Original subtitles

Over there, yeah. Father, over there.

Is it going to be OK with you here, Father?

Thank you.

Just like that.

OK.

All right.

Here we go.

OK.

ARCHIVE: The Tibetan people are being exterminated,

their culture and religion are being stamped out.

Since he was four years old, the Dalai Lama was trained to lead

his people, but lost control of his country to the Chinese Government,

and has led his people from exile for decades.

OBAMA: Amid tear gas and police dogs,

Desmond Tutu led a people against apartheid.

The idea of freedom has not yet come to this last remaining bastion

of white supremacy in Africa.

When people decide to be free,

absolutely NOTHING is going to stop them from becoming free.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa came to meet

the Dalai Lama.

An historic meeting of men whose lifelong quests for justice

and self-determination for their people

garnered each the Nobel Prize for Peace.

How are we doing, everyone? Are we ready? Button there.

Are we good?

OK, great.

His Holiness...

Listen.

Act like a holy man.

THEY LAUGH

I was actually with my dad when he and the Dalai Lama first met

at a museum in - of all places -

Newark, New Jersey.

It's a very great honour to meet His Holiness

and to know that one is in the presence

of a very great spiritual leader.

I don't think you could find two people on the planet

who are more different than the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu -

or Arch, as his friends call him.

One's from Africa, one's from Asia.

One's a Buddhist, one's a Christian.

One grew up in absolute poverty,

the other grew up in a thousand-room palace.

But immediately, they recognised each other as what they called

their mischievous spiritual brother.

I've sometimes said to him, "Shhhh!"

LAUGHTER

"The cameras are on us!"

You know the word "mischievous"?

You are mischievous, aren't you?

LAUGHTER

Honestly, the energy between them is eight-year-old boy.

I look at them and I think,

"I am so glad that I was not your third-grade teacher!"

Because they're so playful,

so much fun and teasing.

Unfortunately, he's a Buddhist.

LAUGHTER

At the beginning of the dialogue,

I was like, "Who the hell am I to try to sit down with these two

"incredible spiritual leaders and try to distil their wisdom?"

But, as Arch says, sometimes you're the one in the room

and it doesn't matter what your strengths or your limitations are -

you have to just show up and let what wants to happen happen.

I have worked with this young man...

Since when? At least a decade.

I think that Doug sees my dad as another father.

And my dad sees Doug as...

Yeah, another of his beloved children.

Nothing will stop us, for we are moving to freedom!

I first learned about Archbishop Tutu

when I was an undergraduate in college.

It is my great honour to introduce a man of courage -

Bishop Desmond Tutu.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

At that time, he travelled the world,

speaking out against the white South African government,

and on college campuses

across the US, he was treated as something like a rock star.

In a situation of injustice and oppression,

there can be no neutrality.

You have to take sides.

You have to say, "Am I on the side of justice

"or am I on the side of injustice?"

I was so inspired.

I wondered, how does a man like this -

how does he live day to day, and what can I learn from that?

Before we begin, I want to thank Jinpa,

who worked very hard with me on the questions

and any of the good questions are his,

any of the bad questions are mine.

THEY LAUGH

So, when we speak about Buddha, Dharma and Sangha...

Jinpa is the long-time translator for the Dalai Lama.

He was a Buddhist monk who left monastic life,

went to Cambridge and got a PhD

and is one of the most extraordinary translators

and interpreters of Tibetan text.

I'd become the interpreter for His Holiness,

which meant my service was not so much to the Tibetan community,

my service was to His Holiness, to the world.

I also want to ask us to just forget about the cameras -

this is not live. If you fall asleep, that's fine.

HE CHUCKLES

If anyone could help us live with more joy in the face of the pain

in our lives and the pain in our world, it was these two men.

It's clear that laughter is central to the way

that you are in the world.

Your spiritual practice hasn't made you sombre and serious,

it's made you more joyful.

So, how can people cultivate that sense of joy

as a way of being, not just a feeling?

