The Speech of the Prime Minister of Tibet, Mr. Samdhong Rinpoche
Distinguished persons on the desk, sisters and brothers in the audience, at the outset, I convey the greetings from his Holiness the Dalai Lama who was invited to attend this convention but due to some unavoidable reasons he could not accept. He regretfully sends his greetings to all of you and he wishes this congress a great success.
After that, my humble greetings to you all, and I feel greatly honored to be with you and to share a few words about the Tibet’s cultural and spiritual richness.
It is a great opportunity for us to share a great cultural heritage of India, which’s been preserved and brought in the land of snow, that is called Tibet, for the last 1300 years, and today it has been challenged almost to its extinction from the surface of the Earth.
Tibet, the high plateau of the world is situated between China and India, the largest populated Asian nations and also touching its borders to Russia, Mongolia and many other countries; it had a human population, in accordance with the recent findings of the Archeological remains, which has evidenced that human population lived in Tibet plateau at least 30.000 years ago, but its civilization and recorded history is quite short.
The first King of Tibet, Nyatri Tsampo, who was believed from a Prince of Bengal arrived in Tibet sometime 242 B. C. and since then the Kingdom of Tibet was begun. But as late as 7th century A.D. the Tibet could have a script, language, cultural and spiritual heritage. During that time Tibetans have developed a script which is a short form of Sanskrit script of 30 consonants and 4 vowels which is able to translate the entire Sanskrit canon of India and the language is most near to Sanskrit, and whatever is expressible in Sanskrit language is exactly expressible in Tibetan language.
Since 7th century until late 11th century a translation of Indian treatises, largely the Buddhist canon, the Buddha’s teachings and the commentaries written by various Indian scholars and also secular Literature, Ayurvedhic astronomy and many other subjects which were prevailing at that time in India, were completely translated into Tibetan language, having all the traditions and written many Tibetan commentaries. And Tibet became the lineage holder of the Indian tradition, particularly the Nalanda, Vikramashila, Takshashila and Uddandapuri and many other centers of learning in India. According to Buddhist tradition the entirety of the subjects of learning are classified into five subjects namely: the Science of language and literature, in Sanskrit we call it shabdavidya, the Science of Logic and Reasoning, in Sanskrit we call it Hituvidya, and the science of Healing and Medicine, we call it in Sanskrit chikitsavidya, and there is Art and Sculpture, Architecture, in sanskrit we call it the shilpavidya, and finally the Science of Spirituality, the adhyatmavidya.
All these five subjects of learning encompass the entirety of Art and Sciences which were learned by the Ancient Indian sages and scholars, they have been translated and transmitted to the land of snow in Tibet and which were preserved there until today.
The richness of cultural spirituality. Before speaking about it, we must define what we mean by cultural and what we mean by spirituality because these words are now used in very different ways; unless we define it in the beginning we may be confused or miscommunicated. The word “cultural” is comparatively a new expression in English language and it has so many different connotations by this time. In the West the expression “cultural” is used both for the goodness and the evil. For example we call culture of violence, culture of destruction, culture of war and so forth. But in accordance with the Tibetan language or Indian languages, “culture” means only for goodness, we do not call a culture of violence or culture of war because these are uncultured activities and uncultured expressions. The expression in Sanskrit is “Sanskritic” that means “well cultivated”. Therefore, we use the expression culture only for the positive side and for the goodness. The cultivation of mind in spirituality or in purity, when it is fully cultivated a state of mind, that is called cultural. Acharya Narendra dev, a great scholar of India, in the 20th century, has defined the culture as “the agriculture on the land of mind”. He exactly said that sanskritic : chittabhumi ki kheti hai, that means “the cultivation on the soil of mind leads to a fulfillment, that is called culture”, and such minds set a state of mind which is not conditioned by negative emotions, is called “cultural”, and from such state of mind one creates his expression such as Music, Dance, Literature, Poetry, Art, Architecture and so forth.
These are also called cultural because these are the cultural expressions. The state of mind which is cultivated gives the creativity in beauty, in melody and in peacefulness and so forth. These all belong to culture. The spirituality means inner science. The human mind is so conditioned to look only at standard things and unable to introspect, to have an insight of one’s own nature in the present. Our thought process always goes to external material things and also in the past or in the future, it never stays inside, it never concentrates inside and it never concentrates on the present. When we go through a practice of moral cause, concentration of mind, then at stage your inner wisdom awakens. Once your inner wisdom awakens, that wisdom, that is inside, is able to see yourself as it is, without any distraction, in the present. That kind of mindset is called wisdom Pragya in Sanskrit and that wisdom is spiritual. The Spirit of human goodness lies in it and the spirit of Buddha nature also lies in it. The seed of Buddha nature which prevails into all sentient beings, on which basis all sentient beings are being considered as equal; and the realization of such seed, such potential, from which the mindset of every sentient being can develop, can evolve in the nature of eminence, in the nature of knowing everything, in the nature of awakened and unconditioned, that is called spirituality. Indeed, Tibet had abundant of this tradition of spirituality, particularly the tradition of Buddhism.
