By RACHEL ZOLL
AP Religion Writer
NEW YORK – The Dalai Lama said Tuesday he felt “extremely sad” when his plane landed in New York and he saw where the towers of the World Trade Center once stood, but he urged people to turn the tragedy into something positive.
The Dalai Lama already saw signs of that transformation in the city’s relatively peaceful response to the blackout last month.
“The people as a whole, generally, (have) more a sense of community and helping each other,” he said at a news conference opening a weeklong visit to the New York area, the final stop on a five-city U.S. tour. The latest crisis brought the people of New York together “to have a greater sense of affinity.”
The exiled spiritual leader began his U.S. tour Sept. 5 in San Francisco, and timed the visit to coincide with the second anniversary of the suicide hijackings in New York and Washington.
He has met with President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and members of Congress, and also with scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who are studying the human mind.
Starting Wednesday in Manhattan, he plans to lecture on Buddhism for four days at the Beacon Theatre. On Sunday, he will give a free public talk at Central Park, then attend a concert on “peace and reconciliation” presented by actor Richard Gere and composer Philip Glass at Lincoln Center.
Glass and Gere sat with the Dalai Lama in the auditorium of the Guggenheim Museum as he explained the purpose of his visit to the United States.
The Dalai Lama, 68, said he did not come to convert people to Buddhism and said he thought it was better “to keep one’s own tradition.”
Instead, he hoped to “promote human values” and the search for the “source of happy life within ourselves,” while correcting misperceptions about his faith.
He said people often mistakenly consider Tibetan Buddhism “lamaism” or describe him as a “living Buddha.” In keeping with Tibetan tradition, the lama was recognized at age 2 as the incarnation of Avalokiteshvar, the Buddha of Compassion, and the reincarnation of his deceased predecessor.
He last visited the United States in May 2001.
Next week, he plans a private conference in the upstate New York community of Garrison for 300 leaders of local Buddhist centers in the Western Hemisphere.
The 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet for India in 1959 after a failed revolt against Chinese rule over his country. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for nonviolent resistance to Chinese rule of his homeland.
He said he hoped his U.S. travels would draw attention to the plight of Tibet.
He and his followers seek greater autonomy for Tibetans while keeping the region part of China. Beijing demands that the Dalai Lama publicly renounce any claim to Tibet’s independence, and says he is welcome back as a religious leader, but may have no political role.
The Dalai Lama said he saw hopeful signs of an agreement. Direct contact between his envoys and Chinese officials resumed last year after an impasse of nearly a decade.