HE LAUGHS

Yes.

Yes. In fact, when you...

..say you are pursuing happiness...

..you are not going to find it.

It's very elusive.

Potential?

But let me ask you.

You've been in exile...

50-what years?

56!

From a country that you love...

..more than anything else.

Why are you not morose?

Sad, sad.

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama was born to an ordinary farmer's family.

In fact, his parents were illiterate.

13th Dalai Lama passed away.

The Tibetan succession system for choosing the next Dalai Lama

relies on this Buddhist concept of reincarnation.

There's a formal recognition of a child at a very young age

as the continuity of the Dalai Lama,

and he was recognised at the age of two.

One of the method as part of the process involves identifying

what objects belonging to the predecessor,

which are mixed with other objects, as well.

He passed the test with flying colours.

Once he was formally recognised,

he was brought to Lhasa, to central Tibet, the Potala Palace.

That meant the day-to-day upbringing was handled by monks,

tutors and attendants.

His Holiness, in some of his books, writes of loneliness.

His curiosity was piqued by science.

He had a fascination for mechanical things.

From the Potala Palace, he would see these shepherds' kids,

you know, coming home, bringing home the goats and other animals,

you know, singing freely and whistling with a sense of abandon.

You know, the expectation, aspiration and hopes of the entire

Tibetan people was placed upon - you know, I would say unfairly -

upon the shoulders of this young kid.

Communist China claims that Tibet has been historically part of China,

and it's reclaiming what it sees as lost territory.

And by 1951, they had completely taken over the entire country.

Up until 1959, the Dalai Lama really made efforts to try to find

a political solution to the arrangement

of China's presence in Tibet.

March 10th 1959,

thousands and thousands of people came out into the streets,

protesting against the Chinese presence,

which then created the large-scale people's uprising.

And soon after, there was a bombardment by the Chinese.

EXPLOSION

Then the question was, how do you get out of this

without being noticed?

What His Holiness did was to disguise himself as a soldier.

I can imagine those few moments when he's stepping out of

his palace compound and pretending to be, you know, one of the guards.

And he left Lhasa and then began the long journey to India.

NEWSREEL: No-one could have told from his unruffled bearing,

as he was greeted by high Indian officials, that the Dalai Lama

had been in mortal danger since he left Lhasa -

that he had been forced to leave his capital.

Reframing - cognitive reframing - is really a powerful technique

to change your mind-set.

And in the Buddhist language, we call it outlook.

And this is a fundamental insight in Buddhist psychology.

That's why so much emphasis is placed in Buddhist psychology

on changing the way you see the world

instead of resentment and bitterness.

Reframing can help us, liberate us from that resentment, and free us.

I mean that, what you've said is quite wonderful.

I think, to add to it, is...

The thing is not, how do you escape?

It's, how can I use this as something positive?

And Your Holiness has indicated that nothing, I think,

can be more devastating,

in many ways, than being turfed out of your own country.

I mean, it's part of you - and, by rights, His Holiness should be...

..a sourpuss!

I mean, he should be...

Just do that face - leave your face as it is normally.

You look like that.

You look like you are a real sourpuss.

Oh!

And then when you smile, your face lights up.

And it is because, in very large measure,

you have transmuted what would have been totally negative -

you've transmuted it into goodness.

Because, again, you have not said,

"Well, how could I be happy?"

You've not said that - you've said...

.."How can I help to spread compassion and love?"

The idea of the dialogues was to explore the nature of joy

in the face of adversity.

But they also wanted us to bring in the science.

They said this shouldn't be a Buddhist dialogue

or a Christian dialogue -

this should be about the nature of being human.

And so they asked me to find out whether what they were saying

was confirmed or contradicted by science.

Dr Sonja Lyubomirsky, at the University of California, Riverside

has done some extraordinary studies on the science of happiness.

My lab and I started doing what we call happiness interventions,

so they are basically like clinical trials, but instead of testing

a new treatment - say, for Covid -

we're testing a happiness strategy.

