Peace and Peacemaking

718 Words2 Pages

Peace and Peacemaking

Both the XIV Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi, as leaders in their struggle for freedom, have faced tremendous hardships and oppression. Their situations are similar in that they and the movements they represent are being oppressed by violent governments and they both choose to respond based off of their Buddhist backgrounds. The Dalai Lama does not discuss the Tibetan situation at great lengths in his book Ethic for a New Millennium, because it is a general book that outlines some guidelines of how to live life. Suu Kyi, on the other end of the spectrum, dedicates much of her book to the Burmese National League for Democracy and its responses to SLORC.

The Dalai Lama, when dealing with the Chinese or general public, emphasizes the loving nature of all people, that true freedom comes only from our struggle for inner peace, that our actions have consequences outside of ourselves, and that in order to transform our suffering we need to focus on others. The Dalai Lama makes the conjecture that humans are nonviolent by nature. “T...

More about Peace and Peacemaking

Open Document