Dalai Lama Draws Crowd to Washington

When Jerry and Laura Jesseph piled into their RV on their way to Washington, the Indiana couple had plenty of company: their 11-year-old son, Charlie, and four Tibetan Buddhist monks along for the ride.

Tens of thousands of others made their own journeys, from as far as Nepal and Switzerland, to soak in the day’s heat and reflect on the quiet wisdom of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibet who brought his message of patience and enlightenment Sunday to the Mall.

“They love to be in his presence and so do we,” Laura Jesseph, from Bloomington, Ind., said of her Tibetan companions.

The Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a celebrity in many quarters, gave an hourlong discourse on Buddhist teaching, focusing on the illusory nature of wealth and power, and the role of hope and generosity toward others in bringing happiness.

Sitting in the center of a stage brimming with Tibetan reds and golds, he also raised a political and social challenge to the people of Washington to rid the city of sharp economic disparities.

“This is the nation’s capital of the richest country in the world, but in some sections of society people are very, very poor. This is not just morally wrong but practically also,” he said to a crescendo of applause.

He also spoke of the frustration of poverty leading to anger, then violence, even violence among children.

“You can’t blame individual people,” he said. The “whole society” is at fault.

The Dalai Lama’s appearance was the apex of a two-week Tibetan exhibit at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, billed as the largest display of that culture to ever appear in the West. Chinese officials have objected to the exhibit and the participation of Tibet’s leader-in-exile, who fled in 1959 and now lives in northern India. China has occupied Tibet for 50 years.

The crowd Sunday on the Mall was estimated at 50,000 by Smithsonian officials; the number of exiled Tibetans worldwide is 140,000.