By SHERYL UBELACKER
The Dalai Lama wrapped up more than ten days of public appearances in Toronto today by completing the initiation of thousands of devotees into the spiritual teachings of Tibetan Buddhism.
About 7,000 people, including dozens of robe-clad monks, attended the ceremony marked by prayers, chants and teachings from the Tibetan spiritual leader.
Speaking through an interpreter, the Dalai Lama imparted his thoughts on the tenets of Buddhism.
Garbed in red, yellow and saffron robes and wearing an orange visor, the Dalai Lama sat centre stage on an elaborately decorated gold-coloured throne.
“You have expended a lot of efforts in attending and participating in this series of teachings,” he said.
“All the energy we’ve spent together will not be wasted.”
Interspersing his teachings with quips that brought laughter from the crowd, the 68-year-old spiritual leader continued his message of peace and compassion that have been the hallmark of his Canadian tour.
Tina Petrova of Toronto, a practising Tibetan Buddhist, travelled to southern California in 1996 to take teachings from the Dalai Lama.
Her reaction to seeing him in Toronto was summed up in one word: “Wow.”
“I mean just to be in his presence, he feels like an ocean of love and peace and grace,” she said. “He just instils in one a sense of deep calmness and serenity, and you can just feel his purity of heart.”
The Dalai Lama has headed a government in exile in Dharamsala, India, since fleeing Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against China, which has occupied the former country since 1951.
Later today, the Dalai Lama was to oversee the dismantling of a sacred mandala, an elaborately decorated floor mural made by kneeling monks out of coloured sand. The mandala, two metres in diameter, is believed to act as a kind of open-house for hundreds of deities who witness the initiation of aspirants into the study of Tibetan Buddhist spiritual teachings and practices.
In the final rite of the ceremony, the sand was to be poured into Lake Ontario, allowing “the perfect peace” of Buddhist philosophy “to flow with it into the everyday world.”
Today marked the final day of public appearances for the Dalai Lama, who arrived in Vancouver on April 17 for his first visit to Canada since 1993.
In the two-and-a-half weeks since, he has become the first Tibetan spiritual leader in history officially welcomed by a Canadian prime minister, been honoured and entertained by several of the country’s luminaries and feted by celebrity devotees from south of the border, including Richard Gere and Goldie Hawn.
