The Dalai Lama emphatically delivered a bold point: The way to happiness is not ``self-cherishing'' but the labor of helping others. In the international arena, he stressed, the right way is not violence or confrontation but dialogue, tolerance and understanding.

His Holiness never mentioned Cuba, but his message was a perfect fit. Tibet, like Cuba, is under communist control. Like the local diaspora, the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers went into exile following upheavals in their countries in 1959. As in Cuba, the lack of liberty or respect for human rights is a serious concern in Tibet.

I was happy to hear from His Holiness a message that meshes with the Pope's views on how to deal with Cuba. And I was moved by the Dalai Lama's projection of compassion, loving kindness, joy and equanimity, the four cardinal Buddhist qualities.

Unlike the short-term perspective of most politicians, the Dalai Lama expressed the wisdom of a philosopher-king: It matters not to what ethnic, religious or cultural group we belong; we are all human beings. As such, we all feel the same things and just ``want to be happy.''

To destroy an enemy, he explained, is to destroy ourselves. To rely on violence is to breed more violence. Although violence temporarily may resolve a problem, he said, it has many ramifications -- karma -- that ultimately make matters worse.

Reliable reports show that the Chinese have killed more than 300,000 Tibetans and have caused the starvation of 700,000. The Chinese have destroyed more than 6,000 temples and have attempted systematically to destroy Buddhism and Tibet's national identity. Chinese soldiers have engaged in a campaign of terror. The word Holocaust, connoting Nazi-type atrocities, causes no dissonance in this context.

Yet the Dalai Lama has insisted time and again upon the need for peaceful change based on compromise and an abiding faith in the fundamental purity of humankind, our Buddha nature. In the Dalai Lama's view, the only real solution to intractable problems is to promote peace and other positive conditions where even one's ``enemy'' can change.

In contrast, for four decades the United States has followed a pressure-cooker strategy toward Cuba: make life so difficult for the people that eventually they will explode in a bloody rebellion resulting in the overthrow of the communist government. It is clear that the Dalai Lama would not agree with this strategy, which hurts the Cuban people much more than their rulers.

The first of all Buddhist precepts is ``not to kill, but to cherish all life.'' Not to kill means, in its broadest sense, not to do harm (ahimsa). This dictate results from the Buddhist view that all life is one indivisible whole; our sense of separate selves the product of an error in our perceptions. Thus, Buddhism is the only major religion that has not promoted any kind of war.

In Costa Rica, for example -- which has no standing army but does have a decades-old tradition of mutual tolerance and respect -- there is more stability and economic progress than in other nations in a region gripped by civil strife. This proves that ahimsa works.

The Dalai Lama's ``thought-provoking'' message was that peace is not a destination; it is the way. Let's curb our war-mongering based on anger (one of the four Buddhist ``poisons''), abandon attachment to our self-righteous notions and concentrate on helping our brothers and sisters with loving kindness and compassion.