Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche’s guidance responses to questions at Tonglen School

 (The following is Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche’s guidance responses to questions from Ms. Nisha, at Tonglen School, near Dharamsala, during the School’s Tenth Anniversary, on November 19, 2014. The news report of Rinpoche’s visit, along with a summary of an Address given there on the day, was posted here at that time; please scroll back to the page of that date.)

 Nisha: Welcome to “Making Connections to Youth”! Making Connections connects with children and youth towards a positive future. I am Nisha. Today we are very fortunate to have with us a very special guest. He is an eminent and distinguished philosopher, scholar, and a teacher. He was the former Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government in Exile. So far, one of the most notable accomplishments was that he has drafted educational policies for the Tibetan government. Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, welcome and thank you very much for joining us. So, how do you feel to be with us here atTonglen?

Samdhong Rinpoche: Very comfortable, satisfied, and also very inspired. Very happy to be here.

Nisha: Why is education important for you and why is it important for everyone?

Samdhong Rinpoche: I think it is the nature of all sentient beings. Each of us individuals look for happiness and do not like misery and suffering. This is common for all sentient beings. But every sentient being does not have the ability to go through education, this is a gift to humanity alone. The humanity has some possibility of evolving its mind to the highest level and it has language, it has a script and that is how the development of wisdom and knowledge of the ancestors for millions of years which have come down through,in writings, of teachers and disciples.

To dispel ignorance and to achieve the understanding, the perception, the right view, each of us need some kind of learning, contemplation, and meditative concentration, through which knowledge can be transformed into real understanding or real wisdom. So, that is  achievable only through education, education in a real sense. I’m not talking about knowledge of letters or just reading, writing and mathematics. But education means to shape the mindset, the mental attitude, to cultivate the potential of the human mind in the finest way and to the highest level. As such, education is extremely important for all of humanity. Human beings have the ability, as I mentioned before, and also due to this ability human beings have the right  to acquire an education.

Nisha: Sir, if I understand correctly, one of your major interests is in holistic education. How is it beneficial for the younger generation?

Samdhong Rinpoche: The expression “holistic education” is not originally from the Indian language, we are borrowing this term from Western language. If something is not holistic, if something is not in its complete shape, then that thing does not have any important usage. If there is a partial knowledge, then that is not education at all for me. Education means holistic knowing, holistic perception. That is an education. As I mentioned before, Gandhi has said that education does not mean to become a literate person. The ability to read and write does not mean education, that is only the knowledge of letters. Education means how to evolve the human inner wisdom and for that, any partial, any mere-fragment, will not help to for your inner wisdom. My dear friend Jiddu Krishnamurti used to say, education means to awake the human inner wisdom, the goodness in an individual. That means, education should be a holistic education. If it is not holistic, then it is not education. It may be a training, or it may be just a teaching of a particular thing.

For me, education means to develop the person as a whole, not in partiality. If someone is not developed in a holistic manner, then that individual will not be able to achieve the real humanness. Real humanness means a person which is flowering in love and compassion, who can relate itself to the entire universe, and for that you must have a holistic view, the right view. As Buddha said, the first among the Eight-fold Noble Paths is right view. Because unless you have the right view of the entire existence of the universe, you cannot act correctly in the vast universe. Right view leads you to right actions and to right livelihood. As such, for me, holistic and education are totality,if there is some partiality or fragmentation then that is not education.

Nisha: I am very fortunate to be atTonglen as well as to be with you as I am looking forward to joining University in Pune.

Samdhong Rinpoche: In Pune, great!

Nisha: So sir, what is your recommendation for me when I will become a responsible decision maker?

Samdhong Rinpoche: You need right view and you need the power to discriminate between what is right and wrong. That is the basic requirement. Therefore you must develop your mind in a rational way and not believe everything you hear just because it was said by an important person or some noble individual, or because it is written in scriptures or practised in the society for a long time and has become a tradition or a custom. You should not believe in anything just because it has been believed by many people. You must have a very sharp and rational mind by which you can reason and analyse the things for yourself. That is why Buddha has taught from the very beginning to the monks and the wise people to examine the things for oneself, in order to understand. Do not believe in something just because Buddha has said it. And this is the core of Buddha’s teachings. Buddha has said, Do not believe in me if you do not understand my reasonings, my logic, and my propositions. Because then you will not be able to understand me.

 If you just refer to Buddha as a good person and think that if he must have said it then must be right, that is how the majority of humanity, whether a believer or a non-believer, gets stuck. They just give up on rationality and the analysis of things for oneself. To become a responsible decision-maker, you should have number one: a very sound ground of rationality, a rational  mind. Secondly, through that rational mind you must make all efforts to understand things correctly as they are, without any distortions. And if you have that understanding, the decision will be derived by truth itself. The truth will prevail itself and your decision will be guided by the understanding of the reality of the truth.

