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  • >> Ladies and gentlemen please welcome this morning's panel.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Thank you. [Applause] It's nice to be here with you. [Singing]

  • >> This is better.

  • >> Again.

  • >> Yes. My brother. Yes. Thank you.

  • >> Thank you.

  • [ Singing ]

  • >> Thank you. Okay. Thank you. [Applause]

  • >> Good. Thank you again.

  • >> You're welcome.

  • >> Chancellor Dave Gearhart: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. And thank you all for

  • coming. We have an exceptional panel assembled for today's historic discussion on nonviolence.

  • This is an extraordinary opportunity to hear from some of the most famous proponents of

  • nonviolence in the world. Dr. Sidney Burris is going to provide a more thorough introduction

  • of our guests momentarily. But I, personally, on behalf of the University want to welcome

  • Dr. Vincent Harding, Sister Helen Prejean, and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to the

  • University of Arkansas.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Chancellor Dave Gearhart: I also want to take this opportunity to thank the Distinguished

  • Lectures Committee of Students for sponsoring this event. And we have a number of the members

  • of that committee with us today, and I would like to ask them to stand and thank them for

  • making this possible. Would you please stand? [Applause] Members of the committee, thank

  • you.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Chancellor Dave Gearhart: An additional word of thanks is owed to Dr. Sidney Burris,

  • Director of the Honors Program in the Jay William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences

  • and a faculty member Geshe Dorjee for their involvement inviting the Dalai Lama to our

  • campus.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Chancellor Dave Gearhart: Ladies and gentlemen if they had not been in India working on the

  • Tibetans In Exile or TEXT Project with our students, I'm not sure we'd all be here today.

  • Thank you, gentlemen for your leadership. I would also like to remind you that following

  • this panel, everyone will have to exit the arena and come back through security at noon,

  • even if you have a ticket for the afternoon lecture. We apologize for any inconvenience,

  • but it is a requirement of State Department Security that an additional sweep of the area

  • be performed before the afternoon lecture. Thank you for your understanding. And now,

  • let's hear a little more from Dr. Burris about today's honored guests.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Good morning. Thank you Chancellor Gearhart, for your kind words.

  • Before I confront the daunting task of trying to introduce these three individuals, let

  • me add a couple of things to what our Chancellor has already said. None of this would have

  • happened without my friend and my teacher, Geshe Dorjee, a Tibetan monk who left Tibet

  • in 1969, and whom I brought to Arkansas [applause] in 2006. His presence here on this campus

  • has been simply transformative. Thank you, Geshe, wherever you are. [Applause] Both my

  • Chancellor and my Dean Bill Schwab, have shown an unwavering support of all things Tibetan

  • on this campus, and their support has been crucial over the past 14 months. Thanks to

  • you both as well. [Applause] To my Co-Chair Melissa Banks, who does not know the word

  • impossible, and to my good friends Bill Simms, James Ownbey and Karen Chotkowski, whose hard

  • work and intelligence over the long haul, I've come to rely on many, many thanks to

  • you as well. [Applause] To my wife, Angie who, when I could not see past the next 12

  • hours, always reminded me that this day would come. Thank you very much. [Applause] Finally,

  • and of course, our students, without whom [background talking] the TEXT Project would

  • not even exist, and without whom I feel confident this would not be occurring today. It does

  • indeed take a village. We have here on our stage today a monk, a nun, and a college professor.

  • Not professions that we typically associate with widespread social change and political

  • renovation. But I would suggest to you that these individuals from their cloistered positions

  • have affected more positive change in our lives, than many who have devoted their careers

  • to public service in the traditional manner. Why is this so? My first inkling of an answer

  • came while [background talking] reading Sister Helen as she described the day in June 1980,

  • that would change her life. She was listening to Sister Marie Augusta Neal as she lectured

  • to her community, and she was urging direct action with the poor. Within the year, Sister

  • Helen had moved from a lakefront suburb into the Saint Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans,

  • where she began her work on death row. It was about this experience that she would later

  • write, "Better I decide to try to help ten real hurting people or nine or one than, to

  • be overwhelmed and withdraw and do nothing or write an academic paper on the problem

  • of evil." I would suggest that we know and respect Sister Helen now because she has avoided

  • that academic paper and embraced instead, the ten real hurting people, a number that

  • has grown steadily and shows no signs of slowing. And because we know how deeply Dr. King weighed

  • the words that he spoke in public we are mightily impressed to learn that he turned to Professor

  • Harding to craft the speech that outlined the King's opposition to the war in Vietnam,

  • one of the landmark statements on nonviolence in American history. But how many of us know

  • the following words of Professor Harding, which describe a conversation he had with

  • a young man, articulate and intelligent, who was bent on surviving the tough neighborhood

  • in Boston where he'd grown up? This young man told Professor Harding that what he needed

  • were living human signposts to help him find his way, and Professor Harding's response

  • is emblematic, I believe, of his life. "I have never forgotten these words," Professor

  • Harding writes, "and these confessions seem to ask us not only to be signposts, but to

  • introduce our students to other living signs who may be able to help them find the way.

  • They need to see and know the lives of women and men who provide intimations of our human

  • grandeur." To all of his students who number now in the thousands Professor Harding has

  • served as such a signpost, and I would suggest that our stage today, is brimming with such

  • signposts. I first saw His Holiness in 1979 when I was a young graduate student at the

  • University of Virginia, and since then I have read his books, attended his teachings, and

  • generally tried to understand the great compassion and generosity that illuminate his work in

  • our world. You can open many of his books randomly and find passages that clarify and

  • illuminate. Here is a passage from a recent collection. "Nonviolence is not limited to

  • an absence of violence. For it is a matter of an active attitude motivated by the wish

  • to do others good. It is equivalent to altruism." Altruism, which defines all of our panelists,

  • is a form of nonviolence. It is a formula both clear and profound, and these are the

  • two qualities: clarity and profundity that I most associate with His Holiness. So our

  • panelists agree, happiness depends on developing the kind of warm heart that will recognize

  • human suffering wherever we might find it, and on developing the capacity to declare

  • this suffering intolerable. And, of course, the spirit that finds this suffering intolerable

  • rises from the spirit of nonviolence. Our three panelists have all devoted their lives

  • to this principle, and I am anxious, as I know you are, to hear their advice on how

  • we might incorporate something of this in our own lives. It is a great honor to present

  • to you, once again, Professor Vincent Harding, Sister Helen Prejean, and His Holiness the

  • 14th Dalai Lama.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Now a word about how we intend to operate here today in this conversation.

