Strengthen the Arm of Liberty Monument (Fayetteville, Arkansas)

Transcription

>> Ladies and gentlemen please welcome this morning's panel. [ Applause ] >> Thank you. [Applause] It's nice to be here with you. [Singing] >> This is better. >> Again. >> Yes. My brother. Yes. Thank you. >> Thank you. [ Singing ] >> Thank you. Okay. Thank you. [Applause] >> Good. Thank you again. >> You're welcome. >> Chancellor Dave Gearhart: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. And thank you all for coming. We have an exceptional panel assembled for today's historic discussion on nonviolence. This is an extraordinary opportunity to hear from some of the most famous proponents of nonviolence in the world. Dr. Sidney Burris is going to provide a more thorough introduction of our guests momentarily. But I, personally, on behalf of the University want to welcome Dr. Vincent Harding, Sister Helen Prejean, and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to the University of Arkansas. [ Applause ] >> Chancellor Dave Gearhart: I also want to take this opportunity to thank the Distinguished Lectures Committee of Students for sponsoring this event. And we have a number of the members of that committee with us today, and I would like to ask them to stand and thank them for making this possible. Would you please stand? [Applause] Members of the committee, thank you. [ Applause ] >> Chancellor Dave Gearhart: An additional word of thanks is owed to Dr. Sidney Burris, Director of the Honors Program in the Jay William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and a faculty member Geshe Dorjee for their involvement inviting the Dalai Lama to our campus. [ Applause ] >> Chancellor Dave Gearhart: Ladies and gentlemen if they had not been in India working on the Tibetans In Exile or TEXT Project with our students, I'm not sure we'd all be here today. Thank you, gentlemen for your leadership. I would also like to remind you that following this panel, everyone will have to exit the arena and come back through security at noon, even if you have a ticket for the afternoon lecture. We apologize for any inconvenience, but it is a requirement of State Department Security that an additional sweep of the area be performed before the afternoon lecture. Thank you for your understanding. And now, let's hear a little more from Dr. Burris about today's honored guests. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Good morning. Thank you Chancellor Gearhart, for your kind words. Before I confront the daunting task of trying to introduce these three individuals, let me add a couple of things to what our Chancellor has already said. None of this would have happened without my friend and my teacher, Geshe Dorjee, a Tibetan monk who left Tibet in 1969, and whom I brought to Arkansas [applause] in 2006. His presence here on this campus has been simply transformative. Thank you, Geshe, wherever you are. [Applause] Both my Chancellor and my Dean Bill Schwab, have shown an unwavering support of all things Tibetan on this campus, and their support has been crucial over the past 14 months. Thanks to you both as well. [Applause] To my Co-Chair Melissa Banks, who does not know the word impossible, and to my good friends Bill Simms, James Ownbey and Karen Chotkowski, whose hard work and intelligence over the long haul, I've come to rely on many, many thanks to you as well. [Applause] To my wife, Angie who, when I could not see past the next 12 hours, always reminded me that this day would come. Thank you very much. [Applause] Finally, and of course, our students, without whom [background talking] the TEXT Project would not even exist, and without whom I feel confident this would not be occurring today. It does indeed take a village. We have here on our stage today a monk, a nun, and a college professor. Not professions that we typically associate with widespread social change and political renovation. But I would suggest to you that these individuals from their cloistered positions have affected more positive change in our lives, than many who have devoted their careers to public service in the traditional manner. Why is this so? My first inkling of an answer came while [background talking] reading Sister Helen as she described the day in June 1980, that would change her life. She was listening to Sister Marie Augusta Neal as she lectured to her community, and she was urging direct action with the poor. Within the year, Sister Helen had moved from a lakefront suburb into the Saint Thomas Housing Project in New Orleans, where she began her work on death row. It was about this experience that she would later write, "Better I decide to try to help ten real hurting people or nine or one than, to be overwhelmed and withdraw and do nothing or write an academic paper on the problem of evil." I would suggest that we know and respect Sister Helen now because she has avoided that academic paper and embraced instead, the ten real hurting people, a number that has grown steadily and shows no signs of slowing. And because we know how deeply Dr. King weighed the words that he spoke in public we are mightily impressed to learn that he turned to Professor Harding to craft the speech that outlined the King's opposition to the war in Vietnam, one of the landmark statements on nonviolence in American history. But how many of us know the following words of Professor Harding, which describe a conversation he had with a young man, articulate and intelligent, who was bent on surviving the tough neighborhood in Boston where he'd grown up? This young man told Professor Harding that what he needed were living human signposts to help him find his way, and Professor Harding's response is emblematic, I believe, of his life. "I have never forgotten these words," Professor Harding writes, "and these confessions seem to ask us not only to be signposts, but to introduce our students to other living signs who may be able to help them find the way. They need to see and know the lives of women and men who provide intimations of our human grandeur." To all of his students who number now in the thousands Professor Harding has served as such a signpost, and I would suggest that our stage today, is brimming with such signposts. I first saw His Holiness in 1979 when I was a young graduate student at the University of Virginia, and since then I have read his books, attended his teachings, and generally tried to understand the great compassion and generosity that illuminate his work in our world. You can open many of his books randomly and find passages that clarify and illuminate. Here is a passage from a recent collection. "Nonviolence is not limited to an absence of violence. For it is a matter of an active attitude motivated by the wish to do others good. It is equivalent to altruism." Altruism, which defines all of our panelists, is a form of nonviolence. It is a formula both clear and profound, and these