His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Berkeley Visit: A Momentous OccasionCritics of the Tibetan Leader Misunderstand The Broad Appeal of This Great Peacemaker By Kriss Worthington10 April 2009

His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Washington D.C. on 17 October 2007 when he was honoured with the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

UC Berkeley often has great speakers and fun cultural events, and