  • I have spoken to Thupten Jinpa earlier, and Sister Helen and Vincent Harding, and what

  • we will do is we will allow our panelists to talk each for two or three minutes about

  • their own personal path to the stance of nonviolence, and the particular role that nonviolence plays

  • in what they do in the world. We will then follow that up with questions and comments.

  • And then at the end we will have a one minute or so summary from each of the panelists.

  • And I am certain that we will all be by that time greatly enlightened. We would like to

  • start, of course, with His Holiness - - if you could talk for a couple of minutes about

  • your own personal path to nonviolence, and then Sister Helen and Vincent Harding. [Thupten

  • Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse]

  • >> Dalai Lama: Good morning everybody.

  • >> Good morning.

  • >> Indeed I'm very happy. I think this is the first visit -- the first time I think

  • come to this state -- I mean this city. So this morning I found -- of course, I usually

  • get up early morning. So I think at the time I almost at dawn some birds singing. I like

  • big city -- very beautiful, very beautiful. So I'm very happy. [Chuckle] Thank you. And

  • then obviously I need to share...

  • >> Thupten Jinpa: Talk.

  • >> Dalai Lama: My own experience until now with nonviolence. Firstly, we human being

  • is social animal. So individual sort of survival depends on the rest of the community. So there

  • must be some sort of force in our emotion to band together. So that is compassion, human

  • affection. Then secondly, the way our life start we come from our mother, and not like

  • some other species like some turtle. As they die the mother as they lay down their egg

  • they ran.

  • >> Thupten Jinpa: [Inaudible]

  • >> Dalia Lama: The egg then left. No need mother's care. They're a youngster. So they

  • themselves have survived by themselves. We're not like that. Like some other mammals they

  • at a young age their survival entirely depends on the others for most of their care. And

  • our case and many birds and many of the mammals their survival depends entirely for the affection

  • or caring by the mother. So our life starts that way. Therefore I consider basic human

  • nature is more gentleness. Of course aggression also, part of our life because of our intelligence

  • and because of greed and some other different emotion. So because of intelligence we must

  • certain [inaudible] extra ability so that use control other. However they in our -- sort

  • of now according medical scientists constant anger, fear, very bad for our health. Compassionate

  • mind, warm-heartedness very good for our health. So that also is confirm our basic nature is

  • more gentleness. So positive mind, constructive filled emotions goes very well with our body.

  • The destructive emotions not go well with our body. Now nonviolence and violence , although

  • I think there are many different levels of action, physical action, verbal action, mental

  • action. I say there are violent and nonviolent, but generally and any way violence and nonviolence

  • is action. Every human action, those effective action must come through motivation. So any

  • action motivated by compassion, central affection is nonviolence. Any action whether verbal

  • action or physical action out of hatred, out of anger, out of jealousy, out of [inaudible]

  • these negative feeling ,that essentially violence. So the minds are bleak. In order to promote

  • nonviolence we have to deal with emotional level. We should sort of make awareness. The compassionate

  • mind is very good for the society, very good for the family, very good for individual.

  • The destructive emotion such as jealousy, suspicion, fear, hatred, anger these are very

  • bad for the society, as it is for the family level, and also [inaudible] for individuals

  • on the health of these things. So that's my universal way to promote nonviolence. Stress

  • on the motivation. So now that's it -- [Chuckle] finished.

  • >> Very short.

  • >> Thank you. Thank you.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Sister Helen Prejean: My path awakening to nonviolence or what I call or what Gandhi

  • calls soul force, resistance to what is wrong, trying to help create what is new, and not

  • to be passive and overwhelmed. A Catholic nun, grew up with great mom and daddy. I wasn't

  • just a little egg placed in the nest, and then they left. Great mom and daddy, Catholic

  • mom and daddy, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And to give our life over to God was prized

  • in our family, and I became a nun with great support. Mom and Daddy, my sister Maryann

  • are sitting in here today. And I became a nun and the spirituality out of which I was

  • trying to follow the ways of Jesus, was the spirituality that really separated the world.

  • Everybody's trying to get to heaven. So if people have to suffer here, well one day they're

  • going to have a great crown in heaven, and I was separated. We became nuns and cloistered

  • ourselves so I was separated from the world. And living out in the suburbs of New Orleans

  • [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse] -- and living out in the suburbs my father had been

  • a successful lawyer so in New Orleans, ten major housing projects in the inner city of

  • struggling African American people. And I had only known African American people growing

  • up as our servants. I didn't even know the last names of the woman who worked in the

  • house or the man who worked in the yard. So the awakening -- the spiritual awakening happened

  • through coming to understand who Jesus was, and actually through the God revealed in the

  • Hebrew testament of the burning bush. That one of the first revelations in the Hebrew

  • scriptures of the heart of God is in the burning bush to Moses, "I have heard the cry of my

  • people." And I realized that here I was in another world. Here was the inner city, and

  • I woke up. And the awakening was such a grace. I'm grateful to this moment that I woke up,

  • and then what you talk about your Holiness. The motivation to act because consciousness

  • when my consciousness changed and I realized, I don't even know those people. I moved. I

  • acted and lived in the presence of African American people in the Saint Thomas Housing