are the two qualities: clarity and profundity that I most associate with His Holiness. So our panelists agree, happiness depends on developing the kind of warm heart that will recognize human suffering wherever we might find it, and on developing the capacity to declare this suffering intolerable. And, of course, the spirit that finds this suffering intolerable rises from the spirit of nonviolence. Our three panelists have all devoted their lives to this principle, and I am anxious, as I know you are, to hear their advice on how we might incorporate something of this in our own lives. It is a great honor to present to you, once again, Professor Vincent Harding, Sister Helen Prejean, and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Now a word about how we intend to operate here today in this conversation. I have spoken to Thupten Jinpa earlier, and Sister Helen and Vincent Harding, and what we will do is we will allow our panelists to talk each for two or three minutes about their own personal path to the stance of nonviolence, and the particular role that nonviolence plays in what they do in the world. We will then follow that up with questions and comments. And then at the end we will have a one minute or so summary from each of the panelists. And I am certain that we will all be by that time greatly enlightened. We would like to start, of course, with His Holiness - - if you could talk for a couple of minutes about your own personal path to nonviolence, and then Sister Helen and Vincent Harding. [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse] >> Dalai Lama: Good morning everybody. >> Good morning. >> Indeed I'm very happy. I think this is the first visit -- the first time I think come to this state -- I mean this city. So this morning I found -- of course, I usually get up early morning. So I think at the time I almost at dawn some birds singing. I like big city -- very beautiful, very beautiful. So I'm very happy. [Chuckle] Thank you. And then obviously I need to share... >> Thupten Jinpa: Talk. >> Dalai Lama: My own experience until now with nonviolence. Firstly, we human being is social animal. So individual sort of survival depends on the rest of the community. So there must be some sort of force in our emotion to band together. So that is compassion, human affection. Then secondly, the way our life start we come from our mother, and not like some other species like some turtle. As they die the mother as they lay down their egg they ran. >> Thupten Jinpa: [Inaudible] >> Dalia Lama: The egg then left. No need mother's care. They're a youngster. So they themselves have survived by themselves. We're not like that. Like some other mammals they at a young age their survival entirely depends on the others for most of their care. And our case and many birds and many of the mammals their survival depends entirely for the affection or caring by the mother. So our life starts that way. Therefore I consider basic human nature is more gentleness. Of course aggression also, part of our life because of our intelligence and because of greed and some other different emotion. So because of intelligence we must certain [inaudible] extra ability so that use control other. However they in our -- sort of now according medical scientists constant anger, fear, very bad for our health. Compassionate mind, warm-heartedness very good for our health. So that also is confirm our basic nature is more gentleness. So positive mind, constructive filled emotions goes very well with our body. The destructive emotions not go well with our body. Now nonviolence and violence , although I think there are many different levels of action, physical action, verbal action, mental action. I say there are violent and nonviolent, but generally and any way violence and nonviolence is action. Every human action, those effective action must come through motivation. So any action motivated by compassion, central affection is nonviolence. Any action whether verbal action or physical action out of hatred, out of anger, out of jealousy, out of [inaudible] these negative feeling ,that essentially violence. So the minds are bleak. In order to promote nonviolence we have to deal with emotional level. We should sort of make awareness. The compassionate mind is very good for the society, very good for the family, very good for individual. The destructive emotion such as jealousy, suspicion, fear, hatred, anger these are very bad for the society, as it is for the family level, and also [inaudible] for individuals on the health of these things. So that's my universal way to promote nonviolence. Stress on the motivation. So now that's it -- [Chuckle] finished. >> Very short. >> Thank you. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Sister Helen Prejean: My path awakening to nonviolence or what I call or what Gandhi calls soul force, resistance to what is wrong, trying to help create what is new, and not to be passive and overwhelmed. A Catholic nun, grew up with great mom and daddy. I wasn't just a little egg placed in the nest, and then they left. Great mom and daddy, Catholic mom and daddy, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And to give our life over to God was prized in our family, and I became a nun with great support. Mom and Daddy, my sister Maryann are sitting in here today. And I became a nun and the spirituality out of which I was trying to follow the ways of Jesus, was the spirituality that really separated the world. Everybody's trying to get to heaven. So if people have to suffer here, well one day they're going to have a great crown in heaven, and I was separated. We became nuns and cloistered ourselves so I was separated from the world. And living out in the suburbs of New Orleans [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse] -- and living out in the suburbs my father had been a successful lawyer so in New Orleans, ten major housing projects in the inner city of struggling African American people. And I had only known African American people growing up as our servants. I didn't even know the last names of the woman who worked in the house or the man who worked in the yard. So the awakening -- the spiritual awakening happened through coming to understand who Jesus was, and actually through the God revealed in the Hebrew testament of the burning bush. That one of the first revelations in the Hebrew scriptures of the heart of God is in the burning bush to Moses, "I have heard the cry of my people." And I realized that here I was in another world. Here was the inner city, and I woke up. And the awakening was such a grace. I'm grateful to this moment that I woke up, and then what you talk about your Holiness. The motivation to act because consciousness when my consciousness changed and I realized, I don't even know those people. I moved. I acted and lived in the presence of African American people in the Saint Thomas Housing Project who