Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.

The Dalai Lama frames kindness and compassion as universally intelligible human values, not doctrines that depend on religious faith or metaphysical beliefs like rebirth. By explicitly naming belief and disbelief, he widens the moral circle to include secular audiences and people of all traditions. The claim is pragmatic as well as ethical: compassion is presented as something that reliably resonates in lived experience—people may disagree about ultimate truths, but they recognize and welcome humane treatment. In this way, the quote supports a “secular ethics” approach often associated with his public teaching: grounding moral life in shared human needs and emotions rather than in sectarian authority.