THE DALAI LAMA, SINCERITY, FORGIVENESS, AND COMPASSION

Are our beliefs irrelevant to the way we live our lives, or is belief and life intimately connected? The Dalai Lama had generously and popularly stated

·       It does not matter whether you are a theist or atheist, what matters is sincerity, forgiveness, and compassion.

Certainly, “sincerity, forgiveness, and compassion” are key. However, it doesn’t seem that our beliefs can easily be detached from the way we live our lives. I have known numerous atheists, some intimately. One in particular had been so compassionate that he would do anything for anyone. When we thought of virtue, we thought of him. However, with the passage of the years, he became quite jaded and anti-social. I suspect that he still likes to give to others. However, his beliefs now take him in another direction.

Time is the final judge. Time shows us that our beliefs and experiences will eventually overcome our natural compassionate endowment. College students march with banners reading, “Make Peace not War.” They want to open the boarders and embrace refugees and the oppressed. However, time often reveals that compassion turns into bitterness, in the same way that love often screams for divorce after just a few years.

The atheist Bertrand Russell had been convinced that his atheistic worldview provided the tools he needed to live a fulfilling life. However, years later he confessed:

·       I wrote with passion and force because I really thought I had a gospel. Now I am cynical about the gospel because it won’t stand the test of life.

Cynicism will not help us live a life of “sincerity, forgiveness, and compassion.” Instead, it will sound a retreat from all of our ideals. However, there are other beliefs that enable us continue the battle. When we know that we are loved by God, His marching orders become a welcome battle cry:

·       Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:4-8)

This is a hope that will carry us beyond death, a hope worth any sacrifice.