The Dalai Lama has called for parents and teachers to nurture the "inner-value" in their children during the Tibetan Buddhist leader's latest visit to Brisbane.
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Speaking to reporters after his Nagarjuna's Precious Garland teaching at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Thursday morning, the Dalai Lama said love and affection enriched children's lives into adulthood.
"I have some critical views about the existing modern education system that's very much oriented around material value," he said.
"They are much lacking, are not adequate, in education about warm heartedness or inner-value.
"So hopefully, eventually, I think our education system eventually can be a more complete form.
"Then, I think, it will really nurture our inner-value, which we learnt from our mother, then gradually through education nurtured that, then we human beings can become more happy.
"Otherwise there's too much anger, too much fear, too much stress."
Parents, too, should be central to that process, the Dalai Lama said.
"If mother or parent spent more time and provide maximum love, that's very important," he said.
"It's not just nice food or some vitamin, but I think the vitamin of love is very important.
"And then I think, in the eyes of children, the parents should not quarrel," he said, ending his comment with his trademark laugh.
The Dalai Lama planned to attend an interfaith service at St Stephen's Catholic cathedral on Thursday afternoon.
He said religions had more in common than many thought.
"I'm a person who's aged 80 years and during the last several decades, I have very close intimate relations with a number of not only leaders, but serious practitioners," the Dalai Lama said.
"So it becomes very clear all have their traditions that carry the teachings of love.
"We all have the same potential, very useful, and in philosophical fields we have big differences sufficient to argue that they're something different.
"But all these different philosophies and views (have the) same purpose … our conviction (is) the importance of love."
The Dalai Lama said he was no stranger to Brisbane, with his 2015 Ocean of Wisdom his "third or fourth" visit to the Queensland capital.
"It's a very clean, very beautiful city," he said.
Among the hundreds-strong crowd in the BCEC auditorium, some of whom paid up to $452.50 for the privilege, was Buddhist monk Ajahn Achalo, who was originally from Brisbane.
He had returned to his home city from Thailand, where he was the abbot of a small forest monastery in the mountains of Petchabun Province, to attend the Dalai Lama's teaching.
"He can explain very profound concepts in a way that's simple for us to understand," Achalo said.
"It's an opportunity and we feel very grateful."
Closer to home was Tenzin Tsepal, from the Chenrezig Institute on the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
"Just being in His Holiness's prescience is quite healing," she said.
"And just hearing the teachings again and again.
"You know, our minds are so habituated in a certain direction that we have to continually hear the teachings, reflect on them, put them into practice, come back and hear them again.
"It's a very humbling process."
But not everybody was happy to see the Dalai Lama.
A group of about 40 protesters from the Shugden Buddhist community chanted "stop lying false Dalai Lama" opposite the main entrance of the Convention Centre.
Protest spokesman Nicholas Pitts said the Dalai Lama had banned Shugden practices and overseen a campaign of persecution against Shugden Buddhists.
"The Dalai Lama talks about peace and tolerance, but he has created an atmosphere of religious hatred within his own community," he said.
"His community is now completely segregated.
"The people who choose to keep their faith are banned from (exiled Tibetan) government positions, they are refused services in shops, restaurants and even in hospitals and medical facilities.
"This is unacceptable in today's modern society."
"Although he once practised Dolgyal propitiation himself, His Holiness renounced the practice in 1975 after discovering the profound historical, social and religious problems associated with it," the post says.
"…Historical investigation reveals that Dolgyal practice, which has strong sectarian overtones, has a history of contributing to a climate of sectarian disharmony in various parts of Tibet, and between various Tibetan communities."