In one typical study, we found that people who did acts of kindness

for others became happier and actually stayed happier

for about two to four weeks after the study was over.

And then people who did acts of kindness for themselves

felt good while they were doing it,

but that didn't change their happiness.

So, what really was important about kindness

was that you're connecting with another person,

and it might actually have effects on the body.

So, we collected blood, and we found that those who did acts of kindness

for others showed changes in their RNA gene expression in the blood

that were associated with a healthier immune profile.

So it turns out that happiness isn't just something that feels good -

it's not just about pleasure - but it's more than that.

Happier people have more friends,

they're also more productive at work, they're more creative,

they're physically healthier, they have stronger immune systems -

they even live longer.

You're very good, yeah.

You're wise.

I wouldn't say wise selfish, you are wise.

THEY LAUGH

You don't wake up in the morning and say,

"Hey, I'm going to become a friend to the Dalai Lama."

It just happens.

I think it was a communication of the heart.

I thought you were non-violent!

The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu

have only actually been together half a dozen times.

You know, global spiritual masters

don't have a lot of time to hang out with their buddies.

That's great.

LAUGHTER

The Dalai Lama was invited to my dad's 80th birthday in Cape Town.

# Happy birthday to you... #

The South African government at that time

had extensive trade relationships with China,

and they delayed the process of issuing him a visa

for weeks and weeks and weeks.

It's quite unbelievable,

the discourtesy that they have shown

to the Dalai Lama.

I mean, Dalai Lama!

I am warning you.

One day, we will start praying

for the defeat of the ANC Government.

For the African National Congress,

for the ANC to prevent the Dalai Lama from coming to South Africa -

not giving him a visa - was just a betrayal.

So, we knew that the only way to get them together

was to bring Arch to Dharamsala.

We just didn't know if his health would be strong enough.

My father had several recurrences of prostate cancer.

And so there was, you know, constant concerns

and in and out of hospitals and all kinds of infections.

So, eventually, all of the pieces fell into place.

My father was so happy to finally see his dear friend again

and to embark on a joint mission

that spoke to their life's work -

a mission of joy.

LAUGHTER

Now, people are now going to know

that the Dalai Lama comes into a room

and he's looking around,

maybe sitting with presidents or something -

he hopes that the chair will break down.

LAUGHTER

He's doing very well.

He's behaving like a human being!

LAUGHTER

What is the role of enjoyment and enjoying your life for you?

As a monastic, people may say,

"Oh, he has renounced pleasure or enjoyment of his life."

What?

Did you say that?

You are a monk, remember?

Have you renounced pleasure and enjoyment?

I sat next to you at lunch the other day,

it looked like you were enjoying this wonderful food.

And one of the most fascinating things about that week together

was that when we asked people to send us their questions,

we got thousands of responses.

They definitely were interested in the big questions

of why we're here, the nature of life, and about mortality.

There's a question of how you think about your own deaths.

How do you think about that possibility?

THEY LAUGH

Well, he doesn't mind too much because there's reincarnation.

The Chinese say they are going to decide...

You must be nice to them!

Yes. Well, I should say that, for a very long time,

the thought of my demise...

..brought a great deal of anxiety.

I've had a number of near-fatal illnesses.

As a child, I had polio...

..and my father went off to buy the wood for making my coffin.

And then, in my teenage years,

I developed TB.

I was quite surprised - after, I said,

"God, if this is curtains for me, then it's OK."

I have to admit that I was surprised

at the calm and the peace that came over me.

Er...

This is a fact of life -

death is a fact of life.

Yes. A-ha!

LAUGHTER

Hmm.

Good 'un.

Yes.

I think there's a lot of shared background -

you know, both of them are deeply spiritual people

and also both of them have deep history

of struggle against authoritarian systems.

ARCHIVE: Bishop Desmond Tutu has become

the leading voice in South Africa against that country's system

of separation of the races, apartheid,

under which the best housing, jobs and education are reserved

for the white minority and are denied to the 22 million blacks.