Nisha: Thank you Sir. As I am from a small community in “low caste”, I have had lots of difficult experiences, such as hunger and discrimination. One memory I have is when we were trying to travel by a bus, the bus conductor refused to let us in the bus. So this kind of thing is still going on in an educated India. So how will teaching social values in school help to change such things?

Samdhong Rinpoche: Discrimination among people is one of the signs of an underdeveloped society. Actually, in reality, all sentient beings are equal. Not only human beings, but even the smallest insects and living beings are a part of the animal kingdom, someone who also has a consciousness, a stream of consciousness. That stream of consciousness has the potential to evolve into the highest level, into the Buddha nature. Therefore, every sentient being is equal on the basis of this potential. And that potential has to be respected and on that basis of the potentiality; the real meaning of equality among all beings can be established.

Whenever we see discrimination, we have to oppose the discrimination. But, the difficulty comes here when people do not have the wisdom and self-confidence to oppose such acts of discrimination. The discriminators are always apparently powerful and those people who are being discriminated are less powerful and poor, economically poor. The first thing is that they do not have the courage to oppose the discrimination. And secondly, someone might oppose it but the opposition comes out of hatred, anger, and disliking, and they lose compassion towards the perpetrators of injustice. Their opposition, as such, has no meaning because they become of the same level as the person who is doing the discriminating.

You must have a powerful, a compassionate mind towards the person who discriminates against you because that person is not under his or her own control. The person is under the influence of negative emotions or ignorance. Due to that negative influence and ignorance, they do these kinds of injustice and incorrect things or discriminate against others. Opponents must have a powerful mind towards that person and also have a very strong opposition by saying that this is not right and we do not accept it. For that, you have to learn from Mahatma Gandhi.

After nearly 2,500 subsequent to Buddha andMahavir, Gandhi taught the principle of non-violence. Gandhi brought back in the modern society the ways to practise non-violence, in the modern way of life, particularly, how to use it to fight against social injustice, social discrimination, and political hegemony. He was so successful at preaching about how to oppose this [injustice in the administration]. So the understanding of equality and one’s own potential is not only important for the understanding of equality of others, but also to build one’s own self-confidence because they are interdependently based on that very understanding. And after that, the feeling of equality gives you a feeling of kinship, a kind of closeness to all others. And then, we have to oppose the incorrect actions but we also have to be loving and kind to the wrong-doer. The reason is, the wrong doer is under the influence of negative emotions. With that understanding you should always oppose the wrong-doer with a compassionate mind, and then social change will definitely ensue.

Nisha: So do you think we should do more to promote social values in society?

Samdhong Rinpoche: Of course. In our way of speaking, in the eastern tradition, particularlyin Indian tradition, we say Śila (ethics, morality)…charitrā (conduct)…saṅskār(wholesome perfections).These are our words and we must improvesaṅskār, śila, the morality and the ethics of our society, of humanity. The term “values” is purely a Western word. For Western people, everything is based on its price. Value means how much something costs, so this is the cultural difference in the usage of language, and so, I do not use the word “values”in the sense of morality or ethics or good conduct. But nowadays it is very much in usage. “Value education”, value, modern education,goes on the basis of report. Now Indian Universities also have a value education system. Actually, in a value education system, the word value is derived from a market-oriented mindset. The market-oriented mindset always looks for value. Unlike that, we Indians, we say “śila”,“charitrā”, morality.Now these are good words, as we must improve.

Nisha: So, as I belong to a disadvantaged community, if I had continued to stay there, I would have had little work. But now I am able to talk with you and I am looking forward to joining Pune University. I think with this profession, I can destroy the social inequalities and this potential is because of one Tibetan monk (who started this School) and all the supporters of Tonglen. So I want to say a humble thanks to Dalai Lama Guru Ji, you and all of you who work for the Dalai Lama Trust.

Samdhong Rinpoche: I appreciate your effort and your confidence. Pune is a very good place. I used to visit it quite often. After Varanasi, the second cultural city in India is Pune. Educational institutions, particularly traditional education institutions, are very much alive in Pune. And since you are joining University, for Journalism, you must read Gandhi’s small booklet called, “Hind Swaraj.”There at the start, Gandhi spells out the irresponsibility of journalists and he describes the three basic responsibilities of journalists. If you study Journalism from that viewpoint, then you will become a very powerful person and you can do a great many things.

