Dalai Lama preaches compassion to a responsive New Orleans crowd of 4,000
(Gallery by Ted Jackson, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Swathed in saffron- and rust-colored robes, the Dalai Lama held a New Orleans audience rapt Friday afternoon as he spelled out his simple suggestions for achieving world peace and ending violence. Bridging the gap between rich people and poor people is vital, as are compassion and empathy, he told an auditorium packed with people.
In an ideal world, “your sorrow and your sadness are my sorrow and my sadness,” he said, “and your happiness is my happiness.”
Even though the Dalai Lama’s trip to New Orleans had been scheduled for more than a year, his repeated calls for an end to violence -- a frequent theme in his talks -- were timely because they came five days after a shooting during a Mother’s Day parade in which 20 people were injured and a city was thrown into shock.
Calling the rampage “a sad event,” the spiritual leader of the world’s 8 million Tibetan Buddhists expressed his “genuine social concern” to the wounded and their families.
The shooting was a dominant theme in Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s introduction of the 77-year-old Dalai Lama, who leaned on the 52-year-old mayor’s arm as the two walked onto the stage. There was no announcement of their arrival, but the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, received a prolonged standing ovation from the 4,000 people who packed the New Orleans Theater at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Landrieu said he hoped the Dalai Lama would bring “a message of peace and reconciliation in what has been a very difficult and trying week for us all.”
In what is ordinarily a ceremonial bit of fluff -- the presentation of a key to the city -- Landrieu said he was giving the soft-spoken visitor a key to “this troubled, yet beautiful and historic city.”
“Violence has failed to bring in happiness,” said the Dalai Lama, who said the path to peace must begin with mutual respect. “Respect (other people’s) views and understand their interests, and share with them.”
The need for compassion was a recurrent theme in the Dalai Lama’s 30-minute speech, which he delivered without notes in bursts of heavily accented English. Compassion starts within the individual and extends to the community, he said. “Through this way, this century can become the century of compassion.”
The Dalai Lama’s speech – the topic was “Strength Through Compassion” – was the first of two public lectures during his first-ever visit to New Orleans. On Saturday at 1 p.m., he will speak about “Strength Through Connection,” at the University of New Orleans Lakefront Arena. That event has been sold out for months, but it will be livestreamed on NOLA.com.
On Saturday at 9 a.m., the Dalai Lama will be the principal speaker at Tulane University’s commencement in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. He will receive an honorary degree, as will two of New Orleans’ musical titans, Dr. John and Allen Toussaint.
There was music at the Friday event: 25 minutes of chanting by eight brightly costumed Drepung Loseling monks whose deep, resonant voices were far below the traditional bass register. There was no explanation of what they were singing about, but the audience was engrossed by the sound produced by these robed men, who wore towering horn-like headdresses.
The monks, who have been based in Atlanta since 1991, are members of an order that was founded in Tibet in 1416. Like the Dalai Lama, a native of Tibet, the monks were driven into exile when the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959, closing and destroying the monasteries.
The widely traveled Dalai Lama’s base of operations is Dharamsala, India. Even though he hasn’t been to his homeland in more than a half-century, he seemed to entertain the possibility of returning there because of the recent change in Chinese leadership.
“I am optimistic,” he said at the end of a carefully nuanced 10-minute talk about the status of his homeland. That was a response to one of several questions that children had submitted before Friday’s speech.
It was during this segment that the Dalai Lama hit the only sour note of his presentation, when he was responding to a question about global warming and Hurricane Katrina.
Because of its many implications, including rising sea levels as glaciers melt, climate change is “a very serious matter,” said the Dalai Lama, who was speaking in a low-lying city that was 80 percent underwater in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed the failure of the federally built levees.
In view of this prospect of rising water, “it’s better to move to mountains and leave the lowlands for cultivation,” he said. “When the water comes, you can enjoy it.”
If he lost support there, the Dalai Lama won it back when he asked what made him happy: the bread his mother baked for him when she came to visit her son, who had been taken from his family as a youngster to train for a religious life.
Without referring to the way he grew up, the Dalai Lama said: “Spend more time with your children. Your children will be happier persons.”
His speech came after a lunch at Restaurant August with Landrieu, local religious leaders and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., an icon of the civil rights movement. The dessert was bread pudding.
In response to a question about food, the Dalai Lama said, without referring to his country of exile, that he preferred Indian cooking to Chinese cuisine. He also said that the portions of Japanese food he has eaten have been too small.
