This morning I woke up at 6:00 to volunteer at His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama’s talk at Smith College.

The hall where he would be speaking was surrounded by local and state policemen, F.B.I., ambulances, bomb squads and bomb-sniffing dogs, and secret service agents. My seat was near the stage, about five rows back and in the front of the large indoor track and field center at Smith, which had about 5,000 seats. The 5,000 seats were for Hampshire and Smith College Students, the Tibetan Association of Western Massachusetts (TAWM), and friends and guests of these groups. There was local media broadcasting the event from a platform behind me, and two large screens to the left and right of the stage to enlarge the stage for the audience farther back. On the stage there were 2 seats on the left, a lectern with two microphones in the center, a larger, plush red chair for His Holiness, and a smaller one to his right for his translator, Dr. Thupten Jinpa-la. Yesterday during rehearsal they had a custom-made chair for the Dalai Lama, but I could not find out why it was switched with the relatively normal one they had today.

The security was tight. At the volunteer entrance there were 6 security guards for one door with a metal-detector. At the main entrance there were at least 25-30 security personnel, and I believe 6 metal-detectors. My job was to usher people to seats. Other volunteers and I were relatively useless. People tend to find seats on their own. When I told people to move closer or move in to the middle of the rows, I generally got somewhat nasty looks, or excuses about why they had to sit where they were. I just told them I was doing my job. Some people obviously made up excuses, i.e. brain damage, claustrophobia, leaving early (in particular, one person was clearly lying when she told me she had work in an hour, so she wanted the end seat to get up, when the program was scheduled to start in an hour and a half).

The program started at about 10:00. When everyone had taken their seat, some piano music started playing. His Holiness walked in, accompanied by the president of Smith College, Carol Christ, the president of Hampshire College, Ralph Hexter, and Thupten Jinpa, the Dalai Lama’s translator and president of the Institute of Tibetan Classics in Montréal, Canada. It was a very silent entrance. His Holiness the Dalai Lama had on the black cap and robes that college students where at graduation, overtop of his usual maroon and yellow monks robes. The audience stood up and welcomed him, some with clapping, some with folded hands, and some Tibetans, with access to the aisles, with full traditional respects. He had a small microphone around his ear, and when everyone sat down he started giggling. The audience laughed with him.

The Dalai Lama speaks at Smith College May 9 (Courtesy AP, Boston Herald)

There were several speeches. Both college presidents gave small speeches praising the Dalai Lama and the Buddhist studies program that our universities have in conjunction with Tibetan Institutes in India. Thondup Tsering, head of the TAWM, gave the best speech. He expressed his gratitude for the Dalai Lama’s emphasis on education for Tibetan exile community, for coming to Western Mass., and for his work preserving Tibetan culture and Tibet itself. Smith College gave an honorary degree and an undisclosed donation to the Dalai Lama, and Hampshire College gave a citation (they don’t have honorary degrees) and an ambulance bicycle, made by a former Hampshire student. The Smith College chorus also sang, and there were two fantastic Tibetan dances from TAWM students and other members. The whole time His Holiness, much to the audience’s delight, acted very human. He was fanning himself with his hat, scratching his nose, and so on.

Then, finally, His Holiness got up to speak. He thanked everyone. Unfortunately, I was in too much awe to have full remembrance of his speech, but I will try to write to the best of my abilities. He said he was grateful for the acknowledgement that the colleges gave for his “small contribution to the welfare of humanity and the upliftment of all beings” and made a joke about how easy it was for him to get a degree without even studying.

Receiving Smith College’s honorary degree

He talked about the importance of education and right education. He said it was important to learn but knowledge can be used for destructive purposes, and we must develop kindness and compassion so that knowledge can be used to uplift humanity. “Education gives us guidance,” he said, but it is not only education, and wealth, and success that bring happiness, there must also be loving-kindness. The Dalai Lama said that one way to look at compassion was to examine mothers of newborn children and see the love they have. If you could take that love and compassion and spread it over a lifetime, His Holiness asserted that it might just lead to true happiness. He also said that anger, hatred, and jealousy destroy the peace of the mind, and he thinks it is very important to have a calm mind. He made three main points, I think the first being that of education, the second compassion, and the third was about his moral responsibility to the Tibetan people. He did not make any political references, just stated that it was important to preserve the culture and the “precious environment” of Tibet, and continue education. He also stated that while he was in semi-retirement now (as of setting up the Tibetan Government in Exile, I think he was referring to), in a few years, he will retire completely.

Throughout the speech he spoke fairly good English, with occasional help from his translator. His Holiness was always with a smile, some humor, and humbleness, and overall it was very impressive. He was not reading from any sort of script. He received a standing ovation at the end for several minutes as he returned to his seat.