Otherwise, actually, unfortunately now in India, all the Universities where journalism is taught, the entire course is borrowed from the Western pattern; I’m not saying that its not good but it is entirely different from the Eastern mindset. So we have to understand the differences and sometimes its very funny, right from the beginning the journalists determine what they would say is news: “A dog bites man”—but that is not news, they determine. If a man bites a dog then that is news, and sometimes they say good news is not news and news must be sensational to attract readers. This kind of approach is not the right view. The view has been coloured and is not based on the basis of reality and truth. We have to be very much down-to-earth and accept the ground-reality as it is and with that, honesty accompanied with a compassionate mind  should be the bases for your endevours. I wish you all the best. Thank you very much.

Nisha: Thank you so much.

Question: I just wanted to ask you a question about the differences you see between an education in the West and in India. Have you noticed in your travels any differences between the two?

Samdhong Rinpoche: I will not say that the education in the West and the education in India today has a difference because the entire Indian education system is being given by the West. The Indian education system today after 66 years of political independence carries the baggage of education system which was given by Macaulay, who imposed upon India the English education system. He believed that if the English education system could be restored in India, then the subjugation of the Indian continent under the British rule would become permanent. There would be no challenge. He was conscious of and knew politically that India was an independent country. But India still uses the English language without any hesitation. India is using that education system in its entirety,in spite of, after the independence of India, [with reviews] right from Radhakrishna Commission till the recent Acharya Commission. There have been about four or five different Commissions that have been set up but everybody makes some tiny adjustments here and there, otherwise the Lord Macaulay principles have been used all along.

Question: Are there any particular changes in the education system that have occurred in India in the recent years?

Samdhong Rinpoche: No. Only small changes. Gandhi had offered a completely new system which was called Nai-talim. Nai-talimmeans new education. But that was completely rejected by the people [in administration at that time] and now there are hardly five or six schools all over India in which there are under one or twothousand students learning in them. Otherwise it was completely rejected.

Rabindranath Tagore has tried, and he established Shantiniketan. Now it has  become a completely modern university. Some of the freedom fighters had tried to make some different education systems, they established Kashividyapeet, but today it has entirely become a modern education system. Thus at this moment, apart from the very small efforts being made here and there, the Indian education system at the national level is a Western education.

Question: I suppose the interaction of the fact that so many Indians now study outside of Asia in Europe and America and come back, I suppose with different feelings about what is going on in different systems. So that presumably has an impact too, doesn’t it?

Samdhong Rinpoche: I don’t think so.

Question: Yes. You don’t think, so?

Samdhong Rinpoche: I know only one person who, one person or two persons, I should say, who were educated in the West and came back and became completely Indian. The first was Mahatma Gandhi who studied law in England and became a very original Indian upon returning. And the second wasAurobindo Ghose, [whosefamily] tried to Westernise him completely, having been born in a very rich family in Calcutta. The family employed British governesses to look after him and also the servants around the house were not allowed to speak in Bengali. They were all instructed to speak only in English. At the age of seven, he was taken to London and was educated there until the age of twenty-three. Then once he came back, he began to study Sanskrit and he completely became an Indian. Except for these two, all others, including Nehru, were all Western.

Question: Thank you very much. There is quite a number of Tibetans who go to American Universities. The Dalai Lama Trust supports quite a few. Would that be a good experience for them when they come back?

Samdhong Rinpoche: Come back, its not very sure.

Question: Yes. That’s what I mean.

Samdhong Rinpoche: They become educated.

Question: Where did you study. You’re a great scholar.

Samdhong Rinpoche: No. I studied only in the monastery.

Question: In monastery, yes.

Samdhong Rinpoche: I joined my monastery at the age of twelve, remaining there until the age of twenty. I studied for eight years in a different monastic university. And then I did not get a chance to study continuously.

Question: In monasteries, do they have subjects like science that they these study nowadays?

Samdhong Rinpoche: Not modern science but of course they teach Buddhist science. And now His Holiness has compiled a new book with all the Buddhist science sources.

Question: Yes. You have some scientist visitors.

Samdhong Rinpoche: There are many people who participate in “Mind and Life” Conferences and many attend teachings where there are Buddhist science centres.

Question: Where they have discussions and the like.

Samdhong Rinpoche: Yes, yes. David Bohm, a very renowned physicist; we used to have dialogues for hours together, [exploring] meeting points between Buddhist philosophy and modern science and physics. Several times I met Fritjof Capra, the person who wrote The Tao of Physics andThe Turning Point. He also was a physicist. We had at length discussions and we believed that there are many commonalities between the two.