Apartheid really began in 1948, but separating black Africans

from the white minority had long been a policy aim.

Many had no right to citizenship

and were regarded as aliens in major cities.

Instead, they were made citizens of Bantustans -

homelands scattered throughout South Africa.

I'm from one of the townships in South Africa.

Black townships.

Squalor-ridden.

Archbishop, you were saying how His Holiness has experienced

great suffering in his exile, but you too, in apartheid,

and you and your people experienced great suffering.

And even in your personal life, you have dealt with cancer,

you're dealing with prostate cancer now.

You've been able to maintain that joy

in the face of that suffering. How have you been able to do it?

Well, I've certainly been helped by many other people.

You open, you blossom...

..really because of other people.

When I was about nine, my mother was working as a domestic worker

at a institute for blind people.

I recall this white priest in a long, flowing cassock,

doffing his hat to my mother.

That struck me as being quite odd.

That was completely unheard of in the South Africa of the time.

White man would not treat a black woman, and a washer woman at that,

as a person worthy of dignified respect.

Trevor Huddleston was

the superior of the Community of the Resurrection,

which was an Anglican order of monks.

Later, when my dad was hospitalised with tuberculosis,

Trevor was a regular visitor,

used to bring him magazines

and comic books.

When you help someone who is less well-off,

when you are kind to someone else,

you end up being joyful.

But why? Because we realise that we are made for goodness.

I was the fourth child,

and I remember being very young and

having my dad teaching me to write.

My parents had been teachers before the Bantu Education Act.

Both of them left teaching in protest of that,

and that was actually when my father went to study for ministry.

Basically, what the apartheid government said was

that there's no reason

to educate black people beyond their station,

so anything beyond what enables you to be a useful servant

is more than you need to know.

The system tries to destroy us.

It won't succeed.

I want to tell you, it won't succeed.

ARCHIVE: Police in South Africa arrested Archbishop Desmond Tutu

and several other church leaders during a protest demonstration.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, police continue to use

their emergency powers to stifle anti-government opposition.

I remember it as a moment when you realised that black life was cheap.

Tutu reiterated a commitment to non-violence,

but added, it's very important when talking about violence to note

that the primary violence in South Africa is the violence of apartheid.

DOG GROWLING

There were 19 coffins of those shot by police

while marching to another funeral three weeks ago.

Someone is killed almost every day in clashes with the police.

And reflected by what was today the greatest gathering of black grief

and protest in this country ever,

the passions aroused in recent months seem,

if anything, more intense.

The crowd thought this man was a police informer -

he would have died here, kicked to death.

But Bishop Tutu saved his life, rushing from his car and pleading

with the crowd to leave him alone.

They would have listened to no-one else.

I am saying...

We were on the edge of a precipice.

We were fortunate our country did not go up in flames.

Arch became one of the central figures

of the anti-apartheid struggle

because so many of the political activists,

like Nelson Mandela, were in jail or in exile.

And it really became his ministry and his mission

to explain to the world what was happening in South Africa.

People are peace-loving and have sought to bring about

a change in that ghastly system by conventional, peaceful methods.

And the reaction of the Government has been

police bullets, tear gas, detention and death.

And he became public enemy number one.

Is there anyone here who says, "We will not be free"?

CROWD: No!

He was ultimately significant in bringing down the apartheid regime.

You can, in fact, overcome some of

the most horrendous circumstances

and emerge on the other side...

..not broken, with the eagerness

to spread goodness and compassion in the world.

I was thinking of Nelson Mandela.

When he went to jail, he was young.

He was the head of the armed wing of African National Congress.

MANDELA: There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile

for us to continue talking peace and non-violence

against the Government, whose reply is only savage attacks

on an unarmed and defenceless people.

And I think the time has come for us...

He believed firmly that the enemy had to be decimated.

That is the guy who went in.

He goes on to Robben Island

and is mistreated.

They are made to dig in a quarry.

They were sleeping on the floor, no mattress.

