By asking forgiveness, the criminal cannot hope to escape the consequences of his deeds, the gravity of his actions or the atrocity of his crime. Perhaps a truly repentant criminal should not even ask for forgiveness: having realized the depth of his crime, his main efforts should be to try, humbly but to the full extent of his abilities, to ...

From a Buddhist perspective, at a personal level forgiveness is always possible and one should always forgive. Although many claim that one has no right to forgive harm that has been done to others, one must consider forgiving in terms of the well-being of society. Society does not need the kind of forgiving that goes with lack of concern, le...

This image of seven Tibetan and Bhutanese Buddhist monks jumping on the beach in front of the ocean was taken in France, at Dieppe, on a bright winter morning in 1997. This image is an original slide; it is not a multiple exposure and no tricks were employed. It is simply a single exposure of seven monks jumping for joy and, contrary to mos...

That's a question the Dalai Lama's frequently asked. His usual reply is to joke, ‟Poor Buddhism! Rejected by religions as an atheistic philosophy, a science of the mind; and by philosophers as a religion—there's nowhere that Buddhism has citizen's rights. But perhaps that's an advantage that could allow Buddhism to build bridges between relig...

Chinese climatologists have called the Himalayan glaciers and other major mountains located in the Tibetan plateau the ‟third pole” of our ailing planet. Why? There are 40,000 large and small glaciers on the Tibetan plateau and this area is melting at a rate three to four times faster than the North and South Poles. The melting is particularl...

The easiest way to distinguish between our emotions is to examine their motivation (mental attitude and objective) and their results. If an emotion strengthens our inner peace and seeks the good of others, it is positive, or constructive; if it shatters our serenity, deeply disturbs our mind and is intended to harm others, it is negative, or ...

Empathy is to feel what others are experiencing and to resonate with them. When we meet someone filled with joy, we also experience joy. The same applies to suffering; though empathy we experience the suffering that another person is going through. Experientially, these empathic feelings are similar to real joy and real suffering. Therefore, ...

Is mindfulness wholesome in and of itself? An inspiring meeting convened by the Mind and Life Institute between the Dalai Lama and a group of distinguished scientists and scholars recently was held in Dharamsala, India. Rupert Gethin, an eminent scholar of the Theravada and Pali tradition of Buddhism, expressed the opinion that mind...

Attention is a quality that is indispensable to the attainment of our goals, whether they are oriented to the world and others, or focused inwardly to self- transformation. When attention is focused, directed, free from bias, and sharpened by penetrating insight and logical investigation, it will help to ascertain reality correctly.  When att...

Spiritual practice can be enormously bene?cial. The fact is, it is possible to undergo genuine spiritual training by devoting some time every day to meditation. More people than you might think do so, while leading regular family lives and doing absorbing work. The positive bene?ts of such a life far outweigh the few problems of schedule arra...