AMHERST — Seeking answers, Amherst College freshman Luke Healey sat hunched over his notebook in the back of Johnson Chapel on campus, intently taking notes as the Dalai Lama’s primary English translator, Geshe Thupten Jinpa, spoke about compassion.
The environmental studies major hopes to pursue public policy and make a positive impact, but said the weight of global challenges — especially in the political arena — can feel overwhelming.
So when it came time for a question-and-answer session following Jinpa’s hourlong talk on April 22, Healey brought up his concerns: “It is really scary and kind of depressing, like the state of the world. So I was just wondering, do you have any advice on how to change the world if it’s really hard to face up to how it is?”
Composed and with a smile, Jinpa’s advice was fairly simple: Remember everyone, even political rulers, are human beings; don’t be terrified; and the current state of affairs will also pass away in time.
“Right now should not really terrify you, because this is temporary,” said Jinpa, standing at the podium addressing 200 people who came to listen, a mix of students and community members.
He said calling the current state of the world temporary is not an expression of naive optimism or stoicism, but an acknowledgment that the present climate of anger and fear is unsustainable.
“A broader type of perspective is helpful, because this current level of energy — of outrage, anger, advantage — is not sustainable, because what this expects people to do is to be constantly driven out of fear, and as a motivating factor works up to a point, but it is not a strategy that works in a sustained way,” he said.
At another point Jinpa said, “we just don’t have the luxury of giving up on humanity.”
Jinpa’s 40-year tenure as the Dalai Lama’s principal translator has led him to translating several of the Tibetan spiritual leader’s books, including the New York Times bestseller, “Ethics for the New Millennium.”
In his professional life, Jinpa has bridged the secular and religious divide, having been equally active in science circles and Buddhist monasteries. Among his accomplishments is the development of “Compassion Cultivation Training” at Stanford University.
Compassion has been the fundamental virtue and focus of Jinpa’s work, and his speech last week was meant to “shed a new light on an old message.”
As a monk in his 20s in 1985, while accompanying the Dalai Lama on his travels, Jinpa came to see that compassion was central to the Dalai Lama’s teachings — a message increasingly relevant in an age of growing interconnectedness.
Compassion has been so fused into the messaging of the Dalai Lama that to honor his 90th birthday last year, the Central Tibetan Administration announced a “Year of Compassion,” which began on July 6 last year and will end on July 6, 2026.
Jinpa opined that compassion, which has been heralded by all major religious writings since the beginning of human civilization, has an especially relevant message in the 21st century.
Global markets, communication technology, the need for a collective approach to save the planet and even tourism are all evidence of humans as social creatures, said Jinpa, adding that the future is globalist, a trend which cannot be reversed.
Humans must confront the most fundamental question of ethics, which Jinpa said is learning how to treat the person right in front of you.
He remembers being struck by words of the Dalai Lama, who said, “So long as we humans never forget that we all came from a mother, that our first experience of being a human, was that of being nurtured, he said we’ll be OK.” However, Jinpa added that when this human capacity for compassion is ignored, people can become “dangerous.”
For Jinpa, compassion is a “fundamental quality of who we are as humans,” and he argued against the secular humanists, philosophers and evolutionary scientists who would deny this claim.
Among those who argued against human compassion was Enlightenment philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who described human existence as a “war of all against all” and viewed people as inherently self-interested.
To contradict Hobbes, Jinpa cited the Scottish philosopher David Hume, who said, “Those who question the reality of compassion and kindness have forgotten the movements of their heart.”
“He’s saying the reality of kindness and compassion is something that everybody experiences, especially when you are receiving somebody else’s compassion,” said Jinpa.
Jinpa recommends practicing compassion, even in small ways, saying those who do often benefit just as much — if not more — through a greater sense of purpose and mental resilience.
“There’s quite a lot of studies that show that if we choose to embrace compassion and if we make it more proactive, its actually a source of our mental resilience,” he said.
Given the “interconnectedness” brought about by social media, Jinpa also focused on how to maintain meaningful relationships.
“Digital connection has a sense of ease, but it’s also very deceptive,” he said.
He advised that what is needed is to nurture skills that lead to nurturing relationships. These include compassion, which he summarized as, “making a fuss about someone else’s problems.”
He also thinks maintaining relationships will be a large hurdle for young people, since they do not take the time to form genuine bonds over a long period. There is also the issue that it is not possible to have more than 300 or 400 friends, as social media would make people believe.
“I think there is no substitute for spending the time to cultivate a relationship,” said Jinpa. “And I think being sucked into the digital whirlpool is very dangerous, because the whole algorithm…the whole system is for maximum engagement, and the expression of outrage is the energy that drives you.”
Regardless of social media’s tendency to become addictive, Jinpa also reminded those present that they have a choice.
“You are in charge. The device is not dragging you down,” he said.
The night was sponsored by the Amherst College Department of Religion and the Regional Tibetan Association of Massachusetts.
