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Preface
This Study Guide has been prepared by a group of six friends associated with The Dalai Lama Foundation. We have been meeting regularly since November 2002, in Los Altos, California. Each month we review a chapter of Ethics for the New Millennium and take it as the starting point for an in-depth exploration of ethics in our own lives.
Our intention is to make this Study Guide available widely, through the Dalai Lama Foundation, to anyone who might want to start such a study group with their friends or colleagues. We offer it in the spirit of sharing an experience we have found meaningful and helpful in our own lives.
This document is available for downloading from the Dalai Lama Foundation website at
http://www.dalailamafoundation.org/studyguide
Our sincere wish is that this Study Guide serve as a support for many around the world as they strive to develop their own ethical practice and lay a strong foundation for their own happiness.
Marsha Clark
Caryl Gopfert
Tony Hoeber
Karen Jacke
Cornelia Shonkwiler
Deborah Whitman
March, 2004
Introduction to Ethics for the New Millennium
Ethics for the New Millennium is addressed to a general audience. It presents a moral framework based on universal rather than religious principles. It rests on the observation that those whose conduct is ethically positive are happier and more satisfied and the belief that much of the unhappiness we humans endure is actually of our own making. Its ultimate goal is happiness for every individual, irrespective of religious belief.
Though the Dalai Lama is himself a practicing Buddhist, his approach to life and the moral compass that guides him can be of use to each and every one of us – Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist or atheist – in our quest to lead a happier, more fulfilling life.
According to the Dalai Lama our survival has depended and will continue to depend on our basic goodness as human beings. In the past, the respect people had for their religion helped maintain ethical practice through a majority following one religion or another. Today, with the growing secularization and globalization of society, we must find a way that transcends religion to establish consensus as to what constitutes positive and negative conduct, what is right and wrong and what is appropriate and inappropriate.
Copyright©2004, The Dalai Lama Foundation
On the web at http://www.dalailamafoundation.org
You may make any number of copies of this Study Guide, for free non-commercial distribution,
as long as our copyright, web address, and this full notice appear on all copies.