my understanding, Islam enshrines compassion as a
core spiritual principle, reflected in the very name of God, the
"Compassionate and Merciful," that appears at the beginning of virtually
each chapter of the Koran.

Finding common ground among faiths can help us bridge needless divides at a
time when unified action is more crucial than ever. As a species, we must
embrace the oneness of humanity as we face global issues like pandemics,
economic crises and ecological disaster. At that scale, our response must be
as one.

Harmony among the major faiths has become an essential ingredient of
peaceful coexistence in our world. From this perspective, mutual
understanding among these traditions is not merely the business of religious
believers -- it matters for the welfare of humanity as a whole.


Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is the author, most recently, of "Toward
a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World's Religions Can Come Together."



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