Dalai Lama’s message to lawmakers: ‘inner disarmament is very essential’

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Diya TV) — The Dalai Lama arrived at California’s Capitol on Monday delivering a message of compassion and the unification of humanity while also sharing his thoughts and opinions on gun control, education and environmental matters during his first address to the State Legislature.

Hundreds packs the Assembly chambers for his speech, including Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. “Not washing my hand & only fist bumps!” Johnson wrote on Twitter after meeting and shaking the Dalai Lama’s hand.

All rose expectantly, and man lawmakers provided applause as the Dalai Lama entered the chamber, flanked by his crimson-robed monks.

In the moments leading up to the speech, lawmakers hailed the Dalai Lama as a source of healing after the recent shooting massacre in Orlando, the worst documented mass shooting in U.S. history. Fifty were left dead from Omar Mateen’s attack on a gay nightclub two weeks ago.

“We are social animals,” the Dalai Lama said during his address. “We need a sense of community.”

“Different faiths, different nationalities, different ranks and positions … we start our life, when we are born, (the) same,” he added. “All religions have (the) same potential to create … compassionate human beings.”

Protecting the environment, he said, is “very, very necessary … this planet is the only place we can live happily, we can breathe happily.”

“This state (is) already, I think, paying special attention about environment issue. Wonderful. Wonderful,” he said, referencing California’s strong push to curb the effects of climate change.

When addressing the matter of education, he said that many schools often turn attention to material matters rather than showing students how to cultivate “inner value.” “In order to create more healthy society, education is the key factor,” he said, helping to create more “compassionate leader(s)” rather than those focused on “money (and) power.”

At the same time back in Washington, the Senate began its dive into the debate over gun laws, the Dalai Lama said gun control must come from a “sense of respect for the others’ life.”

“Inner disarmament is very essential,” he added.

Sen. Janet Nguyen, R-Garden Grove, met with the Dalai Lama during his visit last year to Orange County, and marked the occasion with a resolution, making July 2015 Kindness Month. She worked effortlessly to bring the Buddhist spiritual figure to Sacramento so her colleagues could be encouraged to “pause and realize we’re all human beings,” she said.

“I hope the state legislators who represent the 40 million people of California, we can all help spread the love, kindness and compassion,” Nguyen said after Monday’s speech. “We can all respectfully disagree, but at the end of the day we’re all human beings and we should live in harmony.”

Official trips welcoming the Dalai Lama, an exiled Tibetan, to the country often risk antagonizing relations with China, whose leaders view the spiritual leader as backing Tibetan independence. Chinese officials were critical of the Dalai Lama’s visit to the White House earlier this month and warned Washington against altering its policy of viewing Tibet as part of the country.

While the Dalai Lama has visited California in the past, he has never made it to Sacramento — efforts for a trip in 2009 never came to fruition. Gov. Jerry Brown also met with the Dalai Lama for a private lunch on Monday afternoon.