Dalai Lama

It was funny to see the sedate gray-haired people with glasses getting nervous and pushy as they jockeyed for seats at the Hec Ed Pavillion when the public address announcer, in his best “are you ready to ruuummmble” voice proclaimed that the program would begin in five minutes; folks were clearly making an attempt to be compassionate, but the tension over seeing the 13th incarnation of the Dalai Lama in the flesh was palpable.

But, with a plethora of “excuse me’s” and “pardons,” the boiled wool and Volvo set was seated and after one more grand “Welcome!” from the PA, there he was, Tenzin Gyatso, looking just like himself, red-robed, bowing to his fellow panel members and the audience amidst sustained applause.

He wore a Madonna-style mini-mike and smiled a lot, sitting cross-legged on the one red armchair among the other gray ones, upon which sat a quintet of neuroscientists and psychologists, there to talk about the “seeds of compassion,” that is, how children can be raised up to be kind, caring, and empathic human beings.

It all felt a little bit too much like a Tony Robbins seminar at times, at least as the first few panelists were introduced with “specially made” videos featuring on-camera interviews about their research.

But the Dalai Lama himself was incandescent and funny; my favorite part was when he asked one of the researchers whether fear can conceivably be a motivator to learning, reminiscing about one of his teacher’s “holy whip,” and how it inspired him to pay more attention to his studies.

All in all, the event, for me, featured a few too much discussion by Jewish scientists (all the panelists were examples of Cousin Seth’s observation that in New York, all the Jews are Jews, and in the West, all the Jews are Buddhists), and not nearly enough by Buddhist holy men, but still, it was cool to be in his holy presence, and I’m glad I went.