“For a Buddhist monk, there is no dinner, only lunch,” he said, chuckling. “A small quantity of lunch cannot fill my stomach.”
In an ideal world, “your sorrow and your sadness are my sorrow and my sadness,” he said, “and your happiness is my happiness.”
Even though the Dalai Lama’s trip to New Orleans had been scheduled for more than a year, his repeated calls for an end to violence -- a frequent theme in his talks -- were timely because they came five days after a shooting during a Mother’s Day parade in which 20 people were injured and a city was thrown into shock.
Calling the rampage “a sad event,” the spiritual leader of the world’s 8 million Tibetan Buddhists expressed his “genuine social concern” to the wounded and their families.
The shooting was a dominant theme in Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s introduction of the 77-year-old Dalai Lama, who leaned on the 52-year-old mayor’s arm as the two walked onto the stage. There was no announcement of their arrival, but the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, received a prolonged standing ovation from the 4,000 people who packed the New Orleans Theater at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Landrieu said he hoped the Dalai Lama would bring “a message of peace and reconciliation in what has been a very difficult and trying week for us all.”
In what is ordinarily a ceremonial bit of fluff -- the presentation of a key to the city -- Landrieu said he was giving the soft-spoken visitor a key to “this troubled, yet beautiful and historic city.”
“Violence has failed to bring in happiness,” said the Dalai Lama, who said the path to peace must begin with mutual respect. “Respect (other people’s) views and understand their interests, and share with them.”
The need for compassion was a recurrent theme in the Dalai Lama’s 30-minute speech, which he delivered without notes in bursts of heavily accented English. Compassion starts within the individual and extends to the community, he said. “Through this way, this century can become the century of compassion.”
The Dalai Lama’s speech – the topic was “Strength Through Compassion” – was the first of two public lectures during his first-ever visit to New Orleans. On Saturday at 1 p.m., he will speak about “Strength Through Connection,” at the University of New Orleans Lakefront Arena. That event has been sold out for months, but it will be livestreamed on NOLA.com.
On Saturday at 9 a.m., the Dalai Lama will be the principal speaker at Tulane University’s commencement in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. He will receive an honorary degree, as will two of New Orleans’ musical titans, Dr. John and Allen Toussaint.
There was music at the Friday event: 25 minutes of chanting by eight brightly costumed Drepung Loseling monks whose deep, resonant voices were far below the traditional bass register. There was no explanation of what they were singing about, but the audience was engrossed by the sound produced by these robed men, who wore towering horn-like headdresses.
The monks, who have been based in Atlanta since 1991, are members of an order that was founded in Tibet in 1416. Like the Dalai Lama, a native of Tibet, the monks were driven into exile when the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959, closing and destroying the monasteries.
The widely traveled Dalai Lama’s base of operations is Dharamsala, India. Even though he hasn’t been to his homeland in more than a half-century, he seemed to entertain the possibility of returning there because of the recent change in Chinese leadership.
“I am optimistic,” he said at the end of a carefully nuanced 10-minute talk about the status of his homeland. That was a response to one of several questions that children had submitted before Friday’s speech.
It was during this segment that the Dalai Lama hit the only sour note of his presentation, when he was responding to a question about global warming and Hurricane Katrina.
Because of its many implications, including rising sea levels as glaciers melt, climate change is “a very serious matter,” said the Dalai Lama, who was speaking in a low-lying city that was 80 percent underwater in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed the failure of the federally built levees.
In view of this prospect of rising water, “it’s better to move to mountains and leave the lowlands for cultivation,” he said. “When the water comes, you can enjoy it.”
If he lost support there, the Dalai Lama won it back when he asked what made him happy: the bread his mother baked for him when she came to visit her son, who had been taken from his family as a youngster to train for a religious life.
Without referring to the way he grew up, the Dalai Lama said: “Spend more time with your children. Your children will be happier persons.”
His speech came after a lunch at Restaurant August with Landrieu, local religious leaders and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., an icon of the civil rights movement. The dessert was bread pudding.
In response to a question about food, the Dalai Lama said, without referring to his country of exile, that he preferred Indian cooking to Chinese cuisine. He also said that the portions of Japanese food he has eaten have been too small.
“For a Buddhist monk, there is no dinner, only lunch,” he said, chuckling. “A small quantity of lunch cannot fill my stomach.”
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