Gyantse, Tibet - 1904

This Article from the New York Times was one of the most interesting pieces that I have read in a long time.

I find it incredible, how a group of men can invade a peaceful land and slaughter its people just to expand their empire and gain more power. Power is something that every human craves, the need for it is built into our very being. The way we have lived for thousands of years reflects that need. Mankind must always be the best, we must have the best way of life, we must have the best food, etc.

We always need to be in control, or we die. For teenagers we have to get our way or else we feel like we are going to die, it's like the world is crashing in on us. Entire governments have to wipe out countries to obtain enough power just to prove to the rest of the world how powerful they really are, or seem to be.

Perhaps the human species' yearn for power comes from our nature to show off. With money, clothes, and fancy cars defining the hierarchy of our society it is obvious that what we really care about is making ourselves untouchable.

And yet there are people like the Dalai Lama who have closed the door on that part of themselves and made a life where they can be at peace with themselves through embracing the pureness of their core.

"The British reached Lhasa soon afterward. Two months later, the evening before leaving Lhasa for good, Colonel Younghusband rode out to a mountain and gazed down at the ancient city, where he experienced a curious epiphany that inspired him to end all acts of bloodshed and found a religious movement, the World Congress of Faiths. “This exhilaration of the moment grew and grew till it thrilled through me with overpowering intensity,” he wrote in a memoir, “India and Tibet.” “Never again could I think evil, or ever again be at enmity with any man. All nature and all humanity were bathed in a rosy glowing radiancy; and life for the future seemed naught but buoyancy and light.” " -- China Seizes on a Dark Chapter for Tibet, Edward Wong, The New York Times --