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Samina joins Dalai Lama's Post-Teachings Interfaith panel
On October 12, 2010, His Holiness the Dalai Lama to provided a commentary, at the San Jose Convention Center, on the Eight Verses for Training the Mind, a text composed by Tibetan Buddhist Master Geshe Langri Tangpa. The Convention Center was filled with a capacity crowd of 12,000 people.
His Holiness began by giving a broad overview of Buddhism. He then explained the text by putting it in current context as well as in relation to other religious traditions.
He talked about the fourth stanza as being a message for people not to reject or isolate others, whether they are Aids patients or prisoners. Rather, he said people need to see how they could include these individuals into the mainstream of the society. Similarly, His Holiness said the messages of the 3rd and the 5th stanzas were similar to the messages in the Bible about the cardinal sins and the turning of the other cheek. His Holiness also recalled an Islamic friend telling him that one of the meanings of the term Jihad was confronting inner mental afflictions.
His Holiness said that the short text had messages that we should all be reminding ourselves on a daily basis to become better persons. He suggested that people should start experimenting by devoting a week to daily thoughts over the eight verses and implementing them. If they find some benefit by the end of the week, they could extend it. Eventually, when the mind is familiar with these points, His Holiness said that real change will come about.
Post-Teaching Interfaith Gathering
His Holiness' teaching session was followed by “Post-Teaching Interfaith Gathering” to provide an opportunity from multi-faith traditions to share insights on His Holiness’ teaching. The interfaith panelists provided reflections on the Eight Verses (read the verses at the end) of Dalai Lama's teaching.
In his recent book, Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World's Religions Can Come Together (Doubleday, 2010), the Dalai Lama outlines a four-pointed program for the promotion of inter-religious harmony that consists of the following elements: "(1) dialogue between scholars of religion on the academic level regarding the convergences and divergences of their respective faith traditions and—more important—the purpose of these different approaches; (2) sharing of deep religious experiences between genuine practitioners; (3) high-profile meetings of the religious leaders to speak and pray from one platform; and (4) joint pilgrimages to the world's holy places" (p. 133).
The Gyuto Vajrayana Center said its gathering falls under this third rubric: a symbolic meeting of recognized religious leaders who speak from one platform.
Samina Sundas, the founding Executive Director of the American Muslim Voice (AMV) joined the Post-teachings panelists to spoke about the concept of compassion in Islam.
Samina stressed that compassion represents the true spirit of Islam. “It is far more vital to Islamic teachings than any thing else. It is secondary to the concepts of unity of God and Muhammad being the last Messenger. It is as central to Buddhism.”
She pointed out that there are certain key words in the Qur’an which are greatly stressed of which four are very often repeated i.e. rahmah, ihsan ‘adl, and hikmah (compassion, benevolence, justice and wisdom).
To illustrate her point she related a story of Prophet Mohammad. A woman threw trash at Prophet Mohammad every day when he walked past her house. She did not throw trash at him for a few days so he inquired about her from a neighbor and learned that she is ill. He went to her house and prayed for her to heal. After getting better she accepted Islam.
Samina went on to say that the Qur’an shows its compassion for the weaker sections of the society in which it includes, among others, the orphans, the widows, the poor and the exploited, the slaves and other politically or socially and economically oppressed people. “It emphasizes different ways of helping them. This is all on the grounds of compassion. Compassion really means sensitivity to others suffering. A person cannot be compassionate unless he/she is sensitive to others suffering. And this suffering includes, as we will show, not only human beings but also animals and plants.” Read More
Click here to read text of her speech on compassion
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