Dalai Lama Awarded Honorary Degree

Cedar Falls, Ia. — After he was awarded yet another honorary degree here Tuesday, the Dalai Lama confided he would be a hopeless professor because “I’m kind of lazy.”

He quipped that his English was so poor he sometimes accidentally encourages pessimism instead of optimism.

And he warned that anyone who came to see him with “great expectations” would be sorely disappointed. “So don’t expect too much,” he said in broken English as laughter rolled across the McLeod Center.

Yet it was the more serious guidance from the world-revered leader that spoke to many among the roughly 10,000 people who came to see him at the University of Northern Iowa.

First Visit To Iowa

Visiting Iowa for the first time, Tibet’s 74-year-old leader-in-exile spoke to two sold-out crowds of the need to cultivate moral ethics to achieve personal happiness. He preached living a life of compassion based on trust and honesty, not selfish needs. And he encouraged others to use one of their most valuable gifts – education – for the good of humanity.

Zuiko Redding was among those from several Iowa Buddhist groups who traveled to see His Holiness.

“He just has a great unarmoredness about him and great good cheer,” said Redding, resident teacher at the Cedar Rapids Zen Center.

As he greeted his first enthusiastic crowd of the day – about 5,400 people – the Dalai Lama sat cross-legged on a white couch inside the McLeod Center, a sun visor shielding his eyes, his hands clasped as he bowed.

“I-o-wa, I-o-wa?” he said, practicing the name of his latest stop on a brief tour of Midwestern states. His shiny shoes sat empty on a stage adorned with an ornamental rug.

During a panel discussion titled “Educating for a Non-Violent World,” he offered a mix of simple messages: educating both “the head and the heart,” acting ethically on behalf of “one human family,” and teaching future generations not to fall into “the traps of violence.”

Joined by a handful of experts including former Iowa Department of Education chief Judy Jeffrey, he encouraged listeners to rise above divisive differences like race, religion, gender and nationality.

“I tell a lot of people, many problems we have today are man-made problems,” he said.

The Dalai Lama’s well-known light-heartedness was often on display, despite the serious subject matter. When asked by a panelist how he would “reweave” the fabric of large cities so children would better be able to learn, he shrugged: “I think the answer should come from you. I don’t know.”

When told about a young man who fathered 23 children in high school, he had to stifle a chuckle after hearing the story from a translator.

Compassion, Respect, and Patience

He also spoke about teaching youth respect and patience, and he said many times that everyone – regardless of faith or place in society – deserves compassion.

“Modern ethics is very necessary … but not necessarily based on religious faith,” he said.

For Dolma Tsering, one of seven Tibetan students at UNI, hearing the iconic figure speak was a “lifetime achievement.”

Tsering and the six other exchange students got to meet the Dalai Lama at his hotel Monday. As is Tibetan custom, she said, the students offered him prayer shawls as a sign of good will, and he returned them as a blessing.

She said his visit was especially meaningful to the group because the students are so isolated – in the world, but even among Chinese students they encounter on the UNI campus.

“He said, ‘You have the truth, and do not be afraid,’ ” the 28-year-old graduate business student recounted. “Be patient and do your work.”

UNI has had a long relationship with the Tibet Fund, a New York nonprofit group that aims to educate Tibetan students in exile. That led to the invitation by UNI President Benjamin Allen to the Dalai Lama to speak here as part of the Joy Cole Corning Lecture Series.

Since 1994, the university has provided tuition waivers to 30 Tibet Fund scholars.

The fund has helped some 364 Tibetan students nationwide, said its president, Richen Dharlo, who attended the event.

One of the world’s longest-running leaders, the Dalai Lama has traveled six continents, spreading a message of peace, inter-religious understanding, universal responsibility and compassion. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his nonviolent struggle for the liberation of Tibet from China.

The Dalai Lama is considered by many as the face of Buddhism worldwide, though he is hardly all Buddhists’ spiritual leader. Supporters believe the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatsohe, is the reincarnation of the previous 13 dalai lamas. He assumed political power after China’s invasion of Tibet in 1949. He was forced into exile a decade later, and currently lives in northern India.

via DesMoinesRegister.com

Photos:  Rodney White/RegisterPhoto