The psychology of peace

The VENERABLE GESHE DORJI DAMDUL is the Director, Tibet House, Cultural Center of His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, New Delhi. He advocates for universal ethics as a solution to humanity’s problems, and here explores the psychology of world peace, and some practical approaches we can all take to move in that direction.

If we are to talk about world peace, we must first experience inner peace. In order to export gold, we should have gold ourselves. So, with this in mind, where do we go wrong? It’s primarily in failing to understand the psychology of inner peace. 

Think of a moment in your life when you felt the greatest peace—the most beautiful moment. Imagine now extending it to all your family members, to everyone in your country, and to everyone in the world; this is world peace. 

For that matter, just imagine the most beautiful momentous event in your mind. Often times people talk about watching a sunset, but one thing most of us have experienced is the love of our mothers when we were aged two, three, four, five, six. If you can replicate this love and affection toward all beings, that is universal peace, universal compassion.

Now, how to make it happen? We have to know the psychology, how the mind works. When we were born, we didn’t have love for our mothers. But within the span of a few years, we developed such intense love for them. What made this love develop was seeing our mothers as sources of benefit. In other words, we were dependent on her for our well-being.

Think of a moment in your life when you felt 
the greatest peace- the most beautiful moment. 
Imagine now extending it to all your family members, 
to everyone in your country, and to everyone in the world;
this is world peace. 

So, if there’s a way to feel our dependency on others—our neighbours, our countrymen and women, the world, and Nature—that is the key. It is the secret of our understanding that “I have to take care of Nature, I have to take care of my family members, and the world’s citizens.” It gives a sense of connectedness. This is known as universal peace.

In this connection, I remember when His Holiness, the 14^th Dalai Lama, was traveling in India and abroad, one question would regularly come from the audience, particularly educationists and social activists: “Where are we going wrong? World peace is going down.” And without a second thought, His Holiness would answer, “Because of the limitation in our modern education system.” Our modern education system is designed in such a way that whoever can say “two plus five equals seven” is applauded. Whereas even if you have the potential to become the next Mahatma Gandhi, if you say, “two plus five equals seven-ish,” you fail. Nobody will count your heart. Nobody will count your courage and determination, and so forth.

His Holiness says we need to supplement modern education, which is actually a remnant of the industrial revolution; it must be supplemented by the education of the heart. This is the message. If this is what we can do through the cognitive understanding of our interconnectedness with our fellow human beings and with Nature, then automatically our love for Nature, and our love for our fellow human beings will happen.

From a talk given during the Global Spirituality Mahotsav at Kanha Shanti Vanam, March 14 to 17, 2024.