Twenty years ago, when Danielle LaPorte was just about to turn thirty, she was given a unique opportunity to have a private audience with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Here’s what he revealed to her back then.

“In Dharamsala, five of us waited like groupies before a big show. His Holiness burst in, robust and radiant. “So sorry to keep you waiting!” he said.

We spoke of universal consciousness, military actions, and politics. We laughed. We mostly laughed at his bellowing laughs. He abruptly turned to me with a penetrating gaze. Fuzzy eyebrows raised. “You have a question.”

“My generation is at a crossroads,” I said. “And I wonder what message you have for Gen Xers?”

“In the West, you have education. This is good. You have technology. This is good. But you do not educate your people in values of the heart, of compassion. This you must do,” the Dalai Lama said.  “It does not matter whether you are Buddhist or Christian. Compassion lives in the heart, beyond religion. Even me, a Buddhist, can say that you do not need Buddhism. All you need is the compassion of the heart. Women know this because peace is implicit in women. You put boys together, they make war. You put women together, they make peace. Women are the leaders of the future.” And then he laughed.

Of course, men can lead too, but from the heart rather than the mind.  The Divine feminine is in all of us, we just need to recognise it.

Original story: Lion’s Roar