The fifth visit of the Dalai Lama to Atlanta, which commences Sunday, underscores a growing connection between this city and the cultural, spiritual and educational traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.
Emory University has much to do with promoting that connection. The XIV Dalai Lama is a Presidential Distinguished Professor at Emory, and over the next three days will oversee an international conference at Emory on Tibetan Buddhism, and programs on scientific research into meditation, creativity and spiritualism featuring such Western celebrities as Richard Gere and Alice Walker.
Many of the events are open to the public and Emory is dressing up the Woodruff Physical Education Center with flowers and silks, in anticipation of the thousands who will attend.
Among the events is an all-day interfaith presentation Monday on the pursuit of happiness, hosted by public radio personality Krista Tippett.
Emory's events will focus on the place where science meets religion, a mission of the Emory Tibet Science Initiative. That effort brings a science curriculum and Western scholars to the expatriate community of Tibetan monks living in India, and places Eastern traditions of meditation, compassion and mindfulness under the microscope of Western science, in the classrooms and laboratories at Emory.
"Particularly for those connected with Tibetan Buddhism, it is an exciting occasion to be in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to find the inspiration to be more kind and compassionate," said Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, director of the Emory Tibet Partnership and spiritual director of the Drepung Loseling Monastery in Brookhaven.
That Atlanta Tibetan monastery is a North American representative of the 600-year-old Drepung Loseling monastery in Tibet that was destroyed during the Chinese invasion in 1959. About 250 monks escaped to southern India, where they built a replica monastery. The population of expatriate monks at India's Drepung Loseling monastery is now about 3,000.
Geshe Lobsang, who grew up in the Himalayan mountains, entered India's Drepung Loseling when he was 14, and studied under the Dalai Lama, earning the honorific "Geshe," meaning a scholar who has attained a doctorate in Buddhist studies. He came to Georgia in 1991 to start a meditation center and joined the Emory faculty shortly thereafter.
For Lobsang, the visit of the Dalai Lama is personally inspiring: "There are no words for me to describe the feeling. The experience is almost like time stands still. Each time it's like that, and I've seen His Holiness many times."
After 27 years in the monastery, Lobsang formally "returned" his monastic vows in 2002, and is married. But he remains connected to the monastic life through the Brookhaven monastery and through his work at Emory.
The visit of the Dalai Lama begins Sunday with a press conference, a teaching for the Buddhist community and an interfaith summit on happiness. Among Monday's events is a conference on "compassion meditation" and its influence on health and well-being. Tuesday's lineup includes a dialogue among Richard Gere, Alice Walker and the Dalai Lama on spirituality and the arts.
Most events are open to the public; some are sold out. For information: 404-727-6123; dalailama.emory.edu/2010/
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