Thursday, June 23, 2016
Dalai Lama today
The Dalai Lama was in our city today and he offered two presentations to the students of Colorado University. I watched one of them on a video which the school sponsored. The Dalai Lama was his usual sweet loving self, emphasizing the need for compassion and respect for others in his talk. He also spoke about the need for inner beauty as opposed to outer beauty and the need for schools to include classes on spiritual topics through secular means (human values). He spoke against the danger of focusing on material wealth and gain rather than the moral values that make us human. He is indeed the wise and kindly grandfather we all wish we might have had.
At the end of his talk, I noticed that he had to be helped getting up from his chair (he is now 91). He could walk but with some difficulty. I realized that indeed he is mortal like all of us, and that his time among us may be limited. This thought made me sad, for his has been a presence that we have come to take for granted, as a stalwart figure in the struggle to keep peace and kindness alive in a world that sometimes seems to have forgotten both.
A few clips and responses to his talk may be seen by googling Dalai Lama Boulder.
