By JOHN MILLER
BOISE, Idaho – For the Dalai Lama’s trip to Sun Valley starting today, singer Willie Nelson is giving a show to benefit the Tibetan spiritual leader. Hootie and the Blowfish play a $1,000-a-plate dinner.
The entire U.S. House is invited, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is in town, and 300 business people, fund managers and celebrities are due at an invitation-only luncheon hosted by the trip’s sponsor.
Even by Sun Valley standards the arrival of so many well-known and wealthy at once has even famously discrete locals wondering: Who’ll show up?
For the Dalai Lama, it’s par for the course. The 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner has become an icon for many who’ve reached their worldly zenith — and are now looking for a little something more.
“Buddhism has always appealed to the elite in society. When you have everything you want — power, influence, money — and you have no worldly desires that haven’t been fulfilled, then you see that it’s empty and you’re still not happy,” said Robert W. Clark, who oversees the Asian Religions & Cultures Initiative at Stanford University and organized the Dalai Lama’s first U.S. trip in 1979. “Buddhism really answers that type of a need.”
The Dalai Lama’s visit to central Idaho intentionally coincides with the anniversary of Sept. 11 terror attacks. His 2 p.m. speech Sunday, to be televised live on CNN, has also morphed into a message of compassion for thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims, a Dalai Lama spokeswoman said.
He flies to Sun Valley on a private jet from northern India, his base after fleeing the Chinese Red army’s march into Tibet in 1959. Before his arrival, there was to be a stop in Anchorage, Alaska, where he wanted to watch wildlife he’d seen on cable television, a spokesmen in New York City said.
Some 10,000 people, including many locals from Blaine County, have tickets for Sunday’s event on the Wood River High School football field in Hailey. There’s also an address to thousands of Idaho children Monday afternoon, as well as Tuesday’s private, invitation-only blessing of an 800-pound bronze Tibetan prayer wheel flown in from India, and a meeting Wednesday morning with 100 religious leaders from different faiths.
On Sunday, Shelly King will make the three-hour drive from Boise with 16 others in her Dzogchen Shen Pan Choling Dharma Center to see the man she calls her spiritual leader.
“He has world peace at heart — that’s a message we all need to be hearing time and time again,” King said. “It’s going to be beneficial to Idaho, to have his presence here alone, whether we see him or not.”
Kiril Sokoloff, a part-time Sun Valley resident and financial adviser who in 2001 brought the Dalai Lama’s sister to Sun Valley to raise money for Tibetan school kids, is spending about $1 million on the event, including hiring security personnel who worked the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
Focusing on just the wealthy and celebrities who seem to orbit the Dalai Lama is a mistake, Sokoloff said.
“Everybody keeps asking, ‘Who are the famous figures? Who are the politicians?’ But we have 10,000 people at the stadium, and maybe 20 are celebrities,” he said. “The Dalai Lama is a man of the people.”
Thomas McKissick, a Los Angeles fund manager and Buddhist who’s attending Monday’s lunch with the Dalai Lama, expects him to encourage business leaders to give more of themselves — at a time when companies across America are already chipping in millions to Gulf Coast hurricane relief.
Many business people already vacation in Sun Valley, home to America’s first western ski resort in 1936, so meeting here makes sense, McKissick said.
“It’s a beautiful location, one where people’s minds tend to be receptive to new thoughts, new ideas,” said McKissick, who manages $5.5 billion in one of the TCW Galileo funds. “And it’s one that’s away from major cities. You can have an open mind.”
There are also political overtones to the trip.
U.S. Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter, R-Idaho, has invited Congress, saying in a letter sent to 434 colleagues in the House that the Dalai Lama is known “for his tireless ecumenical efforts to free his people from the tyranny of Chinese communism.”
Last Friday, China celebrated the 40th anniversary of the founding of Tibet’s regional government with a military parade in front of the Potala Palace, former home of the Dalai Lama.
His first trip to America since 2003 can be seen in this larger context, supporters say: His unabated popularity — not to mention the live CNN coverage — helps draw attention to his campaign to end heavy-handed Chinese rule in Tibet, where the monk hasn’t set foot in 46 years.
“Tibet becomes a subtext, no matter what,” said Tenzen Tethong, the Dalai Lama’s former official representative in America who now works on Buddhist issues in San Francisco.
On the eve of the visit, not everybody in Idaho was thinking geopolitics.
Extra U.S. Forest Service patrols of the surrounding Sawtooth National Forest have been organized to prevent illicit camping. Blaine County Chief Deputy Sheriff Gene Ramsey warns visitors: Use the buses, don’t park at the high school, and don’t trespass.
“People around the school don’t want to see people camping on their lawns, roasting marshmallows,” Ramsey said. “It’s about peace and healing. This isn’t a Grateful Dead concert or something.”
The Dalai Lama’s 20-day U.S. visit also is scheduled to include stops in Tucson, Ariz., and Austin and Houston, Texas, before ending in appearances in New York and New Jersey.
