By Jean Torkelson
August 2 – In September the Dalai Lama will leave behind his modest hillside cottage in India, his well-used exercise bike and his personally tended rose garden and travel to Denver to join the largest-ever gathering of Nobel peace laureates.
The spiritual and political leader of Buddhist Tibet and winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize is perhaps the most intriguing of all the dignitaries appearing at the 10th anniversary celebration of Peace Jam, Sept. 15-17.
Peace Jam is an international educational program, founded in Denver, that works with Nobel laureates to “inspire a new generation of peacemakers,” as its Web site says.
The Dalai Lama came to Peace Jam in 1997 in his first visit to Colorado.
But the scope of this September’s event, which will bring together a dozen Nobel laureates, overshadows any previous gathering, said Peace Jam Executive Director Dawn Engle.
The Dalai Lama was born in a village in northeastern Tibet in 1935. When he was a child, holy men came through town searching for the successor to the 13th Dalai Lama, who had just died. The Dalai Lama is believed by Buddhists to be the reincarnation of an ancient bodhisattva, or heavenly being, who has remained on earth to teach compassion to others.
The youngster was said to prove his authenticity in a series of tests, including one in which he spontaneously recognized items that had belonged to the Dalai Lama before him.
By age 15, when he was governing both as the spiritual and political leader of Tibet, the country was invaded by communist China. When Tibet’s attempt to overthrow China was crushed in 1959, the Dalai Lama escaped to India and eventually made his home in Dharamsala, which he maintains to this day.
Known as a global icon of compassion, the Dalai Lama is a man of simplicity who refuses limousines and is invariably in bed at 7 p.m.
“It’s amazing, but though he travels the world he sticks to the same schedule every day,” Engle said.
He gets up at 4 a.m. and begins four hours of meditation, she said, “even in different time zones. He just does it.”
While his monk attendants “are dropping like flies around him, his stamina is unbelievable. No one can keep up with him.”
The celebrated peacemaker hasn’t always found it easy to be tranquil. He would become angry when confronting the sufferings of fellow Tibetan refugees, Engle said he told her.
“He struggled to get anger under control and it wasn’t until his 60s that he was able to do so.”
The Dalai Lama’s speech on Sept. 17 at the Pepsi Center is sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute, which he co-founded with Coloradan Adam Engle and the late neuroscientist Francisco Varela.
The institute studies the effects of meditation upon the mind, said Engle, Dawn Engle’s former husband.
Apparently, such effects aren’t only timeless, but may help account for the Dalai Lama’s gentle cheerfulness.
“When we were in Dharamsala one time,” Adam Engle recalled, “a scientist asked him what was the best time of his life and without hesitation he looked at him and said, ‘right now.’ ”
The 14th Dalai Lama
Birth name: Lhamo Dhondrub, born July 6, 1935, Takster, Tibet. He is also known as Tenzing Gyatso, a common Tibetan name shared by his niece.
Family: Farmers
Discovered: As a child, he was identified by holy men as the reincarnation of the bodhisattva, a spiritual being who remains on earth to teach compassion.
Favorite foods: Tibetan-style noodles and traditional hot sauce
Pastimes: Gardening, riding his exercise bike, listening to BBC radio.
Events with Dalai Lama Sept. 15-17:
Friday, Sept. 15, 9 a.m.: 10th anniversary International Peace Jam Youth Conference begins at the University of Denver, Magness Arena. For information, call Peace Jam at 303-455-2099.
Saturday, 10 a.m.: Keynote address to Peace Jam International Youth Conference, Magness Arena.
Sunday, 10 a.m.- noon: He receives first “Living Peace” award from the Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center at Red Feather Lakes, in northern Colorado.
2 p.m.: Address at the Pepsi Center, sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute; tickets $18 to $100, see dalailamadenver.org for details.