  • Project who became my teachers. And once you get in this river as Dr. Harding loves to

  • write about -- once you get in the currents then one day coming out of the Adult Learning

  • Center where I was helping people to get their GEDs, realized the miserable state of education

  • for poor African American people in public schools. People were coming into the Adult

  • Learning Center, juniors in high schools who couldn't read at third grade. What is going

  • to happen to these kids and why had I been so privileged? Why was I so blessed? And so

  • I began to act. So and coming out one day somebody said hey Sister Helen you want to

  • write a letter to someone on death row in Louisiana. I didn't even know much about the

  • death penalty, and I never dreamed they were going to kill a person because we -- there

  • had been a kind of hiatus on executions for over 20 years. So I wrote a letter, and he

  • wrote back. His name was Patrick Sonnier, and he changed my life forever because, two

  • and a half years later I am in the killing chamber when the State of Louisiana electrocuted

  • him to death. And he in compassion for me had said, "Sister, you can't be there at the

  • end because it could scar you." And I said strength I said "no, Patrick. I don't know

  • what it will do to me, but you are not going to die..."

  • [ Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama Converse ]

  • >> Sister Helen Prejean: "You are not going to die without a loving face", which was his

  • dignity. I said "I'll be the face of Christ for you." They killed him in front of my eyes.

  • I left the execution chamber. It was in the middle of the night in Louisiana. I vomited.

  • I never seen a human being killed. And that motivation, that fire I realized at that moment

  • it was in the dark, and I thought to myself people are never going to see this. When the

  • State kills it's a secret ritual. It's behind prison walls. So people don't see or hear

  • the last words. They don't see it. So they're caught in oh he did that terrible crime. He

  • deserves to die. And my mission was born at that moment. I must tell the story to awaken

  • people to bring them close to this. Then that brings us to the other side was who did this?

  • Why was this man killed? What crime had he done? He and his brother had done an unspeakably

  • terrible crime. They killed two innocent teenage kids in cold blood. Shot them in the back

  • of the head. Every parent's worst nightmare of their kids going to a football game, and

  • never being seen alive again. And when I knew the crime my impulse was to reach out to the

  • families and I held back because, I thought they're not going to want to see me. And I

  • was wrong about that. It was a big mistake I made, and when I did meet them the father

  • of the boy, David, who had been killed, said to me, "Sister, you can't believe the pressure

  • on us to be for the death penalty, and I've had nobody to talk to. Where have you been?"

  • It was a...

  • [ Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama Converse ]

  • >> Sister Helen Prejean: Like there's other people here too. [Laughter] Anyway so Lloyd

  • LeBlanc says to me, "Where have you been," and so he invited me to come and pray with

  • him. And through this man he's the hero of Dead Man Walking . I'm the storyteller, and

  • I made some mistakes. This father shared his inner journey of at first trying to go to

  • the place because, everybody was saying that to him of wanting to see Patrick Sonnier dead,

  • wanting to see his brother dead as well. And he said, "But I didn't like the way it made

  • me feel when I went to that place of hatred and bitterness. And then I said to myself

  • they killed our son, but I'm not going to let them kill me. I'm going to do what Jesus

  • said, and he set his face to go on the road of forgiveness." Around this country telling

  • that story it's very important in this journey when we deal with our outrage that we feel

  • when innocent people have been ripped from life it's important to stand in the outrage,

  • feel the outrage, but then look past it to try to see what as a society are we going

  • to do. How are we going to act now? And I'll end with this because I know we just have

  • a short period to get started, but I've been in the killing chamber in Texas that's killed

  • over 450 human beings in the killing chamber in Texas. And there are three witnessing chambers,

  • and one is for the 12 people from the State that watch the killing. One is reserved for

  • the victim's family that sends a representative. It's up to the left and looks down on the

  • gurney. And the third witnessing place is where families and where mothers have stood

  • with their hands against the glass to watch as the State kills their child. And the question

  • is where does it take us? Where does the imitation of violence take us as a society? So that's

  • my little opening.

  • >> Thank you Sister Helen.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Professor Vincent Harding: As the oldest member of this panel [laughter] I am going

  • to take the liberty that age allows of being disobedient. [Laughter] Because I'm going

  • to start off not with my assignment of telling about my path to nonviolence, but I want to

  • start off by giving great thanks for the path that Sidney Burris took to bring us to this

  • place.

  • >> Yes.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Professor Vincent Harding: When I heard the story of how long he has been working

  • on making this a possibility I was deeply grateful, and I knew that I needed to testify

  • to that. [Laughter] So Sidney, forgive me for being an elderly disobedient one, but

  • that's how I needed to start.

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you.

  • >> Professor Vincent Harding: But to go to my assignment. [Background translating] I

  • want to say that my path to the way of nonviolence was a path that was suggested by His Holiness.

  • It was a path that was developed first by the love of a single mother, a recently divorced

  • mother, who insisted on letting me know that I was loved. That she expected great things

  • of me, and who made great sacrifices for me. I see that as being essential to the starting

  • of my own path. My path was also lined with teachers in public school who literally loved

  • me, who cared about me, who demanded great things of me, and who pushed me when I was

  • not ready to know that I could go forward. My pathway to nonviolence was also opened

  • up by a little congregation of church people in Harlem in New York: church people who took

  • me into their arms and taught me what they knew and encouraged me to explore the way

  • of faith, the way of the teachings of Jesus, the ways of love. My path was deeply affected

  • by the fact that, in my early 20s I was drafted into the Army of the United States of America.

