
His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
Transcribed and lightly edited by Alexander Berzin
With clarifications indicated in violet between square brackets
We are here; we exist and we have the right to exist. Even non-sentient beings like flowers have the right to exist. If negative force is exerted against them, then, on a chemical level, flowers repair themselves to survive. But [more than that], we human beings including insects, even amoebas, the smallest beings are considered sentient beings. [And as sentient beings, we have even more mechanisms to help us survive.