As I mentioned before since 7th century till 11th century the entire nation of Tibet was engaged completely for the receiving of instructions, Buddhist traditions from India, translating this canon and disseminated and practiced by the entire nation. Pre-Buddhistic spiritual tradition in Tibet was called Bon, Bonism. That remained in Tibet for quite some time but it was only in the oral transmission, they do not have any written literature. Therefore, after the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet, the entirety of Bon had also a kind of influence by Buddhist literature and today we do have the lineage of Bon, but which is now very difficult to distinguish it from Buddhism, as far as its philosophical and spiritual aspects are concerned. Tibet is situated quite away from the thickly populated nations and was always self-sufficient in it’s needs. The entire nation formed an inner energy for the development of spiritual traditions and its culture. The Tibetan culture, which is basically an Indian Buddhist culture unpolluted, uninfluenced by any neo Buddhistic culture, or cultural expressions.
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A pure Buddhist culture remained in Tibet which has expressed in numerous Art and Literature. I think Tibet is the one richest, as far as spiritual canonical treatises and Buddhist literature is concerned. Tibet has a very short spell of cultural and spiritual history as I mentioned, 1300 years at the most, and having a small population, at any point of time, not more than 6 million, had produced enormous, the largest amount of literature in the world which was never in countries such as China or India, having a numerous number of population and having more than 5000 years of history.
Even then if we compare the amount of literature which was produced by China and by India and by Tibet, the amount of Tibetan literature is in no way less than the amount of presently available Indian literature or China’s literature. That means that Tibet has the richest accumulation of cultural heritage from India. Of course, we have also certain contribution from China, but China’s contribution was in the form of food preparation, cloth weaving or for certain extent agriculture. Apart from that, the entirety of spiritual heritage, the religion, the philosophy, the system of healing, the system of astrology, the system of art and sculpture, all these have been inherited from the Buddhist India. Today you’ll find so many spiritual music instruments as you have witnessed this morning the chanting for the musical instruments, all of them have been inherited from Takshashila, Nalanda, or Vikramashila, Uddandpuri etc, etc, from India. Today you will not find this in India, but it is entirely preserved in Tibet. The butter sculpture, the image making, the Thangka painting, all these are based on the basis of Sanskrit literature which is called Chitra rachana that means the science of painting, the science of art. These are lost in Sanskrit originally in India, but its translation in Tibet version is still preserved in Tibet, and all these Thangka paintings, butter sculpture, sculpture of images, the mandalas, the sand colored mandalas, which completely disappeared from India but still these are preserved in Tibet without any distortion, without any deterioration , exactly in accordance with the specifications given in the treatises, in the root texts; are still available, the lineage, the oral transmission and the demonstration of the actual dream, all these are still preserved in Tibet. Therefore, Tibet has a very rich cultural heritage, spiritual heritage and which is very much relevant for the welfare of humanity even in the 21st century.
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This needs to be preserved and protected. The humanity cannot afford to lose this spiritual civilization. It is a heritage of India and preserved in Tibet and the essential unity of all spiritual heritage that is love and compassion and the entire Buddhism is based on love, compassion and nonviolence and I think that culture, that spirituality is more needed today than even before, as the previous speakers have rightly mentioned about the problems with men today. In my view, there are enormous challenges for all living beings today on this Planet earth: the increase of violence in various forms: in the forms of war, in the forms of terrorism, in the forms of structural violence, in the forms of exploitation, and so forth. No one is safe nowhere. I think this is a great challenge to entire humanity. The second challenge is the environmental degradation, and the unbalance of ecosystem: global warming. The human basic needs of air to breathe, water to drink are entirely polluted, contaminated. It is difficult to find any clean air to breathe, it is difficult to find clean water to drink. The environmental degradation is another challenge. The economic disparity, the misuse of resources and presently recession of economy which is also a great challenge. Then, finally, the source of salvation to all living beings that is religions, and today we talk of religious intolerance and conflict of civilization. The source of happiness is also converted into a source of conflict and violence. We shall have to face all these challenges. To face these challenges, the only way is the spiritual heritage, the heritage of love and compassion, the heritage of a living system which lets the others to live. In the entire humanity, in accordance with the Buddhist view, there are three different ways of living. The first way of living is: live on the cost of others. Today, the majority of humanity live in that way, on the cost of others, on the basis of exploiting others, misusing the share of others, a great number of people live in that way. That is not a living. Every moment it is a death, but people choose this way of living. The other way of living is: live and let the others live. If we can do that I think the world will become a better place to live. And finally, the requirement of a living system, a humanly living: that would be live to serve the others. The purpose of life is not let to live others, the purpose of human life is to serve the others, to benefit others and that can only come if you have a compassionate mind, a loving mindset; that is the requirement of the time or that is the essence of human value. This congress will consider the human great values, and in this, the Buddhist way of living, living for the sake of serving the others will greatly contribute for the future humanity. I am, once again, grateful to all of you for giving me the opportunity to be with you and having your attention to my sharing of thoughts.
Thank you very much!
The humanity cannot afford to lose this spiritual civilization. It is a heritage of India and preserved in Tibet and the essential unity of all spiritual heritage that is love and compassion and the entire Buddhism is based on love, compassion and nonviolence and I think that culture, that spirituality is more needed today than even before, as the previous speakers have rightly mentioned about the problems with men today.
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