  • And it was the first time that I was away from mother, from church, from home community

  • for any significant period of time. And in that experience of solitude I began to explore

  • more fully the teachings of especially the New Testament. Reading in all the time that

  • basic training gives you to be doing nothing. I took the nothing time and tried to make

  • something out of it by reading the things that people had told me about, but that I

  • had never studied myself. And in the process of that reading I came in touch with this

  • magnificent person, Jesus of Nazareth. And I began to be very deeply attracted to him,

  • and to his life, and to what that life meant. And it was in the course of that basic training

  • time when I was studying and learning about Jesus of Nazareth, that I was also at the

  • same moment really enjoying basic training because, I was an outdoor kind of person.

  • I loved to run. I loved to be around exercise practice and I surprised myself by really

  • enjoying learning how to fire a rifle and learning, how to fire it with great accuracy.

  • And it was one morning out at Fort Dix [background translating] New Jersey down on my belly firing

  • the rifle at the target hitting it rather well, enjoying myself that I almost heard

  • a voice saying to me, "Oh, Vincent, you're enjoying this, aren't you? Do you think that's

  • why the Army is paying all this money so that you can enjoy this?" The voice said, "No.

  • Vincent, you are being taught how to kill a man without him even being able to see you.

  • What does your Jesus have to do with that?" It was at that same period that I was being

  • taught how to use a bayonet, that long sharp knife at the end of a rifle that was used

  • in those days. And I was trained how to immediately slash out another human being's bowels, without

  • him even knowing what was happening to him. And again in strange ways, in that moment,

  • I heard the song that I had been singing in my church school for many, many years: Jesus

  • Loves the Little Children . And again a voice came to me saying, "So that's it. Jesus loves

  • the little children, all the children of the world, Vincent; but when they grow up and

  • when your government tells you that they are your enemies, Jesus loves the little children.

  • But when you grow up you're going to cut their guts out, because your government says that

  • that's what you need to do." And from that moment on I began wrestling with myself, and

  • wrestling with the meaning of this Jesus, and wrestling with the idea that I as his

  • follower was giving myself over to that kind of madness. And so I from that point essentially

  • became a conscientious objector. And it was in the process...

  • [ Applause ] -- it was in thatprocess after I got out of the Army that I met a church group that actually

  • seemed to take Jesus seriously on this matter of loving the enemy. I became a part for a

  • good while of the Mennonite Churches in this country. And it was in the course of that

  • that my late wife and I went south to work with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the wonderful

  • young people of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. And King and the young people invited

  • me in to say essentially you have begun to think about this matter of nonviolence already.

  • Come and help us teach it. Practice it. Work with it here in the South. That was the beginning

  • of my pathway. I met many magnificent human beings who without any great study, any great

  • teaching, came from the depths of their hearts to know that they could never create a new

  • American society, if they allowed hatred and anger to overcome them even though they were

  • understandably filled with, in a sense, the right to be angry and to have hate. But they

  • decided following the teachings of King and Gandhi that they wanted a new society where

  • hatred and anger would not rule our way. That group of people took me in, and I became part

  • of that movement for a new society and I'm still on that path now coming close to my

  • 80th year.

  • >> Thank you.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you very much Professor Harding, Sister Helen, Your Holiness.

  • You mentioned something in your last comment, Professor Harding, that I would like to follow-up

  • on and have all of our panelists respond to it. His Holiness will recognize his quotation.

  • "Tibetans typically say my enemy, my teacher, which is another way, the Tibetan way, of

  • saying it's important that we learn how to love our enemies. What I would like to hear

  • all three of you comment on: how does an engagement with the opposing perspective actually, cause

  • us to strengthen our practice of nonviolence? Your Holiness, if you could talk about it.

  • [Translating]

  • >> Would you repeat that question?

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Sure.

  • >> Please.

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Absolutely. Tibetans have a saying: my enemy, my teacher meaning

  • that as long as we're around people that we love and adore, we learn no lessons. It's

  • only when we're around the enemy that we actually get to watch hatred and anger work. And at

  • that point we can attack it and understand how to manage it. So my question is in each

  • of your experiences how does an engagement with "the enemy" actually strengthen your

  • practice of nonviolence?

  • >> Dalai Lama: [Inaudible] Firstly I want to express to you both to develop that kind

  • of [inaudible] attitude and determination to help to save [inaudible] people and also

  • opposing killing. This sort of conviction, this sort of strength comes from the teaching

  • of Jesus Christ, Christianity. So this confirm very clearly all measure with this tradition

  • have same potential to bring such wonderful people. So because one of my commitment is

  • promotion of religious harmony.

  • >> Yes.

  • >> Dalai Lama: In order to develop that [applause] it is very important to know the value of

  • potential of that teaching, then you can develop genuine respect, admiration, and that way

  • changes in harmony can develop. So I will appreciate your sort of not just scholarly,

  • but your own true experience. [Inaudible] Clearly -- so that make it clear, so I very

  • much appreciate. Now the enemy is your best teacher. This is actually one Buddhist text.

  • In eighth century one Indian scholar, Buddhist scholar, you see expressed that and then further

  • there are many pieces of literature mentioned on that. So, we Tibetan Buddhists -- simply

  • to follow this practice. Now here the main thing is firstly, the conflict of enemy is

  • based on other's attitude. This person's attitude towards me is very friendly and very nice

  • and helpful. So we call friend -- close. This person creates for me problem and even harming

  • to me. Even create some danger for my life. So we call enemy. Not on the basis of that

  • person himself or herself. Because when they were young we have no idea this is my enemy.

  • This is my friend. Now there are two compassion -- two levels of compassion or affection.

  • One mainly oriented out of attitude or a person's action. That's mainly -- that kind of compassion

  • is mainly a biological factor. So this person is useful for me and helpful for me and then

  • -- close to me. This this sort of harmful to me, so put sort of the other -- another

  • group. So that kind of sort of compassion biological factor, and mainly oriented other's

  • attitude and other's action. That compassion doesn't -- cannot extend towards your enemy.

  • Now another level of affection or compassion not oriented other's attitude or action, but

  • rather [inaudible] people themselves or even animals or other. So now we share no differences.

