Dalai Lama attracts all walks of life

This is the most reasonable precis of what the Dalai Lama had to share on Sunday 19 June 2011 that I have read in the media. Well Done Katherine

Katherine Fleming

The key to inner peace and a harmonious world is to foster compassion for others, particularly in a world where corruption and the pursuit of wealth are so prevalent.

That was the Dalai Lama’s message to 14,500 people at Burswood Dome yesterday. It was the final leg and the biggest crowd of his Australian speaking tour.

In a wide-ranging speech, punctuate regularly by his trademark giggle, the 75-year-old Buddhist monk also lamented that global efforts to tackle climate change were being stymied by nation’s refusal to make short-term sacrifices for the long-term benefit of the global community.

The broadness of the Tibetan spiritual leader’s appeal was clear from the crowds streaming into the venue. There were hipsters in jeans, families with children, Buddhist monks wrapped in robes and older couples.

Central to the theme, the Dalai Lama said, was that religion was not the only path to happiness. But the happiness that comes from material possessions and “sensory” joys such as good food, beautiful music and sex would only be short-term.

“Whether we accept religion or not is individual,” he said. “If you have no interest in religion, no problem, but you should not neglect that inner value of compassion and sense of others’ wellbeing because it brings inner power and inner strength.

“It reduces fear and insecurity, which bring anger and frustration and many destructive emotions. Compassion and warm-heartedness is their antidote.”

Asked about celebrations after the death of Osama bin Laden, he responded that he opposed the death penalty.

“Give them life imprisonment and give them our forgiveness,” he said. “We must forgive the sinner but oppose their sin.”

The Dalai Lama leaves Australia today.

The West Australian pg.7 Print Edition Only, Monday 20 June 2011.

What's all the fuss about?

There's a lot of polling and politicking going on, not only here in Australia but around the world, regarding the subject of 'Gay Marriage', or 'Same-Sex Marriage' the reality is that what is really being called for is 'Marriage Equality'. Not special acknowledgement but actual acknowledgement of the validity of our relationships.

Sadly, the strongest voices against such equality are the very same that decry the promiscuity, hedonism and instability of relationships outside their vanilla mould. However, modern statistics and the media choices of the larger population would demonstrate that such moral turpitude is not the franchise of the GLBTI community.

The idea that Gay and Lesbian people would want to settle, establish long-term committed relationships should be celebrated rather than rejected. Instead they are greeted with disdain and mockery that belittles the level of commitment that those wishing to enter such relationships have demonstrated. In reality, GLBTI people who wish to marry have a greater level of commitment to the institution than their heterosexual counterparts because they have had to fully consider the implications of what they are entering into.

In point of fact the marriage industry is a booming success with numerous repeat clients who seem unable to get it right the first time. In western society the commoditization of marriage is and has always been the device through which power, property and status has been achieved. This is also evident in the feeding frenzy, which is the tabloid media and its infatuation with celebrity and political marriage, divorce and re-marriage. 

The anti-equality crowd seems to be stuck in the idea that God instituted marriage 6000 years ago and it hasn’t changed since. However, Marriage, as a social construct has evolved and changed dramatically over the centuries according to the social and financial pressures placed upon it.

Until the 20^th century, in western society, marriage involved the transaction of property, lands, and in particular the ownership of the females owned by the master of the house. In point of fact very few people who didn’t have money until the Victorian age got married but they relied upon the convention of “Common Law Marriage” or what would be regarded as de’facto marriage in modern parlance.

In Australia of 2011 the position that the definition of marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life is an artificial construct that neglects the ‘FACT’ that the social construct of marriage in the 21^st Century has already changed; that the social construct of marriage internationally includes marriages between people of the same sexual orientation. It is, in fact, a burying of one’s head in the sand.

Marriage in 2011 internationally includes those marriages celebrated in places like Canada, Spain and the Netherlands. However, countries around the world that do not recognise marriages that have been celebrated in such jurisdictions are both burying their heads in the sand and neglecting their responsibilities under the Hague “Convention of the 14 March 1978 on the celebration and recognition of the validity of marriage”. Article 9.

The concept of the separation of Church and state, as a social convention, is central to what is regarded as a secular society. Countries like Australia are not Theocracies and so should not bind religious conventions to the rest of society. Given that the current Prime Minister is a confirmed Atheist and in a De’facto relationship there is no legitimate justification for supporting the John Howard definition of Marriage which was shoved down the corporate Australian throat 13 August 2004.

Many Gay and Lesbian couples have been married and remain married with a stronger level of commitment than most of their heterosexual counterparts. Yet, in Australia, they are still not recognised; instead they are shunned. What’s all the fuss about?