French Human Rights Minister to meet His Holiness
Wednesday, 20 August 2008, 11:13 a.m.
 Holiness the Dalai Lama (L) with Jean-Marc Ayrault, French National Assembly Socialist group president and Nantes Mayor, in Nantes, western France on 18 August 2008. File photo/Reuters/Stephane Mahe/France |
Dharamshala: His Holiness the
Dalai Lama will meet French human rights Rama Yade and first lady Carla
Bruni Sarkozy in southern France, on 22 August.
Mr. Jampal Chosang, representative of His Holiness the Dalai
Lama in France, confirmed the meeting, VOA Tibetan news service
reported Wednesday.
The meeting with French rights minister is to take place on
Friday following the inauguration of a Buddhist temple near the town of
Lodeve in southern France.
“I will express my respect for the spiritual leader that he is,
my admiration for the man of peace that he is and my solidarity with
the courageous struggle that he has been waging for so many years,” AFP
quoted rights minister Yade as saying.
Earlier on Tuesday, Jean-Marc Ayrault, French National Assembly
Socialist group president and Nantes Mayor, called on His Holiness the
Dalai Lama at his office.
On the same day, His Holiness gave discourse on dual truths –
absolute and relative truth from the teachings on commentaries from
Nagarjuna’s “Treatise on the Middle Way”.
More than 10,000 devotees from different walks of life are
attending His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teaching at Zenith Nantes
Metropole, which began 16 August.
His Holiness said different schools of Buddhist thought hold different views concerning these truths.
The relative truth is concerned with the knowledge of things and
of mental concepts in their perceptible aspects, and absolute truth
with knowledge of their imperceptible aspects, His Holiness said.
On the morning of 20 August, His Holiness will confer the
“Quintessential Collection of the Inner Siddhis (Thuk-Drup Yang-Nying
Kun-Tue)” from the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Secret Teachings.
Later in the afternoon, His Holiness will proceed to the town
of Lodeve in southern France for the inauguration of a temple at
Lerabling Buddhist Institute.
The five-day discourse is being conferred at the request of
three Buddhists centers- based in France- Dashang Vajradhara Ling, Pel
Drukpa’i Chotshok and the Centre d’Etudes de Chanteloube.