  • That's good. As enemy that's good as a friend on the basic level of human being same. They

  • both want happiness. Both have right to achieve that. Just like me. And both do not want suffering.

  • So from that understanding develop genuine central concern towards the person regardless

  • of their attitude towards you. Now that kind of compassion is second level compassion.

  • Now all the major religious tradition is emphasis on that level. So within that context now

  • you need effort to develop that compassion and sort of attitude towards your enemy. So

  • the obstacle is hatred, anger. Now develop sort of opposition -- hatred and anger is

  • patience, tolerance, forgiveness. Now in order to practice forgiveness, tolerance you need

  • someone who creates trouble [laughter]. So for example, Christian practitioner, you never

  • feel some negativity towards Jesus Christ so there's no possibility to practice forgiveness

  • towards Jesus Christ. I'm Buddhist. Towards Buddha no. No because of that no chance or

  • no opportunity. No possibility to feel -- sort of -- to practice of tolerance with Buddha.

  • No. With my mother. No. [Laughter] With those neutral people also no. Only these people

  • who create trouble for you, these are the really is a testing of my practice. So I need

  • practice of tolerance and forgiveness. In order to practice that, you need opportunity.

  • Now that opportunity creates by your enemy. So from that viewpoint, very, very important

  • to practice. Can learn only, with the help of enemy. So from that viewpoint enemy is

  • your best teacher.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Sister Helen. Oh, excuse me. Go ahead Your Holiness.

  • >> Dalai Lama: Well then I think I want to make clear. Some people, including Tibetans,

  • also you see including some Buddhists, also sometimes feel if you really forgive -- give

  • forgiveness to your enemy regardless, their sort of bad sort of attitude, then that means

  • almost sort of your Buddha. Right. Buddha the enemy. This is not the case. [Chuckle]

  • We have to make distinction. Actor. Action. Actor is concerned not the enemy. Actor is

  • concerned. It deserves our love, our compassion, our sense of concern. As far as their action

  • is concerned, if necessary we have to take countermeasure to compose, to stop their wrongdoing.

  • Still since you develop a sense of concern of well-being of that person who considered

  • enemy, therefore if you have genuine sense of concern of that person, then we have to

  • make effort to stop their wrongdoing because, ultimately their wrongdoing ultimately harm

  • [inaudible]. Negative sort of consequences to themselves. Therefore our concern of their

  • well-being tried to stop their wrongdoing. So action is concerned. If necessary we have

  • to oppose, but the actor we must keep our compassion so there is a distinction.

  • [ Applause ] Perhaps I think this is not just a word. Our own case we respect those even

  • Chinese Communist hardliners who really carry brutal sort of policies. These individuals

  • [noise] we respect them. We deliberately try to put more of ourselves, our welling-being,

  • our sense of compassion towards them. But as far as action is concerned sometimes we

  • criticize and sort of [inaudible] a certain way. Any sort of if -- any possibility we'll

  • say we oppose their action. So since we oppose their action they consider me as a troublemaker

  • for them. [Laughter] So sometimes I enjoy telling people since they consider me as a

  • troublemaker, so in order to justify their accusation I have to create a little problem.

  • [Laughter]

  • [ Applause ] So now important this practice immense benefit to yourself. That I feel very

  • important. I'm always telling people the practice of compassion. Some people feel something

  • holy, something good for other; but not necessarily to yourself. That's totally wrong. Of course

  • in the afternoon I will tell this. [Laughter]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you Your Holiness. Sister Helen, keeping on this, you know, theme

  • of my enemy, my teacher I was struck by reading The Death of Innocence and Dead Man Walking

  • for that matter. You have a kind of a reverse example that I would like to hear you talk

  • about. When you started dealing with the victims' families, you became the enemy because, you

  • had been an advocate for the -- I mean a murderer. I would like to hear you talk about how you

  • handled that particular position in which you found yourself, as being the enemy of

  • the bereaved family.

  • >> Sister Helen Prejean: This is a very interesting little current in the river to be talking

  • about the enemy as teacher, because when I first visited a man on death row who had done

  • this unspeakable murder I didn't know anything. And instinctually, when I was walking in the

  • prison for the first time the guards were very like matter-of-fact, kind of harsh. Woman

  • on the tier. Wait in there. We'll get you man. And there was an instinct to kind of

  • treat them as the enemy because, they're the ones who had imprisoned. There's the assigned

  • death row. And then I suddenly realized the guards whose job is to work in this prison

  • and even eventually to carry out the execution are not the enemy, and the same thing with

  • the victim's family. So instinctively, see opposition was coming from the victims, and

  • because I didn't reach out to them as I should have in the very beginning, harsh letters

  • to the editor were written about me. Victims' families were getting on TV that Sister Prejean

  • she doesn't care about victims. And I would always try to go inside myself. I use the

  • image of like my fingers moving on a piece of cloth to see if there were any tears. Where

  • is my conscience? Where is guilt? Where were they right? And I knew that they were right

  • [background translating] because I hadn't reached out to them right away. And so then

  • what happened inside me with that was, I need to be there for them. If they reject me and

  • are angry at me, because they're put on a tremendous seesaw in society. The victims'

  • families that have been promised the loss that you have had of your loved one what we're

  • going to do for you in order to honor your dead loved one, is that we are going to kill

  • the one who killed your child and you'll get to watch it. And that is how we'll honor you.