He spent 27 years.

And many would say, "27, oh, what a waste!"

No!

That suffering in prison

helped him to become more magnanimous.

Willing to listen to the other side,

to see the people he regarded as enemy...

You know, they too were human beings who had

fears, expectations,

and they had been moulded by their society.

It's like being put in a kind of fiery furnace to be refined.

And in fact, in some ways,

some suffering - maybe even intense suffering -

is a necessary ingredient for developing...

..compassion.

Yes.

Hmm.

HE SPEAKS TIBETAN

So, this shows the Tibetan saying is really true. Mm-hm.

And, you know, the suffering is what makes you appreciate joy.

A classical Buddhist education involves many years

of rigorous academic training,

a large part of which is actually in the format of a dialectical debate.

You know, a concept needs to be always examined thoroughly.

If it is not tested,

it's like a sand castle - with one finger below,

the whole thing crumbles down.

And His Holiness has a very sophisticated academic background.

And this is one of the reasons why,

when he sits down with scientists and academics - you know,

Western scholars - to engage in a deep conversation of any topic,

they are surprised to see an intellect.

They are fascinated by the way in which his mind works.

I first met His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1992.

He invited me to talk with him about the possibility of engaging

in neuroscientific research

with Tibetan monks,

practitioners who have spent years training their mind.

I began my career studying the disturbed mind,

and when I met His Holiness for the first time,

he challenged me in a very direct way and he said,

"Why can't you use the same tools of modern neuroscience

"that you've been using to study depression and anxiety and fear -

"why can't you use those same tools to study kindness

"and to study compassion?"

When we first proposed this,

most people looked at us like we were absolutely nuts.

But here's the experiment.

What we do is we bring people into the laboratory

and we put a kind of metal plate that we strap onto a person's wrist.

And through this plate,

we can circulate water very, very rapidly

and we can regulate the temperature of the water.

And I could tell you that this is damn hot.

It feels like it's burning your skin.

So, we just give them one experience of this

so that they know what we're talking about,

they have the direct experience.

Then we bring them into the formal experiment

and they're in the MRI scanner.

And we tell them we're going to give them two tones.

When they hear one tone - which is a high-pitched tone, "beep!" -

then they know that, in ten seconds, they're going to get zapped

with this very painful stimulus.

If they hear a low tone - "boop!" -

they know that they will just feel warm,

but it won't be hot.

Very simple.

So, we have people who have meditated

and we have controls - people who've never meditated -

they're age- and gender-matched and they go through this experiment.

Now, we know where in the brain the pain circuits reside,

so we know exactly where to look.

And when we look at those circuits in the non-meditating controls,

the moment we present the high-pitched tone - "beep" -

their brain responds as if it received the actual pain.

So, nothing's happened other than they got a tone,

but their brains are responding as if they got the heat.

When you do that with the meditators,

they receive the tone - "beep!"...

Nothing happens.

There's absolutely no significant change in the pain matrix.

They're flat.

Then, when the actual heat comes on, both groups respond.

But then as soon as the pain goes off,

the meditators come right back down to baseline,

whereas the controls persist -

their pain circuits are still reverberating.

It's as if they can't shut them off. They're ruminating about the pain.

The conclusion that our work has led us to -

very simply, but we think it's a very radical conclusion -

and that is that wellbeing is a skill.

Wellbeing can actually be learned,

it can be nurtured, and it's a skill that can enable us to live

a happier life.

When human beings first evolved on this planet,

none of us were brushing our teeth.

This is a learned behaviour, it's not part of our genome.

And if we spent even the short amount of time

that we spend every day brushing our teeth

nurturing our mind, this world would be a very different place.

His Holiness and my dad are both people who have

very strong disciplines of prayer and quiet time.

When I went to seminary and was ordained,

I had the experience of learning my dad's language

in a way that allowed me to have

a different quality of conversation with him.

The most important lesson that I have taken

is taking time for prayer, and taking time for quiet.

