Dalai Lama Visits Los Angeles

The Dalai Lama visited Los Angeles and I was lucky enough to be able to attend and hear him speak.

The Dalai Lama gave a speech about non-violence and compassion. I am so grateful for the opportunity to see him speak . Listening to him was really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I will never forget.

It was so great to see people of all ages, races, and backgrounds come together to listen to him speak. I really enjoyed seeing little kids on school trips there, they might not remember everything he said but hopefully they will remember it as a special moment.

I don’t know much about Tibetan Buddhism but I have always wanted to know more about the religion as it is an important part of my family and our culture. I am half Vietnamese as many of you know and it is a part of my family and my background.

With my grandparents being buried at a Buddhist monastery in Vietnam I have always wanted to know more and we only go to temples once or twice a year to remember them and pray to them. I always enjoy going and learning every time we go for various ceremonies.

After today I have a longing to know more and wanted to share a few things I learned from his speech. I was frantically taking notes while he was speaking because I didn’t want to miss a thing.

So forgive me for the long post but here are some things I wanted to share that he spoke about.

If you want to be happy practice compassion

It is morally and practically wrong for there to be a huge gap between the wealthy and poor people

In order to bridge this gap both sides need to be responsible for the poor it is important to provide help and education not just give money

With those who are not doing as well us it is important to teach them self-confidence because at the end of the day we are all the same as human beings with the same potential

If your someone who needs to do better change your mind to have better self-confidence and work hard instead of complaining

Practice love compassion tolerance & forgiveness

When you are happy and good to others it doesn’t matter how they act or receive it you are doing this to benefit your self if you have hatred it eats you inside

The more warmhearted you are the less you are stressed

The most important thing you can bring to a relationship is trust trust is the base of friendship

Being honest and truthful and being transparent and everything brings trust

True relationships are based off of trust if a relationship is because of money or power the friendship is false

Being transparent in truthful is taking care of the other person’s well-being because of this you can never hurt them by lying

It is important to respect all religions and even the nonbelievers

Affection is necessary for survival

Our survival depends on others care and we all came from our mothers people who received much affection at an early age molds us now to be happy people does he didn’t deep inside they have a sense of fear and that’s what makes people different even know we are all the same as humans

A family with love and trust is much more happy than a family with just money because there can be jealousy and distrust. they have Fear

Internal value and happiness is the key factor for real life not material things

Don’t only have compassion with friends and people who have a good attitude. Do not limit your compassion but make it unlimited to extend your kindness to everyone including your enemy.

Love oneself and take care of yourself

Use your status or your place in life to send this message to many people