Tibet
Official White House Photo via Pete Souza / RNS
President Obama met behind closed doors with the Dalai Lama on June 15 in a White House meeting carefully designed to acknowledge the Tibetan leader’s importance as a global spiritual figure while not according him a head-of-state status that might further provoke China.
The White House said the Dalai Lama expressed his condolences for the shooting attack in Orlando on June 12, and the two men talked about climate change — an issue of particular importance in the Dalai Lama’s Himalayan home.
The Dalai Lama speaks to supporters in Berlin. Image courtesy vipflash/shutterstock.com.
The Dalai Lama said Dec. 11 that he would not meet Pope Francis while in Rome for a summit of Nobel Peace Prize winners.
“The Vatican administration says it is not possible because it could cause problems,” the Dalai Lama said, hinting that the Vatican may be unwilling to irk China, a country with which it wants to engage and perhaps re-establish diplomatic relations.
But the Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, declined to say whether the pope had personally turned down a request for a meeting with the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists.
“Pope Francis obviously holds the Dalai Lama in very high regard, but he will not be meeting any of the Nobel laureates,” Lombardi told journalists.
The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, speaks to the American Enterprise Institute. RNS photo: Lauren Markoe
Some of the brightest pro-business minds in the nation prodded the Dalai Lama on Thursday to offer a warm endorsement of capitalism.
But during an appearance by the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism at the American Enterprise Institute, one of the world’s most stalwart and, in conservative circles, respected free enterprise think tanks, they came up short.
The Dalai Lama was the star participant in a morning of panels on “moral free enterprise” and “human happiness.”
Asked by AEI President Arthur Brooks and Columbia Business School Dean Glenn Hubbard whether he agrees that the free enterprise system is the most moral of economic systems, and why he thinks the U.S. is the richest nation on earth, the Dalai Lama answered in broken English with his own question: What do you mean by rich?
Father Ray Leonard. Photo by Nancy Reynolds/ for The Star-Ledger, via RNS
The Rev. Ray Leonard knew not to wear the clerical collar identifying him as a Roman Catholic priest. It almost certainly would have gotten him deported.
He knew not to celebrate Mass, hear confession, or baptize a child. The acts might have resulted in harassment — or worse, arrest and imprisonment — for the families Leonard cared about.
During a decade spent teaching and helping the needy in some of China’s most impoverished and oppressed regions, the New Jersey priest learned what it was like to live in a land without religious freedom.
It kindled a greater appreciation for his liberties at home. Which is why Leonard, 51, bristled at the U.S. government when it told him he couldn’t hold services at a Georgia naval base during last month’s government shutdown. Leonard, a civilian contractor on the base wasn’t deemed an “essential” employee.
The Dalai Lama delivers the annual Anwar Sadat Lecture for Peace at the university. Photo via RNS.
His English was terribly broken, and punctuated by sudden fits of giggles. But for nearly an hour, the Dalai Lama entranced an arena full of admirers, who said his message came across just fine.
The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, speaking to an audience of 15,000 at the University of Maryland Tuesday, described himself as “a simple Buddhist monk” with a simple message: We are all human beings and should be good to one another.
“I look at you,” he said, surveying the crowd, a University of Maryland visor crowning his head. “All human beings. No differences.”
The Dalai Lama smiles during a multi-faith prayer gathering at Gandhi Smriti. Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images
The Dalai Lama is best known for his commitment to Tibetan autonomy from China and his message of spirituality, nonviolence and peace that has made him a best-selling author and a speaker who can pack entire arenas.
But somewhat under the radar screen, the Tibetan Buddhist leader and Nobel Prize laureate has also had an abiding interest in the intersection of science and religion.
That interest won Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, the 2012 Templeton Prize on Thursday (March 29), a $1.7 million award that is often described as the most prestigious award in religion.
Special forces troops patrol in the smoke. Photo by Przemek Tokar/Shutterstock.com.
While compiling the morning “Daily Digest,” I often recall the advice of Karl Barth, who is said to have told young theologians “to take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”
There are many mornings that Jesus’ advice comes to mind after reading the news. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come (Mark 13:7). While I am not an end times apocalyptic, there are days that Jesus’ prophecy seems all too real.