became my teachers. And once you get in this river as Dr. Harding loves to write about -- once you get in the currents then one day coming out of the Adult Learning Center where I was helping people to get their GEDs, realized the miserable state of education for poor African American people in public schools. People were coming into the Adult Learning Center, juniors in high schools who couldn't read at third grade. What is going to happen to these kids and why had I been so privileged? Why was I so blessed? And so I began to act. So and coming out one day somebody said hey Sister Helen you want to write a letter to someone on death row in Louisiana. I didn't even know much about the death penalty, and I never dreamed they were going to kill a person because we -- there had been a kind of hiatus on executions for over 20 years. So I wrote a letter, and he wrote back. His name was Patrick Sonnier, and he changed my life forever because, two and a half years later I am in the killing chamber when the State of Louisiana electrocuted him to death. And he in compassion for me had said, "Sister, you can't be there at the end because it could scar you." And I said strength I said "no, Patrick. I don't know what it will do to me, but you are not going to die..." [ Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama Converse ] >> Sister Helen Prejean: "You are not going to die without a loving face", which was his dignity. I said "I'll be the face of Christ for you." They killed him in front of my eyes. I left the execution chamber. It was in the middle of the night in Louisiana. I vomited. I never seen a human being killed. And that motivation, that fire I realized at that moment it was in the dark, and I thought to myself people are never going to see this. When the State kills it's a secret ritual. It's behind prison walls. So people don't see or hear the last words. They don't see it. So they're caught in oh he did that terrible crime. He deserves to die. And my mission was born at that moment. I must tell the story to awaken people to bring them close to this. Then that brings us to the other side was who did this? Why was this man killed? What crime had he done? He and his brother had done an unspeakably terrible crime. They killed two innocent teenage kids in cold blood. Shot them in the back of the head. Every parent's worst nightmare of their kids going to a football game, and never being seen alive again. And when I knew the crime my impulse was to reach out to the families and I held back because, I thought they're not going to want to see me. And I was wrong about that. It was a big mistake I made, and when I did meet them the father of the boy, David, who had been killed, said to me, "Sister, you can't believe the pressure on us to be for the death penalty, and I've had nobody to talk to. Where have you been?" It was a... [ Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama Converse ] >> Sister Helen Prejean: Like there's other people here too. [Laughter] Anyway so Lloyd LeBlanc says to me, "Where have you been," and so he invited me to come and pray with him. And through this man he's the hero of Dead Man Walking . I'm the storyteller, and I made some mistakes. This father shared his inner journey of at first trying to go to the place because, everybody was saying that to him of wanting to see Patrick Sonnier dead, wanting to see his brother dead as well. And he said, "But I didn't like the way it made me feel when I went to that place of hatred and bitterness. And then I said to myself they killed our son, but I'm not going to let them kill me. I'm going to do what Jesus said, and he set his face to go on the road of forgiveness." Around this country telling that story it's very important in this journey when we deal with our outrage that we feel when innocent people have been ripped from life it's important to stand in the outrage, feel the outrage, but then look past it to try to see what as a society are we going to do. How are we going to act now? And I'll end with this because I know we just have a short period to get started, but I've been in the killing chamber in Texas that's killed over 450 human beings in the killing chamber in Texas. And there are three witnessing chambers, and one is for the 12 people from the State that watch the killing. One is reserved for the victim's family that sends a representative. It's up to the left and looks down on the gurney. And the third witnessing place is where families and where mothers have stood with their hands against the glass to watch as the State kills their child. And the question is where does it take us? Where does the imitation of violence take us as a society? So that's my little opening. >> Thank you Sister Helen. [ Applause ] >> Professor Vincent Harding: As the oldest member of this panel [laughter] I am going to take the liberty that age allows of being disobedient. [Laughter] Because I'm going to start off not with my assignment of telling about my path to nonviolence, but I want to start off by giving great thanks for the path that Sidney Burris took to bring us to this place. >> Yes. [ Applause ] >> Professor Vincent Harding: When I heard the story of how long he has been working on making this a possibility I was deeply grateful, and I knew that I needed to testify to that. [Laughter] So Sidney, forgive me for being an elderly disobedient one, but that's how I needed to start. >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you. >> Professor Vincent Harding: But to go to my assignment. [Background translating] I want to say that my path to the way of nonviolence was a path that was suggested by His Holiness. It was a path that was developed first by the love of a single mother, a recently divorced mother, who insisted on letting me know that I was loved. That she expected great things of me, and who made great sacrifices for me. I see that as being essential to the starting of my own path. My path was also lined with teachers in public school who literally loved me, who cared about me, who demanded great things of me, and who pushed me when I was not ready to know that I could go forward. My pathway to nonviolence was also opened up by a little congregation of church people in Harlem in New York: church people who took me into their arms and taught me what they knew and encouraged me to explore the way of faith, the way of the teachings of Jesus, the ways of love. My path was deeply affected by the fact that, in my early 20s I was drafted into the Army of the United States of America. And it was the first time that I was away from mother, from church, from home community for any significant period of time. And in that experience of solitude I began to explore more fully the teachings of especially the New Testament. Reading in all the time that basic training gives you to be doing nothing. I took the nothing time and tried to make something out of it by