The Dalai Lama Foundation-Canada

Sakyong Mipham
Shambhala Sun
November 2007

Although we’re intelligent people who live in a technologically sophisticated world, we’re often confused about the meaning of success. The reason is that we are caught in the cycle of thinking that outside factors will bring us what we want.

We mistakenly think success comes from using ambition and greed to make things go our way. Our first thought in the morning is often some variation of “Will I get what I want today?” And when the world gives us what we want, we call it success.

But, the real secret of success, the one the self-help books don’t tell us about, is putting others first. That’s the key to a fulfilled, meaningful, and happy life.

Love means we want others to experience happiness. Compassion means that we wish for them not to suffer. If we extend to others with love and compassion, our life will be successful.

To view the complete article please go to [Shambhala Sun, volume 16, number 2, pages 19-20, November 2007].

Murray Katz
The Montreal Gazette
22 September 2007

Forty years ago in Montreal in a synagogue on Saint-Urbain Street, I last heard my father, a part-time cantor, sing the Yom Kippur service. Today, my youngest son, Peter, will sing on Yom Kippur before our synagogue a song he wrote titled Forgiveness.

The song was inspired by Michael Berg, the father of Nicholas Berg, who was beheaded in Iraq by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. When told of the subsequent death of Al-Zarqawi, Michael Berg expressed his regrets, saying that now there was another family who mourned the death of their son. Revenge, Michael Berg said, was not the way to “love in a wounded world.”

At first, Peter did not understand how this father could forgive his son’s killer. Then he became inspired to write a song in tribute to this father’s courage.

It is significant that Yom Kippur, the most sacred holiday in the Jewish religion, celebrates personal atonement for the harm we do to others.

How are we to respond in the face of the hatred that motivated Hitler and the Nazis, the 9/11 fundamentalists, and even Kimveer Gill, who one year ago shot and killed Anastasia DeSouza at Dawson College? How do we respond in our hearts?

Few might condemn us for demanding an eye for an eye: we do not have to forgive these people, ever; we decide whom and what to forgive. Michael Berg’s stance, and my son’s song, are saying that forgiveness is not about those who commit barbaric acts of hatred. It is about us and how we want to live our lives and who we want to be. It is about taking back control of the situation, control over how we respond to what others have done to us. Unlike the people who horribly wronged us out of their own blind, misguided hatred, we do not want to be filled with hate.

Forgiveness, perhaps, allows us not to be slaves to revenge and bitterness.

To view the complete article please go to
[http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/
story.html?id=5051f574-0d82-4251-af2f-7f1abd535903].

The song Forgiveness is part of the Daniel Pearl Music Days festival. The words and music were written and composed by Peter Katz. To hear the song and read the words, please go to [www.peterkatz.com].

Dalai Lama

To be aware of a single shortcoming within oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in somebody else. Rather than speaking badly about people and in ways that will produce friction and unrest in their lives, we should practice a purer perception of them, and when we speak of others, speak of their good qualities.

If you find yourself slandering anybody, first imagine that your mouth is filled with excrement. It will break you of the habit quickly enough.

Albert Einstein

A human being is part of the whole called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.