The Dalai Lama spoke in Bender Arena on Monday for his public talk called “A Peaceful Mind in a Modern World,” which covered human nature, well being and the preservation of Tibetan culture.
His Holiness visited the University as a part of his stay in D.C. during which he also visited the United States Institute of Peace and led a silent prayer for the victims of the Orlando shooting. He was joined by Richard Gere, chairman for the International Campaign for Tibet, and Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who both gave opening remarks before his speech.
Pelosi especially welcomed the Dalai Lama’s presence and message of peace and compassion after the Orlando shooting.
“His Holiness, I cannot find another time when your presence has been so needed since the terrible massacre that happened to our LGBT loved ones in Orlando yesterday,” Pelosi said.
The current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the 14th spiritual leader of Tibet and is known by followers as His Holiness. He spoke about focusing less on external value and more on inner value of morals. He discussed coexisting and said that religions have the same message of peace.
“If you have some condition about inner value, then all these different traditions and different philosophies, [they] all carry [the] same message of love, tolerance, contentment, forgiveness,” he said.
The Dalai Lama greeted the audience as his brothers and sisters and discussed the possibilities of human beings to be more compassionate toward each other. He said that many problems are essentially created out of anger, hatred and self centered attitudes, and that mentally, physically and emotionally everyone is the same.
“Everyone [has] the seed of compassion as a part of human nature,” he said.
The Tibetan leader later changed to a more humorous subject: aging. He joked about the competition between his white and black hair on his head.
“The white hair is here trying to spread and the black hair here trying to remain still black,” he said while pointing to different sections of his head to the audience. “And then this area too is either white hair or black hair.”
The Dalai Lama then addressed the younger generation to make change in the 21st century and solve current world problems such as crime, corruption and killing.
“Now the generation of the 21st century, you are really the basis of all hope,” he said.