reading the things that people had told me about, but that I had never studied myself. And in the process of that reading I came in touch with this magnificent person, Jesus of Nazareth. And I began to be very deeply attracted to him, and to his life, and to what that life meant. And it was in the course of that basic training time when I was studying and learning about Jesus of Nazareth, that I was also at the same moment really enjoying basic training because, I was an outdoor kind of person. I loved to run. I loved to be around exercise practice and I surprised myself by really enjoying learning how to fire a rifle and learning, how to fire it with great accuracy. And it was one morning out at Fort Dix [background translating] New Jersey down on my belly firing the rifle at the target hitting it rather well, enjoying myself that I almost heard a voice saying to me, "Oh, Vincent, you're enjoying this, aren't you? Do you think that's why the Army is paying all this money so that you can enjoy this?" The voice said, "No. Vincent, you are being taught how to kill a man without him even being able to see you. What does your Jesus have to do with that?" It was at that same period that I was being taught how to use a bayonet, that long sharp knife at the end of a rifle that was used in those days. And I was trained how to immediately slash out another human being's bowels, without him even knowing what was happening to him. And again in strange ways, in that moment, I heard the song that I had been singing in my church school for many, many years: Jesus Loves the Little Children . And again a voice came to me saying, "So that's it. Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, Vincent; but when they grow up and when your government tells you that they are your enemies, Jesus loves the little children. But when you grow up you're going to cut their guts out, because your government says that that's what you need to do." And from that moment on I began wrestling with myself, and wrestling with the meaning of this Jesus, and wrestling with the idea that I as his follower was giving myself over to that kind of madness. And so I from that point essentially became a conscientious objector. And it was in the process... [ Applause ] -- it was in thatprocess after I got out of the Army that I met a church group that actually seemed to take Jesus seriously on this matter of loving the enemy. I became a part for a good while of the Mennonite Churches in this country. And it was in the course of that that my late wife and I went south to work with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the wonderful young people of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. And King and the young people invited me in to say essentially you have begun to think about this matter of nonviolence already. Come and help us teach it. Practice it. Work with it here in the South. That was the beginning of my pathway. I met many magnificent human beings who without any great study, any great teaching, came from the depths of their hearts to know that they could never create a new American society, if they allowed hatred and anger to overcome them even though they were understandably filled with, in a sense, the right to be angry and to have hate. But they decided following the teachings of King and Gandhi that they wanted a new society where hatred and anger would not rule our way. That group of people took me in, and I became part of that movement for a new society and I'm still on that path now coming close to my 80th year. >> Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you very much Professor Harding, Sister Helen, Your Holiness. You mentioned something in your last comment, Professor Harding, that I would like to follow-up on and have all of our panelists respond to it. His Holiness will recognize his quotation. "Tibetans typically say my enemy, my teacher, which is another way, the Tibetan way, of saying it's important that we learn how to love our enemies. What I would like to hear all three of you comment on: how does an engagement with the opposing perspective actually, cause us to strengthen our practice of nonviolence? Your Holiness, if you could talk about it. [Translating] >> Would you repeat that question? >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Sure. >> Please. >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Absolutely. Tibetans have a saying: my enemy, my teacher meaning that as long as we're around people that we love and adore, we learn no lessons. It's only when we're around the enemy that we actually get to watch hatred and anger work. And at that point we can attack it and understand how to manage it. So my question is in each of your experiences how does an engagement with "the enemy" actually strengthen your practice of nonviolence? >> Dalai Lama: [Inaudible] Firstly I want to express to you both to develop that kind of [inaudible] attitude and determination to help to save [inaudible] people and also opposing killing. This sort of conviction, this sort of strength comes from the teaching of Jesus Christ, Christianity. So this confirm very clearly all measure with this tradition have same potential to bring such wonderful people. So because one of my commitment is promotion of religious harmony. >> Yes. >> Dalai Lama: In order to develop that [applause] it is very important to know the value of potential of that teaching, then you can develop genuine respect, admiration, and that way changes in harmony can develop. So I will appreciate your sort of not just scholarly, but your own true experience. [Inaudible] Clearly -- so that make it clear, so I very much appreciate. Now the enemy is your best teacher. This is actually one Buddhist text. In eighth century one Indian scholar, Buddhist scholar, you see expressed that and then further there are many pieces of literature mentioned on that. So, we Tibetan Buddhists -- simply to follow this practice. Now here the main thing is firstly, the conflict of enemy is based on other's attitude. This person's attitude towards me is very friendly and very nice and helpful. So we call friend -- close. This person creates for me problem and even harming to me. Even create some danger for my life. So we call enemy. Not on the basis of that person himself or herself. Because when they were young we have no idea this is my enemy. This is my friend. Now there are two compassion -- two levels of compassion or affection. One mainly oriented out of attitude or a person's action. That's mainly -- that kind of compassion is mainly a biological factor. So this person is useful for me and helpful for me and then -- close to me. This this sort of harmful to me, so put sort of the other -- another group. So that kind of sort of compassion biological factor, and mainly oriented other's attitude and other's action. That compassion doesn't -- cannot extend towards your enemy. Now another