  • They are very much placed on this seesaw. They are in all these cultural currents that

  • says if you really love your child you want to see the enemy dead, and we're going to

  • do that for you. So anybody who says oh I'm not for the death penalty so they're coming

  • at it from, but I'm acting defensively about them, because they go oh they're opposed to

  • me. And it was a guilt because I hadn't reached out. And what His Holiness just said that

  • action when you put yourself out there to go to them. So when I went to visit Lloyd

  • LeBlanc whose son had been killed -- when I walked in his shoes, when I heard his story,

  • when I went to these groups, murder victim family groups who were all talking about their

  • pain, I realized something. All of them were talking about how everybody leaves them alone,

  • because they don't know what to do with their pain. So they're being shunned in a way. One

  • man said to me he had lost his daughter who was killed. He said, "Sister, if you want

  • to see a room empty out, just let me walk into it, because everyone knows my daughter

  • was killed and people don't know what to say to people in great pain." And so it was just

  • one act. After I got to know Lloyd LeBlanc, and the victims' families, to start a group

  • to help murder victims' families, for people to accompany them in their pain. It's one

  • act. I didn't change everything, but I knew my relationship with the LeBlanc family who

  • had allowed me to come into their lives needed to be intact, and I needed to continue to

  • be faithful to the friendship with them. And then to start a group, one thing. A lot of

  • times when I'm talking to young people they go where are we ever going to pick up this

  • whole world? And it's almost like when the minute you put your hand on the rope and begin

  • to pull, whoever it's with, whose hurting the life energy and compassion flows through

  • us. So that's one response, Sidney, to that. And...

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Yeah. Good.

  • >> Sister Helen Prejean: Yeah.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Professor Harding, I have always been struck by longevity of all

  • types, and clearly you're a living example of that. And when I was able to hear you speak

  • yesterday about traveling down into the South in 1958 with a religious group composed of

  • blacks and whites and when I think about your initial engagement with Dr. King in '58 you

  • met him in Montgomery, Alabama. And then I fast forward ahead nine years [background

  • translating] to when he gets in touch with you and says he wants to come out against

  • the Vietnam War, with a major speech in Riverside Church, in New York City. I'm struck by the

  • fact that as an American, as an African American, you have seen racism of all sorts. You have

  • seen bigotry. You have been confronted with violence of every imaginable stripe; and yet,

  • to hear to you speak, to hear your message, you are clearly one of the most gentle people

  • I have ever confronted. What I would like for you to share with us is how you did that.

  • How did you confront that kind of hatred? And it was highly organized hatred and it

  • had the power of the government behind it, at times. And just as the victim's family

  • is out there alone, you too have been out there alone. How did you stop yourself from

  • hardening into the easy solution of hatred, and animosity towards your enemies?

  • [ Noise ]

  • >> Professor Vincent Harding: Sidney, that's not a question that one leaps into quickly

  • or easily. I think it goes back to the initial statement that I was making. And that is that

  • I was never in any of these situations of danger, of fear, of hatred. I was never sensing

  • that I was alone. For one thing, I was coming as someone deeply fortified by the love that

  • I had received all my life. I was also coming especially in the southern situations, that

  • I was a part of -- I was surrounded by other people who were loving and concerned and convinced,

  • that we had to do something to bring about a new society. In a sense we did not have

  • time to allow hatred to take its place in our presence, because we were busy dreaming

  • this. This is what our imagination and what our energy had to be given to. That at some

  • time 50 years after our struggle, we would one day be in a place that had never dreamed

  • that it would house the Dalai Lama. That it would have black students and faculty. Not

  • enough of either, but still some of both. [Laughter]

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Professor Vincent Harding: What I'm saying, Sidney, is that our minds and hearts were

  • too full of the dream, of the possibility of what this country could be, what the South

  • could be, what we together could be. Hatred would only push us off that forward path,

  • and so we couldn't afford -- I couldn't afford. That was not what I was there for. I knew

  • that there was something else that I was there for, and I knew as I said that I was not alone,

  • and I knew that the ancestors were with me. That the spirit was with me. That all sorts

  • of magnificent powers that I cannot even name were with me, because I was trying to be involved

  • in a work for our building of our humanity. And I'm deeply convinced now even more than

  • I was then, that when we are involved and commit ourselves to the building of humanity

  • then, all kinds of forces that we never dreamed could be available to us, become available

  • to us, and we are able to do much more than we ever dreamed we would be able to do, including

  • not giving into hatred.

  • >> Thank you.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Yes. Sister Helen.

  • >> Sister Helen Prejean: I think as we hear this seeing how our American society works,

  • nobody ever makes a statement even when they kill someone in the killing chamber. We are

  • killing an enemy tonight. They're euphemisms. Different words are used. We're doing justice.

  • And when we look at the struggle with the enemy in our society, whoever names an enemy

  • -- immigrants coming from Mexico. Are these the enemy? Nobody says the enemy. They say

  • things like well they're coming to get our jobs, or these people are the criminal element.

  • We have to build more prisons. Fear is what is underneath so much in our society.

  • [ Applause ] With this added element that so much of our news about each other we get

  • from TV. That the studies done that the more people look at TV, the more hours they actually

  • look at TV the more afraid we are. So could we talk about fear [applause] as the basis

  • of...

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Yeah. Absolutely. I would love to hear His Holiness's you know

  • comment on how fear of the unknown sometimes causes us to embrace violence.

  • >> Dalai Lama: [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse] Fear I do two types. One fear with

  • reasons. When I was in some area in India where the malaria mosquito there then, because

  • out of fear there were cautions. [Laughter] It isn't good necessary. Then another kind

  • of fear it's just your own I think basically, mental projection and that also the mental

  • sort of state or emotional sort of system as such more self-centered attitude here more

  • fear, more anxiety, more stress.

  • >> Louder.

  • >> Dalai Lama: Huh?

  • >> Louder. They need you to project your voice.

  • >> Dalai Lama: Oh. I think the sound is sufficient -- should be sufficient. Or anyway the fear

  • there are two levels or two kinds. One fear with reasons. If mad dog come and the fear

  • is necessary to protect yourself or to avoid. When mad dog come ready to bite if you still

  • meditate compassion it's rather foolish. [Laughter] So then another sort of kind of fear mainly,

  • I'll say mental projection. There are many sort of what's the -- when you talk of fear

  • as a part of mind or a part of emotion. So the system, the [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama

  • converse] -- the worldly emotion. You see there are many other emotions interconnected.

