Introducing the author of this book:
Noriyuki Ueda is a well-known Japanese author, lecturer, and cultural anthropologist. In 2006, he was a visiting research fellow at the Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford University where he taught the 20-part series Buddhism Today: Responses to New Global Challenges.
What Ueda brings to the table for a two-day interview with His Holiness the Dalai Lama:
• His interest in a new kind of leadership that is grounded in love and compassion.
• His passion for peace and a world without war in which the structural violence of prejudice and poverty no longer exists.
• His interest in the construction of an altruistic society.
• A good format choice: brief and thought-provoking passages by His Holiness that are right in sync with this age of the sound byte and the 140-character limitation of Twitter.
The first message on promoting human values:
"The most important thing is to promote human values as the foundation of daily life through education. It is important not to think of Buddhism as a religion but as a 'science of mind.' "
The second message on compassionate anger:
"Anger that arises out of compassion is useful. Anger that is motivated by compassion or a desire to correct social injustice, and does not seek to harm the other person, is a good anger that is worth having."
The third message on social actions:
"Buddhist training is based on the practice of karuna, or compassion. And compassion must be implemented in the form of social service. That's very crucial."