level of affection or compassion not oriented other's attitude or action, but rather [inaudible] people themselves or even animals or other. So now we share no differences. That's good. As enemy that's good as a friend on the basic level of human being same. They both want happiness. Both have right to achieve that. Just like me. And both do not want suffering. So from that understanding develop genuine central concern towards the person regardless of their attitude towards you. Now that kind of compassion is second level compassion. Now all the major religious tradition is emphasis on that level. So within that context now you need effort to develop that compassion and sort of attitude towards your enemy. So the obstacle is hatred, anger. Now develop sort of opposition -- hatred and anger is patience, tolerance, forgiveness. Now in order to practice forgiveness, tolerance you need someone who creates trouble [laughter]. So for example, Christian practitioner, you never feel some negativity towards Jesus Christ so there's no possibility to practice forgiveness towards Jesus Christ. I'm Buddhist. Towards Buddha no. No because of that no chance or no opportunity. No possibility to feel -- sort of -- to practice of tolerance with Buddha. No. With my mother. No. [Laughter] With those neutral people also no. Only these people who create trouble for you, these are the really is a testing of my practice. So I need practice of tolerance and forgiveness. In order to practice that, you need opportunity. Now that opportunity creates by your enemy. So from that viewpoint, very, very important to practice. Can learn only, with the help of enemy. So from that viewpoint enemy is your best teacher. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Sister Helen. Oh, excuse me. Go ahead Your Holiness. >> Dalai Lama: Well then I think I want to make clear. Some people, including Tibetans, also you see including some Buddhists, also sometimes feel if you really forgive -- give forgiveness to your enemy regardless, their sort of bad sort of attitude, then that means almost sort of your Buddha. Right. Buddha the enemy. This is not the case. [Chuckle] We have to make distinction. Actor. Action. Actor is concerned not the enemy. Actor is concerned. It deserves our love, our compassion, our sense of concern. As far as their action is concerned, if necessary we have to take countermeasure to compose, to stop their wrongdoing. Still since you develop a sense of concern of well-being of that person who considered enemy, therefore if you have genuine sense of concern of that person, then we have to make effort to stop their wrongdoing because, ultimately their wrongdoing ultimately harm [inaudible]. Negative sort of consequences to themselves. Therefore our concern of their well-being tried to stop their wrongdoing. So action is concerned. If necessary we have to oppose, but the actor we must keep our compassion so there is a distinction. [ Applause ] Perhaps I think this is not just a word. Our own case we respect those even Chinese Communist hardliners who really carry brutal sort of policies. These individuals [noise] we respect them. We deliberately try to put more of ourselves, our welling-being, our sense of compassion towards them. But as far as action is concerned sometimes we criticize and sort of [inaudible] a certain way. Any sort of if -- any possibility we'll say we oppose their action. So since we oppose their action they consider me as a troublemaker for them. [Laughter] So sometimes I enjoy telling people since they consider me as a troublemaker, so in order to justify their accusation I have to create a little problem. [Laughter] [ Applause ] So now important this practice immense benefit to yourself. That I feel very important. I'm always telling people the practice of compassion. Some people feel something holy, something good for other; but not necessarily to yourself. That's totally wrong. Of course in the afternoon I will tell this. [Laughter] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you Your Holiness. Sister Helen, keeping on this, you know, theme of my enemy, my teacher I was struck by reading The Death of Innocence and Dead Man Walking for that matter. You have a kind of a reverse example that I would like to hear you talk about. When you started dealing with the victims' families, you became the enemy because, you had been an advocate for the -- I mean a murderer. I would like to hear you talk about how you handled that particular position in which you found yourself, as being the enemy of the bereaved family. >> Sister Helen Prejean: This is a very interesting little current in the river to be talking about the enemy as teacher, because when I first visited a man on death row who had done this unspeakable murder I didn't know anything. And instinctually, when I was walking in the prison for the first time the guards were very like matter-of-fact, kind of harsh. Woman on the tier. Wait in there. We'll get you man. And there was an instinct to kind of treat them as the enemy because, they're the ones who had imprisoned. There's the assigned death row. And then I suddenly realized the guards whose job is to work in this prison and even eventually to carry out the execution are not the enemy, and the same thing with the victim's family. So instinctively, see opposition was coming from the victims, and because I didn't reach out to them as I should have in the very beginning, harsh letters to the editor were written about me. Victims' families were getting on TV that Sister Prejean she doesn't care about victims. And I would always try to go inside myself. I use the image of like my fingers moving on a piece of cloth to see if there were any tears. Where is my conscience? Where is guilt? Where were they right? And I knew that they were right [background translating] because I hadn't reached out to them right away. And so then what happened inside me with that was, I need to be there for them. If they reject me and are angry at me, because they're put on a tremendous seesaw in society. The victims' families that have been promised the loss that you have had of your loved one what we're going to do for you in order to honor your dead loved one, is that we are going to kill the one who killed your child and you'll get to watch it. And that is how we'll honor you. They are very much placed on this seesaw. They are in all these cultural currents that says if you really love your child you want to see the enemy dead, and we're going to do that for you. So anybody who says oh I'm not for the death penalty so they're coming at it from, but I'm acting defensively about them, because they go oh they're opposed to me. And it was a guilt because I hadn't reached out. And what His Holiness just said that action when you put yourself out there to go to them. So when I went to visit Lloyd LeBlanc whose son had been killed -- when I walked in his shoes, when