  • So fear usually the mental [inaudible] over fear. Of course every fear I think dog coming

  • well, this is challenging. It's reasonable. Usually I describe selfish as part of our

  • nature. With that we survive it. Without that remain like robot. We cannot survive. So therefore

  • it is -- I mean right, but I [inaudible] we are selfish, but shouldn't be selfish with

  • intelligence or selfish -- but wise selfish is much better than foolish selfish. So here

  • now the too much self-centered attitude brings more fear, more suspicion. So these unnecessary

  • sort of suspicion or fear as it's based on suspicion, distrust. That very much develops

  • the other side. Then the other side you develop more sort of sense of -- so what's the -- sense

  • of real or sense of brotherhood, sisterhood. Look every human being I think brother, sister.

  • And everyone want happiness. Don't want suffering. I'm one of them, and we are social as I mentioned

  • earlier. We are social animal. So the more the rest of the community happy I get more

  • happiness. This impossible -- there's no way to gain maximum benefit to oneself forgetting

  • other. No. We are social animal. So the more sort of develop their sense of genuine spiritual

  • -- sense of human brother or sisters there. Although maybe stranger you never know, but

  • still a human being. If you smile, they also respond. If you show affection, generally

  • they also [inaudible]. So that way fear is [inaudible]. Distrust is [inaudible]. So this

  • way with fear sometimes the people call individual society culture more individualistic. Of course

  • the individual is self-cherishing. It's a key factor. Very important and very right,

  • but is it too much [inaudible] too much [inaudible] narrow thinking they're self-centered or individualistic.

  • Then I can sometimes too much competition. To that way I'm sensing too much competition,

  • and through that way more stress, anxiety. Then as you mentioned I think the television

  • usually you see it showing those things which, are more negative: murder, sex, or other these

  • bad things. Of course, these become news. They are good things. Warm-heartedness or

  • certain actions to serve other people out of sort of genuine compassion or warm-heartedness.

  • These are not news. We take for granted. So then I think [inaudible] also there is some

  • fighting. This little bit sort of watch yesterday it was fighting some of kind of [Thupten Jinpa

  • and Dalai Lama converse] entertaining. So little by little way I think that some impact

  • in our mind that we're sort of tough. Rough. And then these news only bad sites then eventually,

  • people get their feeding. We human being -- basic nature of a human being is negative. Some

  • people describe aggressiveness. Yes. Because of [inaudible] because of ability, but that

  • doesn't not necessarily the description of basic human nature, I don't think. That's

  • my view.

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burrris: Thank you, Your Holiness. I'm trying to keep watch on the time here.

  • [ Applause ] We have less than 10 minutes left, so by way of making a closing statement

  • I would very much like to hear the panel respond to the following question. Recently, with

  • the killing of Bin Laden, of course, there has been a great debate in this country about

  • the efficacy of violence. I don't need to hear you talk about Bin Laden; but, of course,

  • you can, if you like. From the perspective of a practitioner of nonviolence, I think

  • it's very helpful to have it explained to us logically, why violence does not work as

  • a long-term solution to a problem. Everyone understands the impetus to use violence to

  • stop something in the short-run, but if I could hear each of you talk you know briefly

  • and logically, about how violence is not an efficient means of solving a problem. I think

  • that would bring clarity to a lot of us who are trying to adopt the nonviolent way. [Thupten

  • Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse] Vincent, why don't you start off?

  • >> Professor Vincent Harding: When I hear the example that you started out with, Sidney,

  • the Bin Laden murder, what came to my mind when I first heard about that was another

  • situation of terrorism that I was very close to. I was deeply involved in the movement that

  • took place in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, which helped to open up to the world what

  • was wrong in our society and what needed to be made right, especially along the lines

  • of white supremacy and the oppression of people of color. You may remember that weeks after

  • the march on Washington of August 1963 in September 1963 the Sixteenth Street Baptist

  • Church had a bomb placed at its base near its basement, and the bomb went off. It was

  • a terrorist act, and it resulted in the death of four young Sunday School girls, and the

  • injury to a good many other people in the church. What I remember is a conversation

  • that I had with two of the most magnificent teachers of nonviolence that I knew in that

  • movement. Diane Nash was one of them, and at the time she was married to another great

  • practitioner. James Bevel was his name. Diane told me some time after that terrorist explosion,

  • that she and Jim were in another state visiting another freedom worker when they got the news

  • over television that that bombing had taken place and that those children had been killed.

  • And as two of the deepest believers in the way of nonviolence, they nevertheless, immediately

  • said we've got to get back to Birmingham, and we've got to find out who did that terrible

  • work, and we've got to make sure that they never are able to do anything like that again.

  • And they had great understandable - - some would say justifiable anger and the move in

  • them was for revenge and retribution. But as they sat with their friend thinking about

  • that action they began to rethink that initial response. And they said to each other we cannot

  • copy that terrible path of violence. That is not who we are. That is not what we believe

  • in. We will be unfaithful to ourselves, to all the people who are part of our movement.

  • We must think in another way about how to respond. We must respond, but we must find

  • another way. And what they decided was that they would return to Alabama, but they would

  • devote all of their time, and attention, and skills to the work that was at that moment

  • just beginning in Selma, Alabama where a voting registration campaign was going on. And they

  • said we decided that if we could really bring black people into the electorate to change

  • those who are running that state we can change the atmosphere, change the setting so that

  • the possibility of such terrorism, will be reduced. And so they decided then to go to

  • Selma to work on voter registration, and as you know eventually, that marvelous Selma

  • movement ended up with that march from Selma to Montgomery. They had spent two difficult

  • costly dangerous years working on the response to the death of the children, and what came

  • out of it was the opening of another level of democracy in this country. And in a deep

  • sense the death of the children, led not to the death of more people, but to the opening

  • of new life, new possibility for this country.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you very much, Professor Harding. Sister Helen, would you

  • like to respond?

