Thousands gather to hear pearls of wisdom from Dalai Lama

By James D. Davis

Some 10,000 people turned out Saturday to hear the world’s best-known Buddhist, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, bring a message of “human affection and loving kindness” on his first stop in a five-day South Florida visit.

On a picture-perfect but hot morning, the exiled head of Tibet took the stage in a temporary outdoor amphitheater at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, urging his listeners to transform society one person at a time, drawing on religious and ethical values.

“So often, we look for external things — money or influence or friends — and neglect the inner life,” he told his listeners. “Human affection and loving kindness, I believe, are the most important values.

“You can make happiness from inside yourself, then your family. Then you can transform the big human family on the planet, without a government program.”

The Tibetan leader, 69, spoke on the first leg of a three-week tour of Caribbean and Latin America nations, which also will take him to two other local universities and a sports arena. He had come to Nova on a combined invitation from the university and Gov. Jeb Bush.

The Dalai Lama showed his signature grandfatherly charm, smiling and clasping his hands in humility as he mounted the stage amid the first of several standing ovations.

Sometimes speaking for himself, sometimes through an interpreter, he made several jokes about his English and level of learning.

As university president Ray Ferrero Jr. presented an honorary doctorate of humane letters, the Dalai Lama remarked that he had received many such degrees from various schools. “Despite this, I cannot say that my knowledge is increasing,” he said, drawing laughs.

Sometimes he still struggles with occasional feelings of anger and jealousy, he confessed. “But they are like visitors, not permanent residents. Like waves caused by a hurricane, turbulent on the ocean; but underneath, always calm.”

He said values can be cultivated by both religious and nonreligious people: either by loving God and loving others, or by “looking inside and recognizing your own good values.”

During a Q&A section, the Tibetan leader answered questions submitted by the audience in advance. He advocated a cultural freedom for Tibet within the larger Chinese culture — calling it a “middle way” between Tibetan independence and Chinese domination. Religious freedom and freedom of information are indispensable, he added.

On how to pursue peace in the face of war, he confessed to having no simple answers. But he did call for a “broader point of view,” a recognition that all nations are interdependent and must work together.

“We must create more compassionate families and societies; that’s the only way,” he said. “Then we will see that my interests are connected to theirs.”

He also said he had suggested to Vaclav Havel, the former president of Czechoslovakia, that a corps of Nobel laureates could meet national leaders who were on the brink of war. “They would come as individuals, representing not a government but themselves and humanity, so they could be trusted.”

A couple of questions, though, he ducked with an “I don’t know,” drawing more laughs. One was in answer to “What is our purpose on Earth?”

His longer answer: “Philosophers and scientists are investigating that. And I too as a Buddhist think on it. But in daily life, sometimes such questions are not that relevant.” He said “we are here,” implying: what are we going to do about it?

In the opinion of one Vancouver scholar attending the Nova gathering, the Dalai Lama’s message is less striking than his example.

“When you watch him speak, he has an authenticity about him,” said Victor Chan, about the man he has known since 1972. “He has learned his Buddhist lessons for 50 years and wants to help others realize them.”

Chan, author of the new book The Wisdom of Forgiveness, was amazed himself that the Dalai Lama has forgiven China for invading Tibet. “He has lost his country; so many of his people have died; yet he has forgiven the Chinese people.”

Although the topic was love, police and government agents took no chances with safety. The entire campus was fenced off, and guards ran metal detector wands over everyone who entered. Cooperating in the guard duty were Davie police, Broward sheriff’s deputies and U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, and the Dalai Lama’s own small security force.

Buddhist symbols were abundant. Tibetan prayer flags — red, blue, yellow, green, white — adorned the handrails to the stage. A hundred visiting dignitaries were given katas, white silken scarves, that had been blessed by the Dalai Lama. Even the scraps of the katas were carefully folded and slipped into press kits for the media.

The most prominent symbol, of course, was the 600-pound brass prayer wheel on the stage. Standing four feet high, it was made in Dharamsala, India, by nine people over six months. Inside it was rolled a parchment with a million prayers, printed in Sanskrit that had been carved into wooden blocks.

After his speech, the Dalai Lama said a blessing over the huge artifact and turned it, spinning out prayers for compassion, according to Tibetan tradition. A peg on the rim struck a small bell, making it ping with every turn. After Saturday, the prayer wheel was to be moved to a permanent berth in the university library.

More than 10,000 people showed up, according to university officials. Before the main speaker arrived, the casually dressed crowd left behind their cell phones and air conditioning, sitting patiently in the heat, listening to a Sound of Music medley by the Nova Singers. Some picked up free bottles of water from a booth as the heat increased closer to the noon hour.

Neither storms nor traffic deterred some people from attending.

“Nothing was going to stop me,” said Merle Wexler, a social worker from Coconut Grove who had skirted two crashes on Interstate 95. “I believe very much in what he says, that you should focus on the spiritual, not the concrete.”

Valerie Cooper-Williams had just flown in from Nassau, where she had been helping relatives clean up hurricane damage, and rushed to Nova to see the Dalai Lama — and was rewarded with an autograph when he picked her out of the crowd.

He scrawled a phrase on her photo of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet and told her it said, “Bless you, Valerie.”

“I love him so much,” she said tearfully. “The world needs more compassion. I needed to hear what he said, that it’s possible.”