I heard his story, when I went to these groups, murder victim family groups who were all talking about their pain, I realized something. All of them were talking about how everybody leaves them alone, because they don't know what to do with their pain. So they're being shunned in a way. One man said to me he had lost his daughter who was killed. He said, "Sister, if you want to see a room empty out, just let me walk into it, because everyone knows my daughter was killed and people don't know what to say to people in great pain." And so it was just one act. After I got to know Lloyd LeBlanc, and the victims' families, to start a group to help murder victims' families, for people to accompany them in their pain. It's one act. I didn't change everything, but I knew my relationship with the LeBlanc family who had allowed me to come into their lives needed to be intact, and I needed to continue to be faithful to the friendship with them. And then to start a group, one thing. A lot of times when I'm talking to young people they go where are we ever going to pick up this whole world? And it's almost like when the minute you put your hand on the rope and begin to pull, whoever it's with, whose hurting the life energy and compassion flows through us. So that's one response, Sidney, to that. And... >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Yeah. Good. >> Sister Helen Prejean: Yeah. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Professor Harding, I have always been struck by longevity of all types, and clearly you're a living example of that. And when I was able to hear you speak yesterday about traveling down into the South in 1958 with a religious group composed of blacks and whites and when I think about your initial engagement with Dr. King in '58 you met him in Montgomery, Alabama. And then I fast forward ahead nine years [background translating] to when he gets in touch with you and says he wants to come out against the Vietnam War, with a major speech in Riverside Church, in New York City. I'm struck by the fact that as an American, as an African American, you have seen racism of all sorts. You have seen bigotry. You have been confronted with violence of every imaginable stripe; and yet, to hear to you speak, to hear your message, you are clearly one of the most gentle people I have ever confronted. What I would like for you to share with us is how you did that. How did you confront that kind of hatred? And it was highly organized hatred and it had the power of the government behind it, at times. And just as the victim's family is out there alone, you too have been out there alone. How did you stop yourself from hardening into the easy solution of hatred, and animosity towards your enemies? [ Noise ] >> Professor Vincent Harding: Sidney, that's not a question that one leaps into quickly or easily. I think it goes back to the initial statement that I was making. And that is that I was never in any of these situations of danger, of fear, of hatred. I was never sensing that I was alone. For one thing, I was coming as someone deeply fortified by the love that I had received all my life. I was also coming especially in the southern situations, that I was a part of -- I was surrounded by other people who were loving and concerned and convinced, that we had to do something to bring about a new society. In a sense we did not have time to allow hatred to take its place in our presence, because we were busy dreaming this. This is what our imagination and what our energy had to be given to. That at some time 50 years after our struggle, we would one day be in a place that had never dreamed that it would house the Dalai Lama. That it would have black students and faculty. Not enough of either, but still some of both. [Laughter] [ Applause ] >> Professor Vincent Harding: What I'm saying, Sidney, is that our minds and hearts were too full of the dream, of the possibility of what this country could be, what the South could be, what we together could be. Hatred would only push us off that forward path, and so we couldn't afford -- I couldn't afford. That was not what I was there for. I knew that there was something else that I was there for, and I knew as I said that I was not alone, and I knew that the ancestors were with me. That the spirit was with me. That all sorts of magnificent powers that I cannot even name were with me, because I was trying to be involved in a work for our building of our humanity. And I'm deeply convinced now even more than I was then, that when we are involved and commit ourselves to the building of humanity then, all kinds of forces that we never dreamed could be available to us, become available to us, and we are able to do much more than we ever dreamed we would be able to do, including not giving into hatred. >> Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Yes. Sister Helen. >> Sister Helen Prejean: I think as we hear this seeing how our American society works, nobody ever makes a statement even when they kill someone in the killing chamber. We are killing an enemy tonight. They're euphemisms. Different words are used. We're doing justice. And when we look at the struggle with the enemy in our society, whoever names an enemy -- immigrants coming from Mexico. Are these the enemy? Nobody says the enemy. They say things like well they're coming to get our jobs, or these people are the criminal element. We have to build more prisons. Fear is what is underneath so much in our society. [ Applause ] With this added element that so much of our news about each other we get from TV. That the studies done that the more people look at TV, the more hours they actually look at TV the more afraid we are. So could we talk about fear [applause] as the basis of... >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Yeah. Absolutely. I would love to hear His Holiness's you know comment on how fear of the unknown sometimes causes us to embrace violence. >> Dalai Lama: [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse] Fear I do two types. One fear with reasons. When I was in some area in India where the malaria mosquito there then, because out of fear there were cautions. [Laughter] It isn't good necessary. Then another kind of fear it's just your own I think basically, mental projection and that also the mental sort of state or emotional sort of system as such more self-centered attitude here more fear, more anxiety, more stress. >> Louder. >> Dalai Lama: Huh? >> Louder. They need you to project your voice. >> Dalai Lama: Oh. I think the sound is sufficient -- should be sufficient. Or anyway the fear there are two levels or two kinds. One fear with reasons. If mad dog come and the fear is necessary to protect yourself or to avoid. When mad dog come ready to bite if you still meditate compassion it's rather foolish. [Laughter] So then another sort of kind of fear mainly, I'll say mental projection. There are many