  • >> Sister Helen Prejean: Well just seeing the time. The answer to fear of the enemy

  • is for us to meet each other, and I believe the more we can connect with, [applause] do

  • bridges, have different kinds of people meeting and conversing each other, having breakfast

  • together crossing the boundaries: these invisible boundaries that have been setup in our culture.

  • The university students going here who are here today you're in a little -- you know

  • you're in the environment of being at a university. You've got the Razorbacks. [Laughter] I mean

  • you're there with your team, but who are the others that lie beyond us who are different

  • from us, and the more we can meet each other and begin to have those conversations we will

  • positively promote I think building community of peace.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you Sister Helen. Your Holiness if you have any final thoughts

  • on the ways in which violence simply perpetuates violence.

  • >> Dalai Lama: Basically the very nature of violence is unpredictable. Once you involve violence then it often becomes

  • out of control. Then violence itself more violence [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse]

  • -- violence then that way you see more sort of damage, or more sort of bad things. So

  • I believe 20th century I think whatever violence involved, according to some historian, at

  • the turn of the century the number of people who killed through violence over 200 millions.

  • But problem not solved. I think that kind of action and also, some other sort of exploitation

  • also I think lay down the seed of hatred. Now the division as sometimes is the Arabs

  • and here, and these things I feel. So in anyway now this century I am always telling people

  • or request people now this century should be century of dialogue. That's the only way.

  • As you mentioned meet and talk. When Bin Laden sort of problem you see started some locations.

  • As a response to sort of questions I tell -- I express if possible meet him. If he not

  • use immediately his guns [Laughter], then meet him and talk and listen. What are his

  • sort of reasons you see to [inaudible] these things? They're actually human being. I'm

  • quite sure there could be some sort of openness. But in anyway my personal experience I visited

  • a few locations in Northern Ireland. One time they -- the organizer who invite me they organize

  • the victims of both sides together, in a one room. I think [inaudible] like that. When

  • I enter that room, very tense. Each person's face I think full of some sadness and anger

  • like that. Then we start some sort of conversation, and also I expressed some of my sort of belief.

  • Then after I think one hour, two hours, then we had meal together. The atmosphere completely

  • changed. Then next to my visit again I met some of them completely changed. Now very

  • friendly [inaudible]. So I think [inaudible] a point is very, very right. Then death sentence

  • -- since I'm [inaudible] my childhood when Nuremburg jailed the Nazi leader already defeated,

  • but carried death sentence in the name of revenge or something. Justice. At that time

  • -- I think four to five -- I was very young, but feel very sad. Opposite of I think victory

  • [inaudible]. If there is some danger maybe death sentence [laughter] maybe as some sort

  • of [inaudible] prevent further problem, but defeated people. Very sad. So then Saddam

  • Hussein passed through death sentence. At that time I think I was in Japan or Austria

  • or somewhere, I also expressed oh sad. Now defeated old person, really completely demoralized.

  • The object: feel compassion. Not hatred. Not anger. So in anyway, so since many years Amnesty

  • International [inaudible] organization they carry a movement: abolishing death sentence.

  • So I'm one of the signatory. So I always you see oppose death sentence. But sometimes [inaudible]

  • people give these criminal people a little longer. Then they may see as a result of their

  • wrongdoing [laughter] and then, we can teach them because of that. Teach them. [Thupten

  • Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse ] We keep teaching them. [Laughter] We can finish their life

  • and then they cannot see. You see there is no opportunity to see result of their wrongdoing.

  • And then also I think that death sentence is actually carry -- eliminate the person

  • not the action. So the [applause] as I mentioned before. Anger and action. So I think real

  • effective sort of countermeasure to see the action is deal with the actor...

  • >> Person.

  • >> Dalai Lama: Oh. Person. Then what's their complaint. Listen and then talk, and then

  • through that way I think the real sort of control of that destructive action. Otherwise

  • the many years ago after September 11th the event happened. [Inaudible] were expressed.

  • If we handle not properly, then, after a few years 10 Bin Laden. After more years, 100

  • Bin Laden might come. So the change must take care, not just the sort of physical elimination.

  • So one person eliminate, but 10 persons feel very bad. So that seed sort of more hatred.

  • So a source of another sort of problem. So that's my view, but of course I think regarding

  • this other Bin Laden sort of case I think if us 100 people I think maybe it's a difference

  • of opinion. So I don't know. It's difficult to say. Some people I think will rejoice because,

  • of something like that because brought him justice. Some people say oh it's quite normal.

  • Then some people say oh this is wrong. Oh. I think I am one of them. [Laughter]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Well that was absolutely wonderful. It exceeded even my highest expectations,

  • and in my humble opinion I believe we have just -- we have just borne witness to what

  • I am certain is a historic conversation. So let me thank, once again, Professor Vincent

  • Harding, and Sister Helen Prejean, and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

  • >> Thank you.

  • >> Thank you, Vincent.

  • [ Applause ]

  • >> Dr. Sidney Burris: It has been an extraordinary pleasure to be able to hear your thoughts

  • today, and I'm certain that my own practice of nonviolence has prospered immensely. And

  • all of you here I'm certain will agree with me. A few announcements: to those of you who

  • are here for the morning session only, thank you very much for coming. I'm certain our

  • panelists appreciate your Arkansas hospitality. To those of us who will be joining us for

  • the afternoon session thank you in advance for your patience, and we will see you very

  • shortly. Thank you very much for coming.

  • [ Applause ]

>> Ladies and gentlemen please welcome this morning's panel.

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剣を鋤に変える非暴力の多くの道 (Turning Swords into Ploughshares: The Many Paths of Nonviolence)

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    李承 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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