His Holiness Participates in Harvard Medical School’s Conference on Cultivating CompassionSaturday, 2 May 2009, 9:06 a.m.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama (3rd L) attends a panel discussions at a conference organized by the Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance on 1 May 2009/Photos:OHHDL

Massachusetts: His
Holiness the Dalai Lama participated in several panel discussions at a
conference organized by the Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health
Alliance on 1 May. During the first morning session on Paths
to Compassion, his fellow panelists included Dr. Richard Davidson,
Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin; Dr. Christopher
K. Germer from the Department of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical
School;  Dr. Judith V Jordan, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the
Harvard Medical School;  and Dr. George E. Vaillant, Senior
Psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.His Holiness
responded to questions from the panelists on how compassion impacted
mental attitude and talked about Buddhist experience.In the
second morning session, four individuals with experience in working
with trauma victims shared them with His Holiness and sought his
comments on some of them.

In the afternoon session, His Holiness participated in a discussion on wisdom.After
departing from the conference venue, His Holiness spent nearly two
hours with a select group of people, mostly Chinese students. In his
opening remarks His Holiness gave a history of his initiative in urging
the Tibetan people to reach out to the Chinese community.  His
Holiness also informed them about the situation in Tibet and the status
of the dialogue process with the Chinese leadership.  He said if the
conditions in Tibet were good or if the Tibetan problem is due to a
handful of people, there is no reason for the Chinese Government not to
allow tourists and journalists to visit there without any hindrances. His
Holiness said he had appealed to the international community to visit
Tibet and see things for themselves. He said if we are proved wrong
then we will apologize.

His
Holiness said today China is aspiring to be a superpower and said he
prayed for it to become one. Any country wanting to be a superpower
need to have population (which China has), Military power (which China
has), economy (which China has).  However, another important condition
is moral authority, which China lacks.Referring to President Hu
Jintao’s harmonious society theme, His Holiness said that trust was
essential for such a society to come into being. He said the current
Chinese policy was counterproductive to the creation of a harmonious
society.His Holiness then answered several questions from the people, many of which were about the memorandum for genuine autonomy for Tibetan people.
–Report filed by Bhuchung K Tsering of ICT