By Cathy Cockrell, NewsCenter 27 April 2009
Berkeley undergraduates were there in force — many having braved an overnight line to secure a ticket, back in early March; a large contingent hailed from the campus's Richard C. Blum Center for Developing Economies. Among them=2 0was fourth-year student Rachel Bramwell and fellow urban-studies major Matt Pruter. Both have done fieldwork in the developing world (she in Nairobi, he in Mumbai) as part of their studies on global poverty. "I'm here for him to tell us to become global citizens in the world," Pruter said of the Dalai Lama.
His Holiness did not disappoint. Sitting cross-legged in an armchair on the proscenium, beneath strings of fluttering Tibetan prayer flags, the 73-year-old monk called for conscious development of our human capacity for compassion. "Peace does not equal absence of problems," he said. Peace is when, despite "disagreement and the possibility for open conflict," people exercise restraint and will power to "seek ways to solve it" without coming to blows.
While the Dalai Lama touched on Buddhist understandings of reality, on animal behavior, and the mind-body connection, his signature humility and comic timing were in play, in spontaneous asides on his childhood aversion to caterpillars and his difficulty finding the right words in English. ("As I become older, my English becomes older," he declared.) One visitor, Associate Professor of Public Policy Jane Mauldon, described His Holiness as "extraordinarily available, disarmingly human, and very intimate."
It was the Dalai Lama's second appearance at the Greek Theatre, his third at UC Berkeley (he visited in 1997 and 1994). He was introduced by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and by actress Sharon Stone, a board member of the A American Himalayan Foundation, which co-sponsored the event with the Blum Center.
Prior to the talk and in the presence of the Dalai Lama, Birgeneau presented Blum, a Cal alum and chair of the UC Board of Regents, with the campus's highest award, the Berkeley Medal, in honor of his contributions to the campus and the university. The chancellor noted that he had bestowed a Berkeley Medal just two days before, on former vice president Al Gore, during a groundbreaking ceremony for the Blum Center's new headquarters. Blum, an investment banker and husband to Senator Dianne Feinstein, established the Center for Developing Economies in 2006 with a $15 million gift.
In accepting the Berkeley Medal, Blum called the day "a merger of the two things I care most about: UC and the Tibetan people and their plight."
Only a month ago, on the 50th anniversary of China's crackdown on Tibet, the Dalai Lama sharply criticized the People's Republic of China, saying its leaders had turned Tibet into a "hell on Earth" for the Tibetan people. It was Blum — who became interested in the Tibetan cause in the 1960s and founded the American Himalayan Foundation — who uttered the only strongly worded criticism of the Chinese government at the Greek. "If they want to become a great nation, " he said, they "also need to become a moral nation. What goes on in Tibet is just immoral."
The Dalai Lama ended his 2009 appearance at Berkeley on a high note — pulling from his cloth bag a blue and gold Cal visor, and donning it as the crowd sent him out with a final standing ovation.
His Holiness did not disappoint. Sitting cross-legged in an armchair on the proscenium, beneath strings of fluttering Tibetan prayer flags, the 73-year-old monk called for conscious development of our human capacity for compassion. "Peace does not equal absence of problems," he said. Peace is when, despite "disagreement and the possibility for open conflict," people exercise restraint and will power to "seek ways to solve it" without coming to blows.
While the Dalai Lama touched on Buddhist understandings of reality, on animal behavior, and the mind-body connection, his signature humility and comic timing were in play, in spontaneous asides on his childhood aversion to caterpillars and his difficulty finding the right words in English. ("As I become older, my English becomes older," he declared.) One visitor, Associate Professor of Public Policy Jane Mauldon, described His Holiness as "extraordinarily available, disarmingly human, and very intimate."
It was the Dalai Lama's second appearance at the Greek Theatre, his third at UC Berkeley (he visited in 1997 and 1994). He was introduced by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and by actress Sharon Stone, a board member of the A American Himalayan Foundation, which co-sponsored the event with the Blum Center.
Prior to the talk and in the presence of the Dalai Lama, Birgeneau presented Blum, a Cal alum and chair of the UC Board of Regents, with the campus's highest award, the Berkeley Medal, in honor of his contributions to the campus and the university. The chancellor noted that he had bestowed a Berkeley Medal just two days before, on former vice president Al Gore, during a groundbreaking ceremony for the Blum Center's new headquarters. Blum, an investment banker and husband to Senator Dianne Feinstein, established the Center for Developing Economies in 2006 with a $15 million gift.
In accepting the Berkeley Medal, Blum called the day "a merger of the two things I care most about: UC and the Tibetan people and their plight."
Only a month ago, on the 50th anniversary of China's crackdown on Tibet, the Dalai Lama sharply criticized the People's Republic of China, saying its leaders had turned Tibet into a "hell on Earth" for the Tibetan people. It was Blum — who became interested in the Tibetan cause in the 1960s and founded the American Himalayan Foundation — who uttered the only strongly worded criticism of the Chinese government at the Greek. "If they want to become a great nation, " he said, they "also need to become a moral nation. What goes on in Tibet is just immoral."
The Dalai Lama ended his 2009 appearance at Berkeley on a high note — pulling from his cloth bag a blue and gold Cal visor, and donning it as the crowd sent him out with a final standing ovation.
