Bodhgaya, India, 2022-12-28
“There are a lot of people who pray and are involved towards a peaceful future of humanity like his holiness, like Martin Luther King did. They all have worked towards the common goal to make the world more just and develop into a peaceful place where it is worth living for the next generations.
So one way of thinking about peace is praying like we all do and another way is going to the field and making the camps there alive, this is what you are doing.
Therefore, I am very grateful to your organization, your community that built up this flame of hope. From the bottom of my heart I am thankful that you started this initiative.
In Tibetan we say all the basic prayer of Tibetan buddhism is to eradicate the darkness and ignorance that is within you. So likewise it is a very good omen that you have brought a flame which will eradicate the ignorance amongst people. And I am very hopeful that this is not only the flame of one person, but there are the prayers and hopes of so many people inside and this will definitively illuminate the darkness within humanity and will make sure that we will have more light ahead.
This is a very good omen. It’s very precious that you have brought this to the place of enlightenment of Buddha. Bodhgaya is a very auspicious place and highly respected among the Tibetan people and most people around the world and in addition we have here a living Buddha, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. So I think it is very important that this flame is also going to the living Buddha, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who himself will give a lot of prayers and of course you will gain a lot of karma through this.”
Thanks to the valuable support of Mr. Tenzin Topdhen from the Tibet Museum and Tibet House in Dharamsala we could meet with Jonang Gyaltsap Rinpoche from the Jonang tradition.
He shared his blessings and prayers to the Flame of Hope and held a remarkable lecture saying,
“As humanity we are highly interconnected to each other and still we had a lot of bloodshed in the last century during the 1st and 2nd world war. Finally, humanity has matured emotionally and has understood that fighting is not the solution, but that we have to live as one. Slowly we understood the essence of oneness.
So I am really happy to see this flame, because it’s not only the sign of one country, but it is coming up from a whole community. As we all have witnessed during the second world war all the unimaginable things that happened especially in Japan. Because of that many things developed, for example the European nations formed the European Union and that certainly is a sign of majority. We see that it is better to walk as a group. Especially at the beginning of this century and at the end of last century many good things happened.
So I am happy your initiative started and will continue. Not only countries, but the people themselves have matured, and have understood the hygiene of emotions. Right now in the era of digitalism and materialism we have become very rich. But are we really rich within, are we rich emotionally?
Not only as countries, but also as individuals we need to find the true sense of peace and calmness, a sense of understanding within us. We really need a sense of clearing and cleaning our emotions. And this shows the importance of the old knowledge, not only for India, but it is required across the globe.
So understanding peace is not only important for one individual or within a family, but it will become more popular for all countries to align for the common goal towards a peaceful world.
Right now the international community is approaching 8 billion human beings and every individual – nobody wants suffering. Still our selfishness brings us back to suffering, few nations have been acting very selfishly in the last few years, some sort of suspicion has started among the communities that the 3rd world war will come. If we think that way, your initiative is very important
There are a lot of people who pray and are involved towards a peaceful future of humanity like his holiness, like Martin Luther King did. They all have worked towards the common goal to make the world more just and develop into a peaceful place where it is worth living for the next generations.
So one way of thinking about peace is praying like we all do and another way is going to the field and making the camps there alive, this is what you are doing.
Therefore, I am very grateful to your organization, your community that built up this flame of hope. From the bottom of my heart I am thankful that you started this initiative.
In Tibetan we say all the basic prayer of Tibetan buddhism is to eradicate the darkness and ignorance that is within you. So likewise it is a very good omen that you have brought a flame which will eradicate the ignorance amongst people. And I am very hopeful that this is not only the flame of one person, but there are the prayers and hopes of so many people inside and this will definitively illuminate the darkness within humanity and will make sure that we will have more light ahead.
This is a very good omen. It’s very precious that you have brought this to the place of enlightenment of Buddha. Bodhgaya is a very auspicious place and highly respected among the Tibetan people and most people around the world and in addition we have here a living Buddha, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. So I think it is very important that this flame is also going to the living Buddha, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who himself will give a lot of prayers and of course you will gain a lot of karma through this.
You are coming also from the land of Jesus Christ, as this flame contains also the prayers of Jerusalem, which is very important, because also Jesus Christ walked towards humanity, justice and peace of the world. So this is not just a simple Flame, but it also contains this 2000 year old karma and I am hopeful that this will gain a lot of momentum and create a lot of understanding across the globe.
I myself as an individual I am only a torchbearer of the Jonang lineage and I am hopeful that no matter what I have tried now the most powerful is the prayer.
I am giving my full prayer to this initiative and I believe that this flame will give more understanding and more light to humanity and I am very happy that you brought this to me.
So from my side, it is so important that not only one individual, one country but the whole sentient beings are well. For this all monks and nuns are praying. They always pray for all sentient beings, so likewise I will pray that this Flame of Hope will bring light to all sentient beings.”