Education on emotional hygiene is in great need: Dalai Lama August 30, 2016

“Like physical education, learning emotional hygiene is in great need today. Years of discussions with many scholars and educationist friends have led to the decision of coming up with a curriculum on moral ethics without touching any religious aspect,” the Dalai Lama said at the teachings requested by a group from Asia.

He said that friendship is built on trust and that trust can only be gained with love and compassion, in the absence of pride, jealousy and malicious thoughts.

“We should all keep our identity and religion aside and consider ourselves human first. At the fundamental level we all seven billion human beings are the same wishing for a happy life,” he said.

A view of the inside of the Main Tibetan Temple on the first day of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's teachings at the request of a group from Southeast Asia in Dharamsala, HP, India on August 29, 2016. Photo/Tenzin Phuntsok/OHHDL

The spiritual leader added that being a follower of Buddha’s teaching and through 81 years of observation and experience, he has seen tremendous technological developments but lack in the development of moral values. He said modern education, which mostly focuses on materialistic values, should include moral values rooted deep in the love and compassion.

Responding to a question from a devotee, the Tibetan leader said wealth is important and useful for physical comfort but not for mental comfort. “For example, my billionaire friends, they have so much money but as a human being they are very unhappy. So Immense wealth fails to bring inner peace. The only way to bring inner peace is to break the destructive emotions.”

Over 7,000 devotees from 57 different countries attended the first day of the teaching including 1550 from the group of Asian countries at whose request the teaching is being conducted.