“The contribution of Buddhism to peace”: talk-colloquium in Lleida Interreligious Dialogue Group

On March 4th Lama Yeshe Chödrön was invited, as a representative of Tibetan Buddhism, to give the talk-colloquium entitled “The contribution of Buddhism to peace”, in a meeting of Lleida Interreligious Dialogue Group, in Academia Mariana.

The event was part of a series of seminars in which members of different religious traditions discuss how peace is cultivated within their tradition and how they share it with society, in order to build a better world together.

Lama Yeshe Chödrön shared her thoughts and answered the questions raised by the different traditions, in a dialogue that was very enriching for all attendees.

Here we share an excerpt from her contribution:

We believe that the cultivation of inner peace and harmony is the door to outer peace and harmony, in our society. Every time we sit down to meditate we are contributing to a better world. With every ethical word, every generosity, every increase in patience, every little understanding of impermanence, we help to build the world we want, create harmony in our relationships and let go of attachments to mundane things, which make us waste so much time and energy and are a source of suffering and frustrations.

We must seize the opportunity to cultivate peace and harmony today, here, right now. With our impermanent bodies, bound to experience disease, decay and death, we cannot know what is going to happen tomorrow, or maybe in an hour. So the smartest thing is to seize the chance and practice now and stop thinking that tomorrow we will have the opportunity.

Learning to have peace of mind during life will guarantee us that we will experience peace of mind at the time of death. Dying in peace may be the clearest evidence that we have cultivated peace during life.