In a visit that is likely to raise the political temperature between Paris and Beijing, His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be arriving in France for a two-day, 6-7 June, visit to the French capital. It is expected that His Holiness the Dalai Lama will also be officially presented with the Citizen of Honour, a legislation that the Paris City had passed in April 2008.
After the mass protest against the Beijing torch relay in Paris, France has been the target of government and nationalist scorn in China. French supermarket chain Carefour came under increasing calls for boycott. President Sarkozy sent a delegation of high level French officials led by former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to China. It has been widely reported that the Speaker of the French National Assembly was sent by President Sarkozy to China with an invitation for Chinese president Hu Jintao to visit France.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his French interpreter Mathieu Ricard at a press conference in Paris, August 2008. Photo: Tenam
Before the G 20 meeting in London, a joint communique by the French foreign ministry and China on 1 April, declared that France does not “support any form of Tibet’s independence,” which is credited with the eventual meeting between Sarkozy and Hu Jintao in London.
The Tibet Group in the French Senate said in response that the Tibet issue cannot be considered an internal issue of China and that the Tibetan cause is very important and sensitive to the French people and their elected officials.
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NEW YORK, April 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Lama Ole Nydahl, Danish-born Buddhist master, author, and founder of Diamond Way Buddhism Worldwide, visits New York City for a rare, three-day event. The Diamond Way Marpa Retreat, led by Lama Ole, is a lively weekend of interactive talks and guided meditations on Diamond Way Buddhist principles and techniques. Diamond Way Buddhism Worldwide, a global, non-profit religious organization, comprises nearly 600 meditation centers and groups spread throughout 52 nations, including 38 host cities in the U.S. The Diamond Way Marpa Retreat with Lama Ole Nydahl is scheduled Friday, May 8, through Sunday, May 10, at the Diocesan Complex, 630 Second Avenue (at 34th Street) in Manhattan. For complete program schedule, individual sessions and full event package information, go to www.diamondway.org/ny/events.
“New Yorkers may feel, to use an ancient Chinese proverb that some regard a curse, that they are living in interesting times,” states Lama Ole Nydahl. In Tibetan Buddhism, the title ‘Lama’ is conferred to one of profound spiritual development and the authority to teach others. “Diamond Way Buddhism shows that if one has an unshakeable center, then whatever happens is a gift, and one is a very rich person.”
16th Karmapa, young Ole and Hanna Nydahl
Lama Ole Nydahl first made direct contact with Buddhism in 1968 while trekking through Nepal on his honeymoon. Eventually, he and his wife became the first Western students of His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. Years later, following the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa’s wish, Nydahl returned to his native Denmark to begin introducing the Diamond Way to the rest of the world. Since then, Lama Ole has been on constant tour, lecturing virtually every day in a different city.
Lama Ole Nydahl is the founder and director of Diamond Way Buddhism Worldwide, a global, non-profit religious organization, part of the Karma Kagyu tradition, and under the spiritual guidance of His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Trinley Thaye Dorje. Established in 1972 in Nydahl’s native Copenhagen, today there are nearly 600 Diamond Way meditation centers and meeting groups active in over 52 nations around the world. For information on Diamond Way Buddhism Worldwide, go to www.diamondway-buddhism.org.
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In the basement and driveway of a humble Malden house, the carpenters are building a throne.
Across town, in Medford, a lab technician spends his nights sewing embroidered silk for the drapery.
Three Tibetan-American men, two of them former monks, have devoted much of the last month to constructing the 9-foot high chair on which a cross-legged Dalai Lama will sit for a pair of lectures at Gillette Stadium next month.
The resulting throne is the most visible manifestation of the efforts by Boston’s small Tibetan community to prepare for the Dalai Lama’s four-day visit to the region, which begins April 29. But the throne also sheds light on the unusual backstories of local Tibetans, many of whom escaped difficult lives in Tibet or lived in exile in India before arriving in the United States.
The needleworker, Kunga Namgyal, leads the ordinary life of a research scientist at Shire, a biopharmaceutical company. But Namgyal is also the son and grandson of famed Tibetan tailors - his father was a tailor for the Dalai Lama - and now, at night, when he can steal time from playing with his son and dining with his wife, he sits on the floor by a china cabinet filled with Buddha statues and tries to remember what his own dad taught him about sewing.
One gem: While conventional sewing often involves pointing a needle away from the artisan, Tibetan Buddhists sew with the needle pointing toward themselves, to symbolize compassion for others who won’t get poked.
The financial backer of the $5,000 throne, Lobsang Paljor, was a farmer and nomad in Tibet who in 1985 became a monk there; he fled to India in 1987 and in 1991 moved to the United States. After six years selling carpets, he started Tibet Construction Inc. in 2000.
The carpenter, Kunga Lhatse, plied his trade in Lhasa before escaping to India and then moving in 2002 to the United States. He now is a member of Paljor’s 12-man crew.
“For me, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, represents Tibet,” Lhatse said, via a translator. “He is like a teacher or a parent.”
The Dalai Lama, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is the spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhists and leads a government in exile from Dharamshala, India. Also called Tenzin Gyatso, the 73-year-old lama is believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be a reincarnation of previous Dalai Lamas; he is the 14th man to hold the title.
The throne is a conventional element of the stages from which the Dalai Lama teaches about Buddhism to large crowds. When he gives a more conventional lecture or meets with scholars, as he will do at several events in Boston and Cambridge before the Foxborough sessions, he sits in a chair.
“In our religious tradition, you show respect to your teacher, and that’s why he is put on the highest pedestal,” said Lobsang Sangay, coordinator of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Boston and also a research fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School.
Often institutions hosting the Dalai Lama borrow a throne from another community, but the Boston-area Tibetan community, now thought to number about 600, saw itself as mature enough this year to construct a throne. After the Dalai Lama’s visit, the chair is intended to be a central element of a local Tibetan heritage center that the community hopes to construct in the area.
The throne is made of hand-carved teak - there is a single gold throne, in Lhasa - and the one built for Boston has carved into it the eight “auspicious symbols” of Buddhism: images of a parasol, fish, vase, lotus, conch, knot, wheel, and victory banner. The silk drapery features an image of a dorje, a small scepter traditionally associated with Tibetan Buddhist lamas.
“The Dalai Lama has been to Massachusetts several times, but this is the first time the Tibetan Association of Massachusetts is hosting it, and that reflects that we are now more organized and capable,” Sangay said.
The six previous visits have been hosted by local universities and interest groups, he said. “For many of us, it is like a lifelong dream coming true, to be able to host your spiritual and temporal leader.”
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There is going to be a long-awaited and grandiose event in June: HH 17th Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje will visit Russia for the first time on Kalmykian president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov invitation. His Holiness will visit 6 Russian cities.
June 10: Saint-Petersburg, White Tara Empowerment
June 13: Elista, Chenresig Empowerment
June 14: Elista, Karma Pakshi Empowerment
June 15: Moscow, Questions and Answers
June 16: Moscow, Dorje Sempa Empowerment
June 19: Irkutsk, Marpa Empowerment
June 20: Ulan-Ude, Guru Rinpoche Empowerment and Bodhisattva Promise
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News, Politics | Leo Golan | 
May 14, 2009 9:11 am | 
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