Dalai Lama Urges Local Unity Against China

His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet on Sunday kicked off a new alliance between Southland Tibetans and Taiwanese, uniting in a common plea for freedom from China’s territorial claims over their homelands as he began a weeklong series of public events in Los Angeles.

Then, shifting from politics to religion, Tibet’s spiritual and temporal leader delivered a Buddhist teaching on transforming the mind toward compassion.

In an evening address, the Dalai Lama, who arrived in Los Angeles on Friday, told about 10,000 people at the Los Angeles Sports Arena that the secret to inner peace is nothing more mysterious than healthy mental attitudes. He repeatedly expressed skepticism about miracles, quashed beliefs in his own rumored supernatural powers and urged people to rely on their own mental faculties to transform negative thoughts into compassion and joy.

“So many of our problems are the result of overactive imaginations,” he said.

Clad in a simple robe of saffron and red, the Nobel Peace Prize winner drew standing ovations wherever he went as he entered smiling and bowing with hands clasped together in greeting and prayer.

“You should just consider me as your brother,” he told about 800 members of the Southland’s well-heeled Taiwanese American community. “Don’t consider me a living Buddha: Then I can’t share my experiences with you!”

The Taiwan event marked the start of what both sides said would be more cooperative and concerted action in pressing for autonomy and independence from China. Although Taiwan’s longtime ruling nationalist party had long asserted that Tibet was part of China, the party’s electoral defeat this year ushered in a new government that advocates Tibet’s right to self-determination.

Since then, Taiwanese support for the Tibetan cause has increased noticeably--including the formation of a new group, Taiwanese Americans for Tibet. The group last week endorsed the 700-mile freedom march from San Francisco and San Diego to Los Angeles in support of Tibetan independence.

“We share a threat from the same source--China--so we feel strongly that we want to extend our hands and sympathy,” said Li-Pei Wu, chairman of GBC Bancorp General Bank, who helped organize the event. “We hope without violence, we can bring the world to see what China is doing to the innocent people of Tibet and Taiwan.”

The Universal City event also was organized by Taiwanese Americans for Tibet and raised $350,000 for Tibet’s refugee community. Rinchen Dharlo, president of the Tibet Fund, said 1.2 million Tibetans had perished, 6,000 monasteries had been destroyed, millions of religious textbooks burned, and many sacred art pieces and paintings looted and sold during nearly five decades of Chinese occupation.

More than 130,000 refugees in 56 settlements around the world are eking out a living but desperately need educational, medical and economic help, he said.

“We are passing through the darkest period of our history,” Dharlo said.

The Dalai Lama, however, told the audience that the politics surrounding China, Tibet and Taiwan are “very complicated.” He made broad calls for Taiwan, Japan and Asia’s other economic giants to balance material gains with spiritual enrichment. He also appealed to Taiwanese Americans to help educate the Communist Chinese, through books and personal visits, to the importance of preserving Tibet’s distinctive history, culture and religion.

C.C. Lee, an accountant, said he came seeking not only political solidarity with the Tibetans but spiritual sustenance from the Dalai Lama.

“Most Chinese Americans who came here as immigrants were so busy trying to build up our businesses,” he said. “Now, as we progress in this country, we need more spiritual achievements and the Dalai Lama has a lot to teach us.”

At the public address, the Dalai Lama drew repeated laughter and applause as he traversed topics from the path of nonviolence to environmentalism to the “wise selfish” path of altruism. The 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner told the crowd that violence against China would only alienate potential Chinese supporters and contradict what he called the basic human nature of gentleness.

At the L.A. Forum teaching, sponsored by the Long Beach Tibetan Buddhist Center, Thubten Dhargye Ling, the Dalai Lama shifted toward religion, offering commentary on ancient Buddhist texts on compassion, the impermanence of life and the nature of the mind.

Seated on a brilliant brocaded dais, surrounded by about 100 monks and Tibetan thanka paintings of the Buddha, he led the audience through initial steps on how to transform the mind away from negativity.

Gam Caldwell, a vocational counselor, flew in from San Francisco to attend the teachings and did not hesitate to explain the reason why.

“He is a living hero to me,” Caldwell said. “He is the embodiment of what I want to be: Someone who is truly good, compassionate, walks his talk and tirelessly works to benefit all beings.

“Maybe,” Caldwell added with a laugh, “I’ll attain that in the next lifetime.”