After his speech there were some questions that his translator had for him, I guess submitted from students, although I do not recall getting any notice about that. Most of the students I talked to liked his question and answer session better than his speech. It was much more personal, humorous, and frank.

The first question was about how to reconcile his view of inter-faith unity and the possibility of multiple truths with the view that some religions take where there is only one truth or one way to God, and specifically Christianity was mentioned. This seemed like a tough question, but he handled it very well. He said that for different illnesses, there are different medicines, different cures, and not one that will cure all of them. In the same way, different people have different “mental dispositions” for which they need different understandings. Some people have a very strong faith in a creator God, and he said that if that attitude would develop compassion and happiness in that person, then that was the best religion for them. He said that he Christian friends who told him he was a good Christian, and Muslim friends who told him he was a good Muslim. His translator suggested to him that they could have just been flattering him, and he laughed. (I think this may have actually been during the speech). He added that humans need diversity in food for the physical body – and they might very well need diversity as well for the mind.

Another question was about successes combining modern science with Buddhism. His view is generally that if something in modern science can explain something better than older Buddhist scriptures can, then they should go with science. He told an interesting story from his youth in Tibet. When he was little he had a telescope that he often used to look at the moon. In some Buddhist scriptures, it says that the moon gives off its own light. He had observed how light shifts during the day from one side of the world to the other, and also how the craters in the moon would look different depending on where the moon was. He surmised that the craters were shadows from mountains, and so the light must be coming from the sun and reflecting off the moon. He showed his teachers who saw it too and agreed that he was right. He said that it was “one instance where the stupid student had the right answers instead of the teacher.” Actually, it is quite brilliant and remarkable that a young student would make that kind of observation.

A third question was about how to solve some of the world’s big problems, such as global warming, economic inequality, and wars. His Holiness answered “How to solve these problems? The truth is, I don’t know.” Everyone laughed along with him, and then clapped. He then said that he wanted to add one more problem to the list, which was population. He said that the population should stay between six and seven billion or it will become a problem in the future. He said to continue educating, and making sure the education also taught compassion and kindness, and then the problems might go away. He also said that when solving the gap between rich and poor, it shouldn’t be that the rich live poorer, but the poor should live more like the rich.

The fourth question was “What advice would you give to a young couple raising a child?” His answer was “I’m the wrong person to ask,” and he laughed. He said that if he was allowed to marry, and then have children, then maybe he would have something to say. That was followed by an answer about the importance of parenting. He said that the most important thing was for especially the mother to give “maximum affection” for the child growing up. He said he also liked for a little harsh treatment by the parents sometimes to “manipulate the fear” of a child to do the right thing. He told us a story about his teachers. While most of the time his teachers were very respectful, “because I had the name Dalai Lama,” he joked, they had two whips, one for his brother, and one for him. His was a yellow one, and his teachers called it the “holy whip” for the holy child. He suggested that they had used it on him to cause “holy pain,” but it was not holy at all, and it hurt just like any other pain.

The last question I can remember was “What is the most important thing to have in mind in life?” His Holiness the Dalai Lama answered again, to laughs, “I don’t know!” He said that it was “a typical Western question” and “way of thinking” to say “What is the most? The best?” and in some cases, “What is the cheapest?” His real answer was that at different times there are different “bests,” for example, if you are a businessman, then you want to make the most at the cheapest cost, and if you are a student, then you want to “get the best marks with the least work.” For each person and each situation there are different “best” things to have in mind and be focused on. Everything should be done with a calm mind, however.

After the questions were done, there was another standing ovation, and there were the presentations of gifts from the Smith student body president and my friend Yangzom, a Tibetan international student from Hampshire. He exited the room with his humble and humbling bows and folded hands to different directions of the room.

Yangzom presents the Hampshire College gift (Courtesy The Boston Globe)

I think everyone feels very lucky and blessed to have sat in his presence today and heard his wisdom. It’s easy to read about him and see pictures and such and wonder about what kind of person he really is – I can say that there is much more to him than can be described by words. He really seems to appreciate every single thing. His smile is not false; it is full of a lifetime of compassion for all beings. He has an undisputable radiance about him; you can’t help but smile in his presence, and feel enamored by him. Whether he is a living Buddha or not, he is definitely a type of man that is rare to find in the history of this world. I have eternal gratitude for everyone who set this visit up, and especially His Holiness for coming. Thank you!

After his speech:

The Dalai Lama exits a hall at Smith College (Courtesy Dawa Yangzom)

Child in awe of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Courtesy Dawa Yangzom)

There were apparently be an archived version of the webcast available of the event online tomorrow at Smith College’s website.