Exploring Ethics Beyond Religion: A Guide to Developing Morality for a Global Community

Timbo: A book that all people can relate. Good material for discussion. Do we need someone to teach us in school how to be compassionate. Maybe, I am not sure. I that is up to the individual. Great book.

United States on Mar 10, 2023

Alex Y. Yoon: I have been studying about secular Buddhism for a while and I just love Tenzin Gyatso's teaching.
As soon as I started reading, I just could not put the book down. I finished it in a couple day and there are so many great teachings about how to be a compassionate person, not as a Buddhist, but just as a human being. I believe that everyone should read this and it would be even better for all the school to teach about empirical truth teachings.

United States on Mar 07, 2023

Sandy Watts: I like the DVD selection by the Dalai Lama. I listen to many of his talks, and I learn more each time about choices to make to reduce my anxiety and live in "the now." I remember I only have this moment to live in vs the past or the future and to be grateful for each moment. Excellent purchase for me!

United States on Sep 27, 2022

Laura Sarmiento: Well written and insightful.Gives a great framework to work on yourself spiritually and to achieve inner peace and master ourselves better.

United Kingdom on Jan 03, 2022

Ed Barton: The Dalai Lama is one of the religious figures that transcends his denomination. In this well written philosophical text, he explores the value of developing a secular set of ethics, with compassion, balance and acceptance as key elements. His approach remains influenced by Eastern practice and philosophy, but does not rely on Buddhism or any other religion to grasp. A good read.

United States on Nov 06, 2021

Vayne77: I had the please of seeing the Dalai Lama once while boarding a plane and it stroke me how humble he is. I know that I will never achieve this level but that does not stop me of trying and working on it :-).

The opening and ending of the book are the best - the middle part seems to drift away a little from the message (hence four stars) but all in all it was a good reading and there are seem great lessons to be learned. I appreciate he also spends time on how to learn to meditate.

There are two key elements that are key in the book: "I am a man of religion but religion alone cannot answer all of our problems" and "within the scale of the life of the cosmos, a human life is no more than a tiny blip. Each one of us is a visitor to this planet, a guest, who only has a finite time to stay. What greater folly could there be than to spend this short time lonely, unhappy and in conflict with our fellow visitors".

The Dalai Lama makes an appeal to our humanity - we are not that much different from each other and instead of being angry and doing horrible things to others because we think we're different we need to achieve peaceful conflict resolution. We should not be...

United Kingdom on Sep 20, 2021

Ashish Sharma: Page quality best👍👍and content of book is awesome good to read when a religious figure talk beyond religion 🙏🙏

India on Sep 11, 2021

James Kearney Jr.: This is a book that I think a lot of people need in the current climate of the world right now. I am just finishing the book in November 2020. Even though the book was written back in 2011 I believe, the knowledge that it puts forward is timeless. A lot of this should be automatic for human-beings, but you'd be surprised how many people a lot of the concepts in the book just simply do not apply to or are a foreign concept to them. Mainly compassion, which is spoke about a lot in the book, just seems like it is lacking today. I think if we all take a second to step back, assess, and then open our mouths, the world would be at least that much better. We have seem to forgotten that the world is bigger than just ourselves and need to try to come back to remember that. We all seem to have to forgotten that other people have feelings and they should be taken into consideration. Its very easy to get wrapped up in the me me me culture and completely forget that in the end it is all us us us. “You” may have gotten what you wanted, but what about all the people that was crushed along the way? Are they any less important than yourself? Myself, I picked up the kindle version of this book...

United States on Nov 09, 2020

Kalyanaraman: His Holiness the Dalai lama, expressed his immense experience and wisdom towards the benevolence of entire human society. I observed that His Holiness took extreme precaution on interpretation of modern scientific evidences (psychology, neurology, evolutionary biology and behavioral aspects of several organisms) and provided appropriate justification for the basic quality (compassion and love) that resides in each and every human heart. Further, His Holiness described the steps that required to move our life one step further using classical Buddhist tools without boasting himself or buddhism. His Holiness, perspective on impact of globalization on religions, race, ethics and morals aided me to understand the socio-dynamic problems (to some extent) that prevail in my country. Further, the possible solutions addressed or little steps provided by His Holiness certainly make a better way to live harmoniously. His Holiness, message on the necessity of Secular country or Secular thoughts with examples of Indian Subcontinent People is need of the hour. Ironically, His Holiness inference on the failure of scientific methodologies (after french revolution) to fulfill the spiritual needs...

India on Sep 08, 2018

Charles SimmondsCharles Simmonds: I give an unreserved five star rating to His Holiness's book "Beyond Religion". The theme is that we should be compassionate to other people and also in this way satisfy our inner selves. I am sure many people and humanity in general will benefit as more people read this book.
His approach uses excellent examples from His lifelong exposure to Budhist teaching. I had understood though that The Buddha started with the idea of developing inner peace and shutting out the turmoil from elsewhere in the world, however much Buddhists might lead us now in wanting to help humanity.
His Holiness writes that close to the heart of major religions has been the aim of promotion of kindness and compassion in people, which is good. Much of the Qur'an however is devoted to getting people who lived then to go and fight in Muhammad's army, for the booty of goods and slaves and to kill people who had not yet converted to Islam. The Roman Catholic Church used torture to get confessions until the mid nineteenth century. The word "Inquisition" was not removed from the department until 1908. The Papal States retained the last Jewish ghetto.
In 1949 President Truman authorized development of the...

United Kingdom on Aug 02, 2015