sort of what's the -- when you talk of fear as a part of mind or a part of emotion. So the system, the [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse] -- the worldly emotion. You see there are many other emotions interconnected. So fear usually the mental [inaudible] over fear. Of course every fear I think dog coming well, this is challenging. It's reasonable. Usually I describe selfish as part of our nature. With that we survive it. Without that remain like robot. We cannot survive. So therefore it is -- I mean right, but I [inaudible] we are selfish, but shouldn't be selfish with intelligence or selfish -- but wise selfish is much better than foolish selfish. So here now the too much self-centered attitude brings more fear, more suspicion. So these unnecessary sort of suspicion or fear as it's based on suspicion, distrust. That very much develops the other side. Then the other side you develop more sort of sense of -- so what's the -- sense of real or sense of brotherhood, sisterhood. Look every human being I think brother, sister. And everyone want happiness. Don't want suffering. I'm one of them, and we are social as I mentioned earlier. We are social animal. So the more the rest of the community happy I get more happiness. This impossible -- there's no way to gain maximum benefit to oneself forgetting other. No. We are social animal. So the more sort of develop their sense of genuine spiritual -- sense of human brother or sisters there. Although maybe stranger you never know, but still a human being. If you smile, they also respond. If you show affection, generally they also [inaudible]. So that way fear is [inaudible]. Distrust is [inaudible]. So this way with fear sometimes the people call individual society culture more individualistic. Of course the individual is self-cherishing. It's a key factor. Very important and very right, but is it too much [inaudible] too much [inaudible] narrow thinking they're self-centered or individualistic. Then I can sometimes too much competition. To that way I'm sensing too much competition, and through that way more stress, anxiety. Then as you mentioned I think the television usually you see it showing those things which, are more negative: murder, sex, or other these bad things. Of course, these become news. They are good things. Warm-heartedness or certain actions to serve other people out of sort of genuine compassion or warm-heartedness. These are not news. We take for granted. So then I think [inaudible] also there is some fighting. This little bit sort of watch yesterday it was fighting some of kind of [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse] entertaining. So little by little way I think that some impact in our mind that we're sort of tough. Rough. And then these news only bad sites then eventually, people get their feeding. We human being -- basic nature of a human being is negative. Some people describe aggressiveness. Yes. Because of [inaudible] because of ability, but that doesn't not necessarily the description of basic human nature, I don't think. That's my view. >> Dr. Sidney Burrris: Thank you, Your Holiness. I'm trying to keep watch on the time here. [ Applause ] We have less than 10 minutes left, so by way of making a closing statement I would very much like to hear the panel respond to the following question. Recently, with the killing of Bin Laden, of course, there has been a great debate in this country about the efficacy of violence. I don't need to hear you talk about Bin Laden; but, of course, you can, if you like. From the perspective of a practitioner of nonviolence, I think it's very helpful to have it explained to us logically, why violence does not work as a long-term solution to a problem. Everyone understands the impetus to use violence to stop something in the short-run, but if I could hear each of you talk you know briefly and logically, about how violence is not an efficient means of solving a problem. I think that would bring clarity to a lot of us who are trying to adopt the nonviolent way. [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse] Vincent, why don't you start off? >> Professor Vincent Harding: When I hear the example that you started out with, Sidney, the Bin Laden murder, what came to my mind when I first heard about that was another situation of terrorism that I was very close to. I was deeply involved in the movement that took place in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, which helped to open up to the world what was wrong in our society and what needed to be made right, especially along the lines of white supremacy and the oppression of people of color. You may remember that weeks after the march on Washington of August 1963 in September 1963 the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church had a bomb placed at its base near its basement, and the bomb went off. It was a terrorist act, and it resulted in the death of four young Sunday School girls, and the injury to a good many other people in the church. What I remember is a conversation that I had with two of the most magnificent teachers of nonviolence that I knew in that movement. Diane Nash was one of them, and at the time she was married to another great practitioner. James Bevel was his name. Diane told me some time after that terrorist explosion, that she and Jim were in another state visiting another freedom worker when they got the news over television that that bombing had taken place and that those children had been killed. And as two of the deepest believers in the way of nonviolence, they nevertheless, immediately said we've got to get back to Birmingham, and we've got to find out who did that terrible work, and we've got to make sure that they never are able to do anything like that again. And they had great understandable - - some would say justifiable anger and the move in them was for revenge and retribution. But as they sat with their friend thinking about that action they began to rethink that initial response. And they said to each other we cannot copy that terrible path of violence. That is not who we are. That is not what we believe in. We will be unfaithful to ourselves, to all the people who are part of our movement. We must think in another way about how to respond. We must respond, but we must find another way. And what they decided was that they would return to Alabama, but they would devote all of their time, and attention, and skills to the work that was at that moment just beginning in Selma, Alabama where a voting registration campaign was going on. And they said we decided that if we could really bring black people into the electorate to change those who are running that state we can change the atmosphere, change the setting so that the possibility of such terrorism, will be reduced. And so they decided then to go to Selma to work on voter registration, and as you know eventually, that marvelous Selma movement ended up with that march from Selma to Montgomery. They had spent two difficult costly dangerous years working on the response to the death of the children, and what came out of it was the opening of another level of democracy in this country. And in a deep sense the death of the children, led not to the death of more people, but to the opening of new life, new possibility for this country. