On June 13, 2015, Lama Ole Nydahl received an award for “Dialogue, Coexistence and Peace” from the UNESCO Association for Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue in Malaga, Spain.
The award was granted to him and his late wife Hannah Nydahl for their contribution towards freedom of speech, compassion and the development of peace and goodness. The Association also honored Pope Francis I with a similar award.
During the ceremony at the Palacio de Congresos in Malaga, Lorenzo Rodriguez de la Peña, president of the Malaga UNESCO association, emphasized the unique role of Lama Ole Nydahl and his wife Hannah, who died in 2007, in the promotion of universal values and human freedoms and their support for people’s inner peace and prosperity.
From now on the Dialogue, Coexistence and Peace prize will be awarded annually. The Association’s goal is to strengthen human exchange between individuals, groups and institutions, in order to promote individual and social peace. This should contribute to the preservation of cultural and religious values, based on tolerance and liberty.
The “Asociación para la UNESCO promocion del Diálogo intercultural e interreligioso en Málaga” was founded in 2006 and is one of the associations of UNESCO in Spain. Its members are representatives of all major world religions and various cultural organizations.
While receiving this award, Lama Ole Nydahl shared some thoughts, which are condensed here:
Lama Ole Nydahl: When Hannah and I talked about the different possibilities in the world, we decided that power to women would solve most of its pressing problems.
Women will compete, accomplish things here and there, but most importantly they are generally pro-life. They want to preserve and protect, while at the same time aiming for a manageable existence. No woman wants ten children or seven. If she has two children, she can treat and educate them well, and therefore give them a good life. The solution for poor countries is quality, not quantity. This offers children a chance to grow up with responsibility and would solve the real problems of today: overpopulation and the heating up of our planet.
Women also have less adrenalin and rarely make wars, which men somehow seem predestined to get into. So, generally, more women guiding violence-plagued countries would be a very good idea and would end much of today’s barbarity.
Then there is freedom of speech. That should also be common sense. Educated people in free societies are more productive, but this evident fact is generally not being understood in many countries so far. Even today unfree cultures do not like people to express what they think. However, exactly this quality creates the competition of ideas and intellectual exchange, which makes Western societies so rich. Without freedom of speech we will return to the Middle Ages and live under absolutist systems and barbarity, where people are forced to follow illogical beliefs with no chance to check them out and see if they work.
Generally, if we look at the countries that allow free speech, they are all developing. The people are civilized. Things are transparent and go well, while the ones who repress facts are stuck in painful wars and have troubled economies.
Finally, a bit about what everyone can do for others. Here I would like to quote Kalu Rinpoche, an important lama for Hannah and me during much of the four years that we spent being educated in Buddhist teachings and methods in the Eastern Himalayas. He said: “We can give people food and money and help them for a while. We can help them to get an education and benefit them for one lifetime. Thus they become able to learn interesting things and be more useful. And that is where people’s vision usually stops and Buddha’s wisdom starts. Timeless help appears with the recognition that our mind is indestructible, clear light, timeless and everywhere. That this radiant essence, unborn and undying, is what is listening through our ears and looking through our eyes right now. That awareness is our buddha nature.”
Such realization, working without extremes or submission, is inherent in everybody. It liberates whoever looks for it and removes mental tightness for all lifetimes until enlightenment.
