Dalai Lama's visit to UK

[Dr Sputnik Phd]

The Dalai Lama will be in the UK between 27 May and 3 June, doing a series of lectures. Unsuprisingly, Tony Blair said that he was too busy to meet with him, despite 130 members of parliament urging him.

Is anyone going to one of the lectures?

[Parkey]

The Dalai Lama will be in the UK between 27 May and 3 June, doing a series of lectures. Unsuprisingly, Tony Blair said that he was too busy to meet with him, despite 130 members of parliament urging him.

Is anyone going to one of the lectures?
I saw him on the news earlier and it said Blair had 'diary issues' :D ! He's meeting Prince Charles later on those isn't he?
I saw the Chinese govt. have been leaning on the UK to not endorse the visit and there were a few Chinese students outside Liverpool Uni protesting on the news too.

[ChrisLove]

There is talk of Liverpool have its 'twinned with Shanghai' status retracted for welcoming the Dalai Lama! :eek:

[Parkey]

There is talk of Liverpool have its 'twinned with Shanghai' status retracted for welcoming the Dalai Lama! :eek:
theres a big article about that in todays Guardian. Apparently there has been considerable pressure on the local govt not to welcome him.

[Parkey]

Dalai Lama's giggle wins over Liverpool

David Ward
Friday May 28, 2004
The Guardian

The chuckle emerged as a deep baritone gurgle, floated up into the far balconies of Liverpool Cathedral's 331ft-high tower and then spread out to the 2,000 people in the nave - and perhaps to the thousand others who had failed to secure tickets.
They had come to hear one of the world's great spiritual leaders speak, but the giggle changed their reverence to laughter.

You couldn't help laughing; the chuckle was irresistibly infectious. Especially when he caught himself talking about experiments on monks rather than monkeys.

So the Dalai Lama won everyone over even before he began speaking. Which was a good thing because many of his words wafted away into the 3m cubic feet of emptiness inside a cathedral famed for its 12.5 second reverberation time.

But no matter; the message of tolerance and altruism seemed to spread by osmosis, judging by the wide smiles on the faces of the congregation.

The spiritual leader of the Tibetan people had come to Liverpool to deliver a lecture and collect a fellowship from John Moores University.

He processed down that enormous nave, a diminutive figure who bowed and smiled at everyone in sight. When he reached the transept beneath the tower the glory of his new robes, made by the university for the ceremony, was apparent: 16 metres of muted scarlet silk taffeta trimmed with saffron.

And after Lord Alton had presented Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama and Nobel laureate, for his academic honour, the hat that topped the outfit was produced: a scarlet circle that became a scarlet halo once carefully placed on the new fellow's head.

The Dalai Lama wore it throughout his lecture but then doffed it as he answered questions. Lord Alton, director of the university's citizenship foundation, thought it was a gesture of acknowledgment to those watching the event via the internet. But the hat was coming off for a simpler reason: the holy head was hot.

The Dalai Lama expressed his thanks for his honour through an interpreter and said he saw Liverpool as a city where people of different Christian faiths lived happily in harmony. "So no need for lecture," he said in English, and chuckled again.

He apologised for his broken English: "Sometimes in front of English people, I am a little shy." (Giggle). "But I don't care."

It was not a day for specifics and the Dalai Lama said nothing about Iraq or Tibet; nor did he make any comment on China's complaint that his trip to Merseyside could cause problems for Liverpool's close links with Shanghai.

"We are all the same and we all have the same potential - potential for good as well as for destructiveness," he began, adding later that the concept of nationality was not important.

"We all have to live together on this planet. The reality is that we are all heavily interdependent."

Key words - humanity, compassion, honesty - made their mark even if the sentences in which they occurred were lost in echoing space.

But this bit, give or take the odd mishearing, appeared to penetrate the acoustic: "My happy future is the future of all humanity ... one's self is part of humanity. If humanity is happy, I am happy; if humanity suffers, I suffer. If I think of just me, the mind becomes narrowed ... wise selfishness is better than foolish selfishness."

[paul jones]

What a great guy!

Blair and Bush are so fucked in the head anyway that the Dali would probably just laugh at them

[Parkey]

there's something v right about him giggling :D

[Parkey]

the Beasties get a mention in this article about Tibet/Dalai Lama in Friday's Guardian newspaper;
Guardian Article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/article/0,6729,1227115,00.html)

[jimmyjrg]

cool stuff.