By Jeff Rud
Victoria’s Tsewang Tethong will be among thousands of British Columbians packing into the Pacific Coliseum on Sunday to hear words of wisdom from the Dalai Lama.
But the 69-year-old retiree is first looking forward to a private meeting with His Holiness, the exiled Tibetan leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner making his first visit to Canada in 11 years.
Tethong worked for the Dalai Lama, in two different stints, for 37 years between 1959 and 2001 before retiring with his Canadian wife to Victoria. The two men will share 15 minutes together this morning at the Dalai Lama’s Vancouver hotel, their first meeting since October 2001.
“I am very close to him and I worked with him for many years,” Tethong said Friday. “But in terms of our custom, as a respect, I can’t call him friend. We have had many business and casual meetings and it’s been always inspiring to see him.”
Tethong left his native Tibet when he was 15 and has never returned. He served the Dalai Lama first as an interpreter, followed by stints as his representative in Delhi and later as head of a Tibetan refugee settlement project in south India. He describes the Tibetan leader as a “very down-to-earth person who works hard and expects others around him to do the same.”
The Dalai Lama was born to a poor Tibetan family but, at age two, was anointed as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. He has been described by some as a god-king, but Tethong said the Dalai Lama actually “detests” that label. “He always calls himself a simple Buddhist monk. He is a very compassionate and a very simple person who could be a very good friend.”
Tethong said he will brief the Dalai Lama today on how China’s contentious treatment of Tibet is being portrayed in the Canadian media. “In Canada, there is generally a very strong sympathy from the public, as well as from politicians,” he said.
Tethong, who met his wife Judy while she was working for the aid group CUSO in India during the 1960s, said he is delighted that Prime Minister Paul Martin and Premier Gordon Campbell have agreed to meet with the Dalai Lama. No Canadian prime minister has ever met the exiled Tibetan leader and, during his last visit, B.C. Premier Mike Harcourt did not meet with him.
Official warnings from China this week that Canadian government officials should not meet with the Dalai Lama should not be heeded, Tethong said. Not even in light of the fact B.C. is working hard to build trade relationships with China. “Other countries, including those in Europe, have continued meeting the Dalai Lama and have politely refused to go by the Chinese demands and the (trade) situation didn’t deteriorate in those countries,” Tethong said.
Hundreds of other Victorians, many of whom belong to Buddhist meditation centres, will be among the Sunday crowds gathering in Vancouver.
Kim Kelso, a 57-year-old retired government social worker, is the co-director of the Shambhala Meditation Centre in Fernwood, a local Tibetan Buddhist group. Kelso said she is making the trip to honour the Dalai Lama.
“He is enlightened in my mind,” said Kelso, a practising Buddhist for 24 years. “He is a fine example of how to live in this world, at this time, when there’s so much conflict. He is looking at his people, who he’s supposed to be responsible for, suffering greatly and rather than retaliating with aggression, he is loving his enemies.”
Kelso is one of nearly 86,000 B.C. Buddhists, according to the latest Statistics Canada figures, making it the fourth-largest, and fastest-growing, of all the broad religions in the province.
The Dalai Lama’s visit is just the first highlight this spring for the Shambhala International group. The leader of the Shambhala organization, another of the foremost Tibetan lamas, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, will deliver a talk on May 7 at Vancouver’s Chan Centre.
Rinpoche will also make a private appearance in Victoria, blessing the local Shambhala Centre on May 8.
