Dalai Lama addresses legal scholars at University of Buffalo Law

Daily Record (Rochester, NY), Sep 22, 2006 by Tara E. Buck

Asked Wednesday what University at Buffalo Law School professors ought to teach their students, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama responded: "I don't know."

The light-hearted comment came at the end of a nearly hour-long conversation with a group of 15 philosophers, and Buddhist and legal scholars from around the world who were invited to the school to hear the Dalai Lama's opinions and perspectives on Buddhism and law.

The panelists continued discussions after he left and into Thursday on topics including "The Buddha as Lawgiver: Monastic and Secular Communities," "Social Change and Buddhism: Buddhism's Effect on Different Legal Systems in Asia," and "Social Change and Conscience, Self and Society."

The Dalai Lama arrived in Buffalo on Monday and on Tuesday addressed an audience of about 30,000 at UB Stadium. Officials said the Nobel laureate chose the school because it is home to one of the most diverse student populations in the nation and, as future leaders, its students could carry on his message of peace throughout the world.

Wednesday's conversation - sponsored by the law school and The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy - was more intimate, with about 100 audience members gathered in the first floor of the Charles B. Sears Law Library.

Moderator and conference organizer Rebecca French is a professor of law at UB and also one of only a few international authorities on Tibetan law. She is the author of The Golden Yoke, which covers Buddhist legal traditions in Tibet.

Overall, the Dalai Lama stressed the importance of living a life that includes compassion toward fellow humans, and said that there is no perfect system in which all citizens act compassionately and without selfish motivations.

He said a secular society is an ideal within his own Tibetan refugee community in India, and within any other country.

"The Chinese found it uncomfortable," he said. "They want reform according to their own pattern."

Political leadership began to be elected within the refugee citizenry about six years ago, and "from then on, my position is something like semi-retired," he joked.

In explaining Buddhist thought on some American legal traditions, such as punishment, the Dalai Lama said that there is a place in the Buddha's own story when a "violent method" could be employed "in order to benefit society."

"Out of a sense of concern, stern action can be taken," he said after being questioned about how Buddhism can be reconciled with or might be used within a penal code to implement compassion within a society. "Unless you make harsh punishment, that person will continue harmful activities."

Such judgments must also come from a compassionate heart, he said.

He gave an example of someone who may be convicted of a crime, but also has children at home.

"If you carry out that death sentence, the implication is no one will take care of his children," he said through the assistance of an interpreter. (The interpreter translated several of the Dalai Lama's remarks on Wednesday.)

"Do you think judges should be trained in Buddhist philosophy?" one panelist wondered.

"Not necessarily," he said. "Then I think everything becomes very narrow."

While the dialogue was rather brief, the panelists used his remarks to further each of the discussions they held for the remainder of their sessions.

Organizers said they hoped to gather "practical and theoretical insights ... from him with respect to" the topics they planned for discussion.

The Dalai Lama seemed to lay out for the audience the basic ideals of the Buddhist religion, repeating several Buddhist themes throughout his responses.

Compassion is the Buddhist ideal for all motivation in action, he said more than once, and keeping that thought in mind through all action is critical to the success of a happy society.

He also explained that Buddhism reminds its practioners that there must be balance in the world, and that for every yin, there is a yang.

"The value of compassion is learned not through religion," he said, "but on a basic human quality that we learn from birth: Compassion."

"In every human action or activity, [in discerning] whether it is positive or destructive or not, much depends on motivation."

"We should promote, we should pay more attention to the value of compassion, or affection, or sense of care in a society through education," he said. "Then I think, once we achieve that kind of society, any person whether royal, or a religious person, a politician or an engineer or a scientist, the education that comes from that society would be a compassionate one."

"So what is the role of religion in a democratic society?" one panelist asked.

The Dalai Lama again emphasized the importance of a secular society.

"I feel religion mainly is for the individual," he said, "democracy is for society. ... Religion is the individual's business. ... In the meantime, the people working in the secular world can be religious-minded."

The Buddha, he said, never mentioned how to manage society.

"You have the ability in capitalism to create consumer greed, ... and a whole series of things that are understood as democratic," French noted. "This is a serious problem in the United States and is not one that we know how to solve well."