Updates on His Holiness US Visit
Wednesday, 9 November 2005, 11:02 AM
Dharamshala: The White House spokesman yesterday announced that President Bush would be meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama today afternoon.
His Holiness attended the first day session of the Mind & Life Conference yesterday. Prior to this he gave a brief media opportunity at the conference venue.
The organisers asked the media reporters to ask questions with reference to science and the conference, but one of the journalists asked about the dialogue process with Beijing and His Holiness agreed to answer it.
He said that the Tibetans main emphasis is to build confidence, and in the dialogue itself there has been some progress.
He further said that from the Chinese side there is no sign of improvement in terms of leniency inside Tibet. Things are still very repressive there. AFP has come out with a report on this media interaction.
The Washington Post science writer, Jeff Kaufman, asked His Holiness about the protests by the Chinese. His Holiness said that it is basically somewhat understandable that it could be strange for a monk to speak to a group of scientists. He said that if it was a large group of monks, and they asked a scientist to address them, that may also be strange.
One reporter also asked about conflicts between science and the Tibetan myth of creation. His Holiness explained that for Tibetans (not for Buddhists), the myth is that Tibetans were descended from monkeys and then laughed saying so maybe there is some scientific basis there. He also said that generally the empirical evidence is crucial in evaluating concepts.
There are over 2000 observers at the Mind & Life conference, according to the organisers. There has been a steady increase in the number of observers.
Last time, when the conference was held at MIT in Boston, it seems there were 700. This is part of the effort to generate the awareness of the issue to the broader public, as expressed by His Holiness.
(www.tibet.net is the official website of the Central Tibetan Administration.)