> >From the Dalai Lama
>
> Dear friends around the world:
>
> The events of this day cause every thinking person to stop their daily
> lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger
> questions of life. We search again for not only the meaning of life, but
> the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have
> created it--and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate
> ourselves as a human species, so that we will never treat each other
> this way again.
>
> The hour has come for us to demonstrate at the highest level our most
> extraordinary thought about Who We Really Are. There are two possible
> responses to what has occurred today. The first comes from love, the
> second from fear.
>
> If we come from fear we may panic and do things--as individuals and as
> nations -- that could only cause further damage. If we come from love we
> will find refuge and strength, even as we provide it to others.
>
> This is the moment of your ministry. This is the time of teaching. What
> you teach at this time, through your every word and action right now,
> will remain as indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those whose
> lives you touch, both now, and for years to come.
>
> We will set the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this
> moment. Let us seek not to pinpoint blame, but to pinpoint cause. Unless
> we take this time to look at the cause of our experience, we will never
> remove ourselves from the experiences it creates. Instead, we will
> forever live in fear of retribution from those within the human family
> who feel aggrieved, and, likewise, seek retribution from them.
>
> To us [Buddhist thinkers] the reasons are clear. We have not learned the
> most basic human lessons. We have not remembered the most basic human
> truths. We have not understood the most basic spiritual wisdom. In
> short, we have not been listening to God, and because we have not, we
> watch ourselves do ungodly things.
>
> The message we hear from all sources of truth is clear: We are all one.
> That is a message the human race has largely ignored. Forgetting this
> truth is the only cause of hatred and war, and the way to remember is
> simple: Love, [in] this and every moment.
>
> If we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand
> why they have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we meet
> negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what
> then will be the outcome?
>
> These are the questions that are placed before the human race today.
> They are questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of years.
> Failure to answer them now could eliminate the need to answer them at
> all.
>
> If we want the beauty of the world that we have co-created to be
> experienced by our children and our children's children, we will have to
> become spiritual activists right here, right now, and cause that to
> happen. We must choose to be a cause in the matter.
>
> So, talk with God today. Ask God for help, for counsel and advice, for
> insight and for strength and for inner peace and for deep wisdom. Ask
> God on this day to show us how to show up in the world in a way that
> will cause the world itself to change. And join all those people around
> the world who are praying right now, adding your Light to the Light that
> dispels all fear.
>
> That is the challenge that is placed before every thinking person today.
> Today the human soul asks the question: What can I do to preserve the
> beauty and the wonder of our world and to eliminate the anger and
> hatred--and the disparity that inevitably causes it--in that part of the
> world which I touch?
>
> Please seek to answer that question today, with all the magnificence
> that is You. What can you do TODAY...[at] this very moment? A central
> teaching in most spiritual traditions is: What you wish to experience,
> provide for another.
>
> Look to see, now, what it is you wish to experience--in your own life,
> and in the world. Then see if there is another for whom you may be the
> source of that. If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for
> another. If you wish to know that you are safe, cause [others] to know
> that they are safe. If you wish to better understand seemingly
> incomprehensible things, help another to better understand.  If you wish
> to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of
> another.
>
> Those others are waiting for you now. They are looking to you for
> guidance, for help, for courage, for strength, for understanding, and
> for assurance at this hour. Most of all, they are looking to you for
> love.
>
> My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
>
> Dalai Lama