When the war started, some people immediately asked me if it was justified or not, whether it was right or wrong. And then just before the Iraq crisis started, millions of people from countries like Australia and America expressed their opposition to violence. I wrote this letter and expressed, besides my condolences and sadness, a countermeasure to this tragedy: a nonviolent response because that would have been more effective. The Dalai Lama: When September 11 happened, the next day I wrote a letter to President Bush as a friend-because I know him personally. Question: What are your thoughts on the Iraq War? It is hard not to be beguiled by the Dalai Lama. When I bowed slightly in acknowledgment, he bowed so deeply in response that the situation became slightly awkward. As I was leaving, he put around my neck a white scarf in the traditional Tibetan manner of bidding a person farewell. Hen the interview was done, the Dalai Lama clasped my hand for the keepsake photograph. The Dalai Lama punctuated the interview throughout with his high-pitched laughter. When I asked a Buddhism-related question, a young monk was brought in to help with the translation of religious concepts. Sitting in for assistance with his English (which the Dalai Lama needed only a couple of times) was Tenzin Geyche Tethong. The room contained a statue of the Buddha in a wooden showcase and several thangka cloth paintings depicting Buddhist imagery. He guided me by the hand to the living room, where we spoke.
When I was beckoned for the interview, the Dalai Lama was outside in the hallway waiting to greet me. (I was told afterward by my escort Jigmey Tsultrim that he keeps it in the meditation room.) Tenzin Taklha and Tenzin Geyche Tethong, both assistants of the Dalai Lama, dropped by to chat with me while I was waiting. After being frisked by security, I was ushered into a waiting chamber that held various awards and honorary degrees he has received, although I noticed that his Nobel medal was missing. The house is not very grand from the outside, but contains a spacious courtyard surrounded by well-appointed rooms. He lives in a house opposite a temple and a public area where he gives sermons. I met the Dalai Lama on October 6 in Dharamsala. Numerous Western tourists time their visit to Dharamsala according to when he’ll be in residence there just so that they can catch a glimpse of him. Later on that same afternoon, cinema superstar Jet Li dropped by. Just ahead of me on his appointment roster was the ex-president of El Salvador, Francisco Flores. The Dalai Lama is perhaps one of the most in-demand personalities in the world. And, of course, I accept it on behalf of the six million Tibetan people, my brave countrymen and women inside Tibet, who have suffered and continue to suffer so much.” “I accept it as a tribute to the man who founded the modern tradition of nonviolent action for change-Mahatma Gandhi-whose life taught and inspired me. “I accept the prize with profound gratitude on behalf of the oppressed everywhere and for all those who struggle for freedom and work for world peace,” said the Dalai Lama in his acceptance speech. In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “first and foremost for his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people’s struggle to regain their liberty,” said Egil Aarvik, the chair of the Nobel Committee. Accounts of the Dalai Lama’s life appear in two Hollywood films: Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet. He has written two memoirs, My Land and My People and Freedom in Exile, and several books dealing with religion and spirituality, including the just-published The Universe in a Single Atom. The Dalai Lama is an inveterate traveler and has visited the West numerous times in recent years to propagate the Tibetan cause, making frequent media and public appearances.
Since 1960, he has lived in Dharamsala, a town situated at the foothills of the Himalayas that has become the seat of the Tibetan government in exile and home to 10,000 of his fellow countrymen. The Dalai Lama fled to India along with some of his followers. While both sides came to an agreement that allowed the Dalai Lama to stay on, this arrangement came to an end in 1959 when the Chinese started crushing a revolt on the eastern flanks of Tibet.
When he was fifteen years old, the Chinese invaded Tibet. Named Lhamo Thondup by his parents, he was renamed Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso after monks discovered him at the age of two and proclaimed him to be the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama. The fourteenth Dalai Lama was born July 6, 1935, in the northeastern Tibetan province of Amdo. He came across in our meeting as so pleasant and friendly-complete with a robust sense of humor-that I was disarmed. You have to be really hard-bitten not to be taken with the Dalai Lama’s charm.
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