Dharamshala:- His Holiness the Dalai Lama started teaching on November 11, at the request of a group of Koreans at his temple in Dharamsala.
He will be teaching on a Buddhist text "Precious Garland of the Middle Way," which is composed by a Buddhist teacher and a philosopher, Nagarjuna.
The text which contains 500 verses was originally written to advice a king where Nagarjuna offers counsel on how to conduct one's life and frame social policies that reflect Buddhist ideals.
Before leafing through the text he extolled the Nalanda scholar and referred to Nagarjuna as the “second Buddha.”
The teaching is attended by around 5000 devotees from 57 countries including 350 Koreans.
Drawing from his ideas on secular ethics, Tibet's spiritual leader said: “Over the past 200 to 300 years, mankind had made enormous progress materially. With the development of material wealth, it could bring us physical comforts and means to please our senses. However, this couldn’t guarantee peace of mind.
"Although we talk about peace, yet we witness cases of violence today. If we all could see each other as same human beings, then the divisions which occur on the second level, which is based on colour, creed and religion wouldn’t occur.
If we could perceive each other in this way then we could make contributions to world peace.”
Earlier in April this year, during a visit to Japan, His Holiness was requested to visit South Korea by a group of Koreans. However, he cited “Korean government’s political and economic interests and considerations” as a reason for him being unable to visit the country.
