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>> Narrator [female]: It's hard to avoid seeing that the world is going through a very difficult time;
we want to do something to help, but what.
Policies negotiations and wars have all fallen short and it’s hard to know where to turn.
There is ancient wisdom that offers another way forward.
This wisdom has been handed down over thousands of years
and kept alive by great teachers.
One of those teachers, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, holder of the Shambhala lineage,
has written a new book explaining these principles and how to apply them.
The Sakyong learned from his father, the Tibetan meditation master
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who had as much reason as anyone to doubt human nature.
>> Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: So when he left Tibet and the Himalayan land
where he experienced deep spiritual training and had to come into India,
he was forced to witness this tremendous savagery.
And out of that experience and out of his own personal self-reflection,
he actually came to the conclusion and felt that it was important to express
that humanity deep down is good, that it is complete.
And that this notion of respecting each person and cultivating that in each of us
is actually the best way to prevent and help more people from becoming savage and aggressive.
And that it is due to some deep sense of hurt, insecurity, non-respect
that somebody who's experienced where they engage in hurting others.
And by just vilifying certain people,
we are as a whole not necessarily helping this human species.
But rather by looking at some innate qualities that all of us possess and being fully aware
of the fact that on a daily level all of us can at any moment behave badly, hurt others;
but that is not a reason to give up on the overall confidence of humanity itself.
>> N: In his new book the "Shambhala Principle" the Sakyong inspires us
to honestly consider the idea that we are all deeply and fundamentally good.
This goodness is always present even in the face of hardship
like illness, a collapsing economy or climate change.
>> SMR: So how we can build a strength and how we can build fortitude and resilience
and inspiration, constantly coming back to our own sense of worthiness,
our own sense of how we regard and what we regard as important,
and how we can begin to communicate that.
And through our own confidence and through our own conviction
we begin to actually communicate that to others.
I feel that that is the way that shifts occur and in this way we every day are affecting culture.
>> N: He encourages us to open up to our own longing for peace
and the very real experience of goodness in our lives, rather than focusing on our failures
or the negativity of others; it is time to open our hearts to the simple and real goodness.
Such an opening has the power to shift our direction.
>> SMR: The one thing that we can do is really very much look at our own mind and heart
and realize, "Oh, that is complete"; our mind is vast; our heart is very, very full and strong;
and deep down all of us have this ability, that we are vibrant, complete, good.
And these themes are permanent and they don't change depending on good days or bad days.
>> N: Even though the ideas in "The Shambhala Principle" are simple, they are certainly not easy.
The Sakyong points out though that we can be confident in our ability
to help ourselves and the world to be peaceful and sane.
This message of hope comes at a very important time in human history;
through simple shifts in the way we live and the way we view ourselves and others,
we can change the course of history.
Good luck and please be well and stay strong.
[flute music]
The Shambhala Principle -Discovering Humanity's Hidden Treasure