Dalai Lama to Lecture Across Region

The Dalai Lama, the widely admired Tibetan Buddhist leader, will lecture for three days next week at UCLA after receiving an unusual honor at UC Santa Barbara.

Acting on the idea of two UC Santa Barbara faculty members, about 500 Santa Barbara residents have contributed toward a goal of $350,000 to endow the 14th Dalai Lama Endowed Chair for Tibetan Buddhist and Cultural Studies. Donations have ranged from $10 to $50,000. Tenzin Gyatso, the actual name of the temporal-spiritual leader of Tibet in exile, will give the inaugural lecture Monday in connection with the endowment. The selection of a professor for that chair is two to three years away, said Richard Hecht, head of the religious studies department.

“This will be only the second U.S. chair in Tibetan studies, the other being at Columbia University,” Hecht said. “And I don’t know of any other university endowed chair funded by local residents.

“We figured the community would be interested since so many people--though completely modern and secular--appreciate the demanding meditative tradition and intellectual rigor of Tibetan Buddhism.”

The Dalai Lama’s Monday afternoon talk and a community dinner in Santa Barbara are sold out.

Similarly, registration closed weeks ago for a UCLA Extension seminar Thursday night to be led by the Dalai Lama and Huston Smith, author of “The World’s Religions.”

The Buddhist leader, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on behalf of Tibet under mainland Chinese rule, also will give a lecture at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion at 6:30 p.m. Friday on “A Vision for the New Millennium.” Tickets are $15. (310) 825-2101.

Next Saturday at 4:30 p.m., he will speak to a gathering of Vietnamese Buddhists at Cal State Long Beach’s “Pyramid” sports arena.

At another event, participants who paid $100 to $400 for a three-day workshop at Pauley Pavilion, starting Thursday, will hear the Dalai Lama interpret the modern relevance of the “Precious Garland,” a text written by the Buddhist master Nagarjuna of India about the 2nd Century.

“It is a clear presentation of Buddhist principles that integrates worldly and spiritual concerns,” said Jean Paone of the sponsoring Center for the Study of Buddhism and Tibetan Culture in Long Beach. “Nagarjuna explains that morality, generosity and truth are the foundation of a just and compassionate society.”

On June 8, the Dalai Lama will close out his Pauley Pavilion appearances with a morning ceremony to confer on workshop registrants the Shakyamuni Buddha initiation, which Paone said is designed to “further their development of compassion and wisdom, which innately exists in our minds, through the blessings of the Buddha.”

CONFERENCE

Concerned by what they call a deepening poverty crisis expected to result from federal welfare reform, a self-described “progressive Christian movement” will hold a daylong conference on “Family Values, Welfare and Children” next Saturday at All Saints Episcopal Church, 132 N. Euclid Ave., Pasadena.

Speakers will include Rep. Walter Capps (D-Santa Barbara), a former religious studies scholar; columnist-author Robert Scheer of The Times; and the Rev. George Regas, former rector of All Saints.

Regas will describe the aims of the Claremont-based movement Mobilization for the Human Family, which was formed to address poverty issues. Registration is $20; the meeting starts at 8:30 a.m. (909) 625-8722.

PEOPLE

Salvation Army Gen. Paul A. Rader, who three years ago became the first American ever elected to that denomination’s top post, will return to Southern California next week to address about 7,000 officers and members of the Army’s Western region. The worldwide church, based in London, is best known for its disaster relief and social services.

Rader, who in 1994 was commanding the Army’s 13-state Western territory from headquarters in Rancho Palos Verdes, will be the featured speaker at a three-day congress, starting Friday, at the Long Beach Convention Center. The sessions are closed to the public.

* Rick Stanley, the stepbrother of Elvis Presley, will be the featured speaker at 9:30 a.m. Sunday at Chino High School, where the Inland Community Church rents facilities for weekly services. Stanley, 43, who toured with Presley before the entertainer’s death in 1977, has since been active on the evangelistic speaking circuit. (909) 628-1571.

DATES

A seminar for people who are unemployed, underemployed or unhappily employed will be held next Saturday at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 600 St. Andrews Road, Newport Beach. The 11th annual seminar by the church’s career network ministry, will run from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Advance registration is $15. (714) 574-2239.

* Television newsman Larry Carroll and Tony award nominee Starletta DuPois will perform in “God’s Trombones” during a concert of classic spiritual songs Friday and next Saturday at Grace Church, 5100 Cerritos Ave., Cypress. Both shows are at 8 p.m. $15. (818) 852-9105.

* The Bob Mitchell Boys Choir will present a concert of sacred music at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Calvary Cemetery Mausoleum Chapel, 4201 Whittier Blvd., Los Angeles. (213) 261-3106.

* The Boston Liturgical Dance Ensemble, based at Catholic-run Boston College, will use music, dance and drama to interpret the rigorous spiritual exercises of Jesuit founder St. Ignatius of Loyola in an 8 p.m. performance Wednesday at Loyola Marymount University’s Strub Theatre. $5. (310) 338-7383.

* Donald Owens, one of six general superintendents of the Kansas City-based Church of the Nazarene, will speak during the three-day assembly of the Nazarenes’ Los Angeles District, which will open 8:45 a.m. Thursday at the Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene, 3700 E. Sierra Madre Blvd. (818) 794-7104.

FINALLY

The Rose Bowl spiritual rally of Christian women May 16 and 17 was described months earlier by organizers as an event likely to draw 80,000. Later, leaders predicted a crowd of up to 100,000 women.

Organizers at Chosen Women, an evangelical ministry in Tustin, modeled the first-time event partly after the unrelated Promise Keeper rallies of men at U.S. stadiums.

The Rose Bowl roster did boast a videotaped appearance by Ruth Graham, who is married to evangelist Billy Graham. The couple’s daughter, Anne Graham Lotz came in person.

The final tally: 17,000 to 25,000 women, according to publicist Joanne Herdrich. “We were not actually expecting 100,000, but we were hoping for close to 35,000,” she said.

What happened? Organizers relied on word of mouth at churches and press releases, but didn’t advertise.

“But we were besieged with women who came up and said they would bring more people from their churches if we did it again,” Herdrich said. “We’re not ready to make a commitment yet, but we think we will have another meeting next year and again at the Rose Bowl.”

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