His Holiness the Dalai Lama Leaves for United States and Canada
Dharamsala, 12 April: His Holiness the Dalai Lama departed from here yesterday on a twenty four-day tour of United States and Canada. His Holiness will visit Los Angeles, California and three Canadian cities from April 12 to May 6, 2004. His Holiness will deliver lectures on Buddhist philosophy and universal responsibility, receive multiple Honorary Doctorate Degrees, participate in a conference with other Nobel Peace Laureates, and help to introduce a curriculum of Ethics for a New Millennium and Modern Tibetan Studies to two Universities. The focus of this visit is the Kalachakra Initiation in Toronto.
His Holiness will give a three-day teaching on Nagarjuna’s 60 Stanzas on Reasoning, as requested by the Compassion and Wisdom Buddhist Association. For further information on the teaching, please visit: www.cwbausa.org
In Vancouver, His Holiness will be joined by other Nobel Peace Laureates in a conference entitled Tibet and the Contemporary World.
His Holiness will travel to the Canadian capital city of Ottawa on 21 April and deliver a public talk. His Holiness is also likely to meet with members of the Parliament and other government leaders. The Ottawa visit is requested by Canada Tibet Committee, which is actively engaged in the initiative for a Tibet-China negotiation campaign. The last leg of His Holiness’ North American tour will end on 6 May with the Kalachakra (wheel of time), the largest Buddhist initiation given by the Dalai Lamas. His Holiness has bestowed 27 Kalachakra Initiations on four continents, with the first one in the month of May 1954 in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
“Regardless of the city, state, or country to which His Holiness travels, His objectives are always global in scope: to promote basic human values; to promote inter-religious harmony and world peace; and to look after the welfare of the Tibetan people and the preservation of the Tibetan cultural heritage”, Said Ngawang Rabgyal, the Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the Americas, in a press release issued earlier.
His Holiness first visited the United States in 1979. His Holiness’ last visit took place in September 2003. His Holiness will be back on 10 May after which His Holiness will sit on a ten-day retreat. His Holiness will begin His Europe tour on 23 May. His Holiness last visited Canada in 1993.