For him, that's the first priority, and everything else flows from that.

It's incredibly rare for anyone to be able to go to the inner sanctum

of the Dalai Lama's meditation room.

It's this very private room

where His Holiness spends most of his time,

where all of his texts are.

And the seat is facing the altar,

which contains a Kyirong Jowo - the most sacred icon

in the entire Tibetan Buddhist world.

The Dalai Lama is going to share one of his meditations with us

and he's like,

"OK, so every morning I start off with a death meditation."

You know, and I think about how my body and my identity will dissolve.

We then had a Eucharist service.

The Eucharist is a prayer of thanksgiving for the life of Christ

and for Christ's life in us.

Blessed be God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We share in the body and blood of Christ,

and so typically, we have bread and wine.

My father whispered in my ear,

"Do I offer him the Eucharist? Do I NOT offer him the Eucharist?"

Serving communion to non-Christians is controversial for some people.

I think where my father has landed

is that it's God's table, it's not his table,

and so whoever approaches the table with reverence

comes at God's invitation.

His Holiness fully participated in this.

It was a very powerful experience for me personally

because Archbishop led through the sacrament.

Glory to God in the highest, and peace to His people on Earth.

Really?

Yes, you are wonderful.

LAUGHTER

You won't keep him humble, though.

I want to jump for a second next to our next topic,

which is about despair

and hopelessness.

According to the UN,

350 million people in our world

suffer from depression.

They no longer have hope.

What do you say to people who come to this work

where that sadness has become despair and hopelessness?

Yes, but I think he is wanting to see how do we help people

who really want to be joyful,

but who are holding on by the skin of their teeth?

For me, when I have some anguish in my life,

what keeps me going is that

I am a prisoner of hope.

But it's not something that just comes ready-made from heaven.

We are human beings - fallible human beings -

and His Holiness points out that, I mean, now...

I mean, we see him so

serene and calm,

but there was a time when he, too...

GGGGRRRRRRR!!!

LAUGHTER

And His Holiness' serenity didn't come ready made.

It was through the practice of prayer, meditation...

..that the gentleness,

the compassion grew.

It's like muscles

that have to be exercised

in order for them to get their right tone

and to be strengthened.

The Tibetan Children's Village

is where children who have come as refugees from Tibet

come to live - it's a sort of an orphanage, really.

It's an orphanage, a school.

One of the things that is happening in Tibet is the Chinese Government

is really trying to suppress Tibetan culture.

Because of this,

some parents who are in Tibet

will send their children

to the Tibetan Children's Village.

I was originally sent to the Tibetan Children's Village

when I was four years old.

My first memory of meeting with the Dalai Lama is probably

when I was about seven years old, six years old.

This was at the Tibetan Children's Village in Shimla, northern India,

and the entire school community was busy preparing,

you know, cleaning the roads and, you know,

drawing patterns on the ground in the traditional Tibetan style.

And it turned out that I was one of the two children

who was appointed to, you know, walk beside him, holding his hand.

One of the questions I asked him was, you know,

whether I can become a monk -

so I don't know, there seemed to have been some karma.

First of all, I would like to say tashi delek.

My name is Tenzin Tsering.

Now I'm going to share how I escaped from Tibet.

I'm Tenzin Dolma of Class 12.

I was born in a small village called Kanze, in Kham province, in Tibet.

I came from Tibet when I was five years old, in 2002.

It was a great loss for me, not being with my family,

especially my mother.

My journey is very difficult

because we crossed Mount Kailash and many rivers.

We had to hide from the Chinese police,

so my grandmother hid me among the luggage,

or under the seat of the bus.

I was only five and I had to leave my family behind.

the pain I went through, leaving my family...

SHE WEEPS

Sorry.

That was really an aching moment,

an aching encounter.

And His Holiness always is aware that there is a kind of a...

..expectation on his part to be the rock,

to be the anchor,

you know, for every Tibetan.

So I think that has always sort of...

On his part, it was more of a...

