The Dalai Lama has committed to visiting Sacramento in 2009.
Ray Kerridge, Sacramento’s city manager, who is helping to orchestrate the visit, said a number of possibilities are being discussed with the Dalai Lama’s staff. No specific days in 2009 have been chosen as yet. Kerridge and Mayor Heather Fargo are set to meet the Dalai Lama in San Francisco this weekend.
Llama Jinpa, resident director of the Universal Compassion Center in the Arden area, says one constant element in his visits to cities is a public talk accessible to everybody. The Universal Compassion Center is a small facility focused on Tibetan Buddhist meditation.
Both Llama Jinpa and Kerridge emphasized the Dalai Lama’s interest in science and the mind. Kerridge says a visit and discussions at The Mind Institute at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento would be a distinct possibility.
Other possibilities under consideration, Kerridge said, include a talk to the State Legislature, a lecture at Sacramento State or presentations at ARCO Arena and Memorial Auditorium.
In a recent book, “Ethics in a New Millennium,” the Dalai Lama advances ideas about education, progressive business practices, and other day-to-day issues. “He’s interested in creating a sane society,” said Llama Jinpa. “He’s not other-worldly, as some think.”
Born in 1935 as part of a large, impoverished family, the Dalai Lama was designated as such at the age of three. He fled Tibet in 1959, when the country was under Chinese control.