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you very much, Professor Harding. Sister Helen, would you like to respond? >> Sister Helen Prejean: Well just seeing the time. The answer to fear of the enemy is for us to meet each other, and I believe the more we can connect with, [applause] do bridges, have different kinds of people meeting and conversing each other, having breakfast together crossing the boundaries: these invisible boundaries that have been setup in our culture. The university students going here who are here today you're in a little -- you know you're in the environment of being at a university. You've got the Razorbacks. [Laughter] I mean you're there with your team, but who are the others that lie beyond us who are different from us, and the more we can meet each other and begin to have those conversations we will positively promote I think building community of peace. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you Sister Helen. Your Holiness if you have any final thoughts on the ways in which violence simply perpetuates violence. >> Dalai Lama: Basically the very nature of violence is unpredictable. Once you involve violence then it often becomes out of control. Then violence itself more violence [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse] -- violence then that way you see more sort of damage, or more sort of bad things. So I believe 20th century I think whatever violence involved, according to some historian, at the turn of the century the number of people who killed through violence over 200 millions. But problem not solved. I think that kind of action and also, some other sort of exploitation also I think lay down the seed of hatred. Now the division as sometimes is the Arabs and here, and these things I feel. So in anyway now this century I am always telling people or request people now this century should be century of dialogue. That's the only way. As you mentioned meet and talk. When Bin Laden sort of problem you see started some locations. As a response to sort of questions I tell -- I express if possible meet him. If he not use immediately his guns [Laughter], then meet him and talk and listen. What are his sort of reasons you see to [inaudible] these things? They're actually human being. I'm quite sure there could be some sort of openness. But in anyway my personal experience I visited a few locations in Northern Ireland. One time they -- the organizer who invite me they organize the victims of both sides together, in a one room. I think [inaudible] like that. When I enter that room, very tense. Each person's face I think full of some sadness and anger like that. Then we start some sort of conversation, and also I expressed some of my sort of belief. Then after I think one hour, two hours, then we had meal together. The atmosphere completely changed. Then next to my visit again I met some of them completely changed. Now very friendly [inaudible]. So I think [inaudible] a point is very, very right. Then death sentence -- since I'm [inaudible] my childhood when Nuremburg jailed the Nazi leader already defeated, but carried death sentence in the name of revenge or something. Justice. At that time -- I think four to five -- I was very young, but feel very sad. Opposite of I think victory [inaudible]. If there is some danger maybe death sentence [laughter] maybe as some sort of [inaudible] prevent further problem, but defeated people. Very sad. So then Saddam Hussein passed through death sentence. At that time I think I was in Japan or Austria or somewhere, I also expressed oh sad. Now defeated old person, really completely demoralized. The object: feel compassion. Not hatred. Not anger. So in anyway, so since many years Amnesty International [inaudible] organization they carry a movement: abolishing death sentence. So I'm one of the signatory. So I always you see oppose death sentence. But sometimes [inaudible] people give these criminal people a little longer. Then they may see as a result of their wrongdoing [laughter] and then, we can teach them because of that. Teach them. [Thupten Jinpa and Dalai Lama converse ] We keep teaching them. [Laughter] We can finish their life and then they cannot see. You see there is no opportunity to see result of their wrongdoing. And then also I think that death sentence is actually carry -- eliminate the person not the action. So the [applause] as I mentioned before. Anger and action. So I think real effective sort of countermeasure to see the action is deal with the actor... >> Person. >> Dalai Lama: Oh. Person. Then what's their complaint. Listen and then talk, and then through that way I think the real sort of control of that destructive action. Otherwise the many years ago after September 11th the event happened. [Inaudible] were expressed. If we handle not properly, then, after a few years 10 Bin Laden. After more years, 100 Bin Laden might come. So the change must take care, not just the sort of physical elimination. So one person eliminate, but 10 persons feel very bad. So that seed sort of more hatred. So a source of another sort of problem. So that's my view, but of course I think regarding this other Bin Laden sort of case I think if us 100 people I think maybe it's a difference of opinion. So I don't know. It's difficult to say. Some people I think will rejoice because, of something like that because brought him justice. Some people say oh it's quite normal. Then some people say oh this is wrong. Oh. I think I am one of them. [Laughter] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: Well that was absolutely wonderful. It exceeded even my highest expectations, and in my humble opinion I believe we have just -- we have just borne witness to what I am certain is a historic conversation. So let me thank, once again, Professor Vincent Harding, and Sister Helen Prejean, and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Vincent. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Sidney Burris: It has been an extraordinary pleasure to be able to hear your thoughts today, and I'm certain that my own practice of nonviolence has prospered immensely. And all of you here I'm certain will agree with me. A few announcements: to those of you who are here for the morning session only, thank you very much for coming. I'm certain our panelists appreciate your Arkansas hospitality. To those of us who will be joining us for the afternoon session thank you in advance for your patience, and we will see you very shortly. Thank you very much for coming. [ Applause ]