44 Philosophy Now ●^ August/September 2019 Book ReviewsBooks
Ian Robinson has a brief look at the Dalai Lama’s brief
message to the world, Amber Edwards considers a new
understanding of misogyny, and Paul McGavin finds help
in understanding ignorance in Understanding Ignorance.
to counter this is to “sharpen our awareness”
through “more listening, more contempla-
tion, more meditation.” He leads by example.He practices meditation four hours a day,
and claims: “Through intensive meditation,
we will find our enemies can become our bestIT IS WITH CONSIDERABLE
diffidence and not a little
humility that I embark on
a review of a book written by the Dalai Lama.
It’s a bit like reviewing God, or the Queen.
This is a man who has spent many hours
every day for over seventy years meditating
on the human condition, contemplating the
complexity and simplicity of the world, seek-
ing out the truth of existence. Who am I to sit
in judgement on his conclusions?
Given this, it comes as a great relief to
discover that in this book the Dalai Lama
reaches exactly the same conclusion I have.
That conclusion is stated baldly in the open-
ing paragraph: “For thousands of years,
violence has been committed and justified in
the name of religion. ... For that reason I say
that in the twenty-first century, we need a
new form of ethics beyond religion. I am
speaking of a secular ethics.” Amen to that!
While there is nothing particularly orig-
inal in this notion, what is startling is that a
recognition of the limitations of religion and
a valorising of secular ethics should come
from such a prominent religious leader. It
would be refreshing if the leaders of other
faiths could see beyond the confines of their
own religions and work towards finding a
basis for a common ethics that could help
bring peace and prosperity to the world.
For the Dalai Lama, the basis of such an
ethics is “our fundamental human spiritual-
ity”; that is, “the affinity we humans have for
love, benevolence, and affection – no matter
what religion we belong to.” He points out
that: “we are born without religion, but not
without the basic need for compassion...
Regardless of whether or not we belong to
a religion, we all have a fundamental and
profoundly human wellspring of ethics
within ourselves. We need to nurture that
shared ethical basis.” There is no doubt that
such an outcome is fervently to be desired.
However the crucial question is, how do we
get there from here?
The Dalai Lama recognises that the world
is currently plagued by “egoism, nationalism
and violence”, and argues that the best wayAn Appeal to the
World by His Holiness
the Dalai LamaThe Dalai Lama by Darren McAndrew, 2019