The Dalai Lama

"We can also see that our emotional health is enhanced by feelings of affection. To understand this, we need only to reflect on how we feel when others show us warmth and affection. Or, observe how our own affectionate feelings or attitude automatically and naturally affect us from within, how they make us feel. These gentler emotions and the positive behaviors that go with them lead to a happier family and community life.

So, I think that we can infer that our fundamental human nature is one of gentleness. And if this is the case, then it makes all the more sense to try to live a way of life that is more in accordance with this basic gentle nature of our being...

Of course we can't ignore the fact that conflicts and tensions do exist, not only within an individual mind but also within the family, when we interact with other people, and at the soceital levels, the national level, and the global level. So, looking at this, some people conclude that human nature is basically aggressive. They may point to human history, suggesting that compared to other mammals', human behavior is much more aggressive. Or, they may claim, "Yes, compassion is a part of our mind. But anger is also a part of our mind. They are equally a part of our nature, both are more or less and the same level." Nonetheless... it is still my firm conviction that human nature is essentially compassionate, gentle. That is the predominate feature of human nature. Anger, violence, and aggression may certainly arise, but I think it's on a secondary or more superficial level, in a sense, they arise when we are frustrated in our efforts to achieve love and affection. They are not part of our most basic, underlying nature."


May 27, 2000