Theologian · Contemporary
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
b. 1935 · Gelug (Tsongkhapa's Madhyamaka); secular ethics
Spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, received by every pope since Paul VI and a participant at the 1986 Assisi Day of Prayer; Catholic engagement runs from Merton's meetings to the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue.
Recognized at two as the reincarnation of the thirteenth Dalai Lama, enthroned in 1940, and trained in the Gelug scholastic curriculum to the Geshe Lharampa degree, Tenzin Gyatso fled Tibet after the 1959 uprising and has led the Tibetan diaspora from Dharamsala, handing political authority to an elected government in 2011. His teaching is classical Madhyamaka Buddhism in the line of Tsongkhapa, emptiness and dependent origination joined to the bodhisattva's compassion, but his public voice has argued for a “secular ethics” of compassion, warm-heartedness and universal responsibility that needs no religion, set out in Ethics for the New Millennium and Beyond Religion. He has held sustained dialogues with scientists (The Universe in a Single Atom) and with Christians (The Good Heart, on the Gospels), and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his nonviolent resistance to Chinese rule.
Why he matters: He is the Buddhist teacher most Catholics have actually heard, and the one who has met the Church most often: John Paul II received him several times and prayed beside him at Assisi in 1986, Thomas Merton's last journey ended in three conversations with him recorded in the Asian Journal, and Laurence Freeman OSB hosted the John Main Seminar at which he commented on the Gospels. His case for nonviolence, religious freedom and a public ethic of compassion is one the Church has welcomed, and his dialogues with science are a model of the openness Fides et Ratio asks for.
Where to be careful
He denies a Creator, holds the no-self and rebirth doctrines of his tradition, and his secular ethics grounds morality in human feeling and interdependence rather than in a law written by God on the heart (Veritatis Splendor 35–53); his view that each religion is best for its own adherents comes close to the indifferentism rejected in Dominus Iesus. His discipline of compassion, his courage under persecution, and his insistence that happiness lies in a good heart are common ground the Church gladly acknowledges.
Reading
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Ethics for the New MillenniumTenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama · His case for a secular ethics of compassion that does not depend on religious belief.
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The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of JesusTenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama · His commentary on Gospel passages at the John Main Seminar, with Laurence Freeman OSB; the clearest view of where he agrees and where he stops.
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The Asian Journal of Thomas MertonThomas Merton · Merton's record of his three meetings with the young Dalai Lama in 1968, weeks before his death.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.