Not so much giving comfort, per se, but giving courage.

Whereas Archbishop's immediate response was to give comfort.

Feelings - we have no control over our feelings.

Well, it is painful - it IS painful - you know?

And you have to acknowledge that it is painful.

Yes. But I think we ought not to make people feel guilty.

Emotions are spontaneous things that arise.

The Dalai Lama was saying, if we do our spiritual practices,

if we take the time to cultivate ourselves,

we can prevent ourselves

from falling into fear, anger and sadness.

But, as Arch said, inevitably, at some points, we are.

Because we're human!

I would say...

..to everyone, you are... You are made for perfection.

You are made for perfection.

You are not yet perfect.

You are a masterpiece in the making.

The concept that we have in South Africa, the concept of ubuntu,

where it says a person is a person through other persons.

I mean, I could not speak as I'm speaking

without having learnt it from other human beings.

I could not think as a human being,

except through learning it from other human beings.

We belong in this delicate network.

You know, I mean, when you think of Doctors Without Borders -

why do they go there?

I mean, they could stay in France or wherever

and have a wonderful practice.

But they don't!

They go off to some of the most poverty-stricken places.

Those doctors and nurses,

people going into a hugely dangerous situation.

You know, the outpouring of love

and compassion and caring

by people you... I mean, you don't know them from Adam.

And people just give and give

because that's, see, that's actually who we really are.

Yes. It's...

It's how we are made.

We're wired to be compassionate.

We're wired to be caring for the other.

If you live out ubuntu,

ubuntu says,

"We can be human only together."

It's no surprise that when

the essence of their wisdom is distilled,

the key to joy is to get in touch

with your own natural compassion and live from there.

Find a way to live from there.

SOBS

At the end of the apartheid era, many people didn't know

how their loved ones had died,

where their loved ones were buried,

knew nothing of the ends of their loved ones' lives.

This is an opportunity

to put the past behind you.

The liberation movement wanted to have Nuremberg-style trials

for those who had been the perpetrators of the worst

of the human rights violations under apartheid. The apartheid

government wanted amnesty for all of those who had been perpetrators.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was something

of a compromise. In exchange for telling the truth of their actions,

people would be immune from prosecution.

There's one thing that I will have to live till the day I die.

It's the corpses that I will have to drag with me to my grave

of the people whom I've killed.

Forgiveness meant, "I'm wiping the slate clean so that we can work

"together for a better tomorrow,

"a different narrative of who we are

"as a South African community."

And my father was invited to chair the commission.

We are charged to unearth the truth about our dark past.

To lay the ghosts of that past

so that they will not return to haunt us,

and that we will thereby contribute

to the healing of a traumatised and wounded people.

When you shot this man, what did you see?

HE SPEAKS AFRIKAANS

TRANSLATION: I shot him on the side of his head.

Captain Ryan Bellingham was accompanied by this colleague,

Constable Thapelo Mbelo.

TRANSLATION: A man approached us raising his arms.

One sergeant from the right unit - he was a white sergeant -

said I should shoot this man.

I shot him whilst he was lying on his back.

We had mothers of some young people who were killed.

One man who betrayed these young people

appeared in front of these mothers

and asked for their forgiveness.

And one of the mothers said, "My child, I forgive you."

There is an incredible kind of nobility and strength.

We have the potential

to be instruments of incredible

compassion and forgiveness.

THEY LAUGH

Absolutely, yes.

I was just going to say

those who say forgiving is a sign of weakness

haven't tried it.

But often the people that we have the hardest time forgiving

are the people who are closest to us. Yes, yes.

My father's father was the headmaster of the school

across the street from their home.

My grandfather was wonderful, fun, bright

and all of those positive attributes.

But when he got drunk, he became violent and abusive.

My mother, she was just such a very gentle person.

An incredible human being.

And that just made it, I think, worse.

I used to get so, so angry.

If I'd been bigger,

I would wallop him.

SHOUTING

I was very angry with myself

for being too small to intervene

when she was being roughed up.

If he were here, looking at you,

what would you say to him?

I would certainly tell him

I was deeply hurt

by how he treated my mother.

One great regret I have is when my

father said he wanted to talk to me,

there was something he wanted to tell me, and, um...

..I was too tired and I said, "No, well, we'll talk.

"Can we talk tomorrow?"

It sometimes happens only in novels.

CHUCKLES

We were awakened early in the morning...

..by someone telling us that my father died the previous evening,

and so I've never known what it was he wanted to tell me.

I hope it was that maybe he

had a premonition of his death

and wanted to say

how sorry he was for the treatment

that he had meted out to my mother.

And so I...

Yes, I regret that and, um...

It is...it is a burden on my heart and my spirit,

and I can only hope that, uh...

..he...he will have forgiven me.

CHILDREN SING

We went to the Tibetan Children's Village for the birthday party.

We wanted to throw a little surprise party for the Dalai Lama.

Ended up having 2,500 people.

As we arrived, of course, there were literally

over 1,000 students, all wearing their Tibetan school uniforms.

I just remember being struck by the quality of attention

that the children gave.

We are now going to have a brief question-and-answer session.

Your Holiness, can joy be the ultimate means

for world peace? Thank you.

Reverend Tutu, how can we achieve true joy and happiness?

Joy is the reward really

of seeking to give joy to others.

When you are caring, compassionate,

more concerned about the welfare

of others than of your own,

you suddenly feel a warm glow

in your heart because you have,

in fact, wiped the tears

from the eyes of another.

Thank you.

APPLAUSE

MUSIC PLAYS

# We are the world

# We are the children

# We are the ones who make a brighter day

# So let's start giving

Arch is dancing with this fantastic sway,

and he's so cool and, you know,

the Dalai Lama is standing there kind of nervous.

# We are the world...

Now, to be frank, monastics members are not supposed to dance.

It's actually one of the precepts! LAUGHS

No singing and no dancing.

# There's a choice we're making

# We're saving our own lives

# It's true we'll make a better day, just you and me

He was able to persuade His Holiness to stand up

and at least do some moves! LAUGHS

# It's true we'll make a better day, just you and me

# It's true we'll make a better day, just you and me

# It's true we'll make a better day, just you and me. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The whole week went from being about gathering wisdom to just getting

to witness them enjoy each other and crack a lot of jokes.

Wait, wait, wait...

# Happy birthday to you

# Happy birthday to you. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

CHEERING

LAUGHTER

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I think my last question for you both is... Yay!

HE LAUGHS

..I think you might be excited, but everybody else is sorry

to see this incredible conversation come to a close.

The last question is about the joy in your friendship,

and I'm wondering what is it about your friendship with each other

that allows you to have this kind of extraordinary joy?

He's always troubling me.

LAUGHTER

I admire him enormously.

Oh, oh, he's going to get proud!

LAUGHTER

I'm just saying he is there for us

as a beacon, and maybe

the Chinese, without intending it,

have given the world a wonderful gift.

Pay me, pay me, pay me!

LAUGHTER

Yes.

You are mischievous!

THEY LAUGH

Yes, mm.

LAUGHTER

HE CHUCKLES

Thank you.

Our best friendships are friendships that are really based

in profound respect for one another.

It grows us in ways that we don't necessarily choose to grow.

At the fundamental level,

every single human being is exactly the same.

Vulnerable to pain, fear, unhappiness

and aspiring to be happy, to seek connection,

to find meaning, to find love. There is no difference.

It doesn't really matter where you come from.

That is the fundamental human condition,

and compassion speaks to that reality of who we are.

I think there's nothing more profound than recognising

the joy that is at the heart of our shared humanity.

And that all the fear and the anger and the sadness that consumes

so much of our life is actually to get us back to that joy,

to get us back to one another.

And I think the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu's message

is that we can reconnect to our humanity

and to one another's humanity.

And that is where we find joy and happiness

that we can access at any time.

LAUGHTER