Petition: support the Dalai Lama's great work for Peace

Our Pledge: we  support the path His Holiness  has chosen and shown to the world by his Mission for the New Millennium, creating a more peaceful future for us all. We will help spread the message of peace and dialogue in all circumstances. For Tibet we support the Dalai Lama's  Middle Way approach and stand with His Holiness in unison.

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On 6th July 2015, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso will celebrate his 80 th birthday.

Fifteen (15) years ago, on 1st January 2000, he issued a statement widely known as the Message for the New Millennium.

In these last fifteen years, His Holiness has travelled more than a thousand times to different places around the world to speak at conventions, meetings, teachings, tv studios, interviews and so forth, about his vision for a better world and how this vision can be fulfilled.

While many individuals - like you, who is reading this post -- have listened to him and embraced his words, there are equally large numbers of people who have never heard him as you did.

We have therefore created this very special Pledge to share with thousands of  people who support HH the Dalai Lama, go to his teachings and would like to help him in his peaceful attempts to help us all live a better life, in a safer world.

Following is his Message for the new Millennium, and if you agree, take the time to sign this pledge and carry out our solemn duty to amplify his words and deeds to make a better world.

We are aiming for at least 10,000 pledges, but with your commitment, that number can grow exponentially. We will present the Pledge with a minimum of 10,000 on his 80th Birthday.

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Message for the New Millennium by HH the Dalai Lama

Many people seem to be excited about the new millennium, but the new millennium in itself will be nothing special. As we enter into the new millennium things will be the same; there will be nothing unusual. However, if we really want the next millennium to be happier, more peaceful and more harmonious for humankind we will have to make the effort to make it so. This is in our hands, but especially in the hands of the younger generation. We have had many experiences during this century - constructive as well as extremely destructive ones. We must learn from these experiences. We need to approach the next millennium more holistically, with more openness and farsightedness.

If we are going to make the right kind of efforts to make the future of the world better, I believe the following matters are of great importance. While engaging in material progress and taking care of physical wellbeing we need to pay equal attention to developing peace of mind and thus taking care of the internal aspect of our being. Along with education, which generally deals only with academic accomplishments, we need to develop more altruism and a sense of caring and responsibility for others in the minds of the younger generation studying in various educational institutions. This can be done without necessarily involving religion. One could therefore call this 'secular ethics', as it in fact consists of basic human qualities such as kindness, compassion, sincerity and honesty.

This past century in some ways has been a century of war and bloodshed. It has seen a year by year increase in defense spending by most countries in the world. If we are to change this trend we must seriously consider the concept of non-violence, which is a physical expression of compassion. In order to make non-violence a reality we must first work on internal disarmament and then proceed to work on external disarmament. By internal disarmament I mean ridding ourselves of all the negative emotions that result in violence. External disarmament will also have to be done gradually, step by step. We must first work on the total abolishment of nuclear weapons and gradually work up to total demilitarization throughout the world. In the process of doing this we also need to work towards stopping the arms trade, which is still very widely practiced because it is so lucrative.

When we do all these things, we can then hope to see in the next millennium a year by year decrease in the military expenditure of the various nations and a gradual working towards demilitarization. Human problems will, of course, always remain - but the way to resolve them should be through dialogue and discussion. The next century should be a century of dialogue and discussion rather than one of war and bloodshed.

We need to address the issue of the gap between the rich and the poor, both globally and nationally. This inequality, with some sections of the human community having abundance and others on the same planet going hungry or even dying of starvation, is not only morally wrong, but practically also a source of problems. Equally important is the issue of freedom. As long as there is no freedom in many parts of the world there can be no real peace and in a sense no real freedom for the rest of the world. For the sake of our future generations, we need to take care of our earth and of our environment. Environmental damage is often gradual and not easily apparent and by the time we become aware of it, it is generally too late. Since most of the major rivers flowing into many parts of south-east Asia originate from the Tibetan plateau, it will not be out of place to mention here the crucial importance of taking care of the environment in that area. Lastly, one of the greatest challenges today is the population explosion. Unless we are able to tackle this issue effectively we will be confronted with the problem of the natural resources being inadequate for all the human beings on this earth. We need to seriously look into these matters that concern us all if we are to look forward to the future with some hope.

January 1, 2000