In Good Humor, Dalai Lama Calls for Compassion

With a burgundy and saffron robe draping his small frame, His Holiness the Dalai Lama spoke to more than 1,100 people Wednesday at Cal State Fullerton about the values of love and compassion.

The high priest gave a speech titled “Cherishing Harmony With Diversity: Education in the New Millennium” at the Titan Student Union’s Portola Pavilion as part of a two-week blitz of Southern California.

“Everybody wants a happy life,” said the spiritual leader, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, as he adjusted the microphone pinned to his robe. “Me too.”

The audience gave him a standing ovation and laughed throughout his hourlong speech about embracing dialogue, shunning violence and nurturing the concept of community in cities and villages around the globe.

“His message of compassion has universal appeal,” said Soraya M. Coley, dean of the College of Human Development and Community Service and an event organizer. “He has appeal across religious groups, across all of the categories that would typically divide us.”

Before an elaborate backdrop of Tibetan cloth paintings, carved wooden chairs and silk pillows, the Dalai Lama punctuated his speech with jokes, high-pitched giggles and parables about life without feelings of anger and resentment.

“Our survival is dependent on a sense of community,” said the Tibetan leader, who was installed as the 14th Dalai Lama in 1940 and exiled to India 19 years later. “When you think about hope and humanity, the mind opens.”

For Amy Baggs of San Juan Capistrano, seeing the Dalai Lama nearly brought her to tears. She said she wants to leave Catholicism and guilt behind and start practicing Buddhism.

“It makes sense as a way to live your life,” said Baggs, who plans this year to visit Dharamsala, the remote town in northern India where the Dalai Lama lives and where Tibetan exiles are based.

The 30-year-old is getting her master’s degree in education at Cal State Fullerton and wants to teach the values of compassion and love that the Dalai Lama advocates.

Benjamin J. Hubbard, a professor of comparative religion at Cal State Fullerton, helped present for the Dalai Lama’s blessing a Bohdi tree that will be planted in the Fullerton Arboretum.

“The unity and harmony he speaks about are very important for our world to hear,” Hubbard said.

The event, co-sponsored by Cal State Fullerton and the Tibetan Department of Education, also featured music by Tibetan composer Nawang Khechog; a lecture by Dan Goleman, author of “Emotional Intelligence”; and exhibits depicting the people and culture of Tibet.

The Dalai Lama “is doing a lot of good work to bring peace and harmony to people of different faiths,” said Muzammil H. Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Society of Orange County, after the lecture. “I appreciate his leadership.”

The Dalai Lama, who sometimes used a translator to clarify ideas in his talk, did not address the political situation in Tibet and China. Rather, he focused on the theme of loving others despite differences.

“Tolerance is a science of strength,” he said. “But tolerance doesn’t mean you let others have unjust activities.”

He drew enthusiastic applause when he answered a question about celibacy, saying abstinence is not necessary to discipline the mind but is relevant to strict religious practice.

For Bradford Salamon, 37, of Newport Beach, the lecture was an opportunity to hear Buddhist values articulated.

Although he has a Christian background, Salamon said, he has issues with some of the theology and for years has been searching for religious messages he feels are less elitist.

“I don’t like the idea of Christians as the chosen ones,” he said. “It’s not necessarily religion I’m trying to get” from the Dalai Lama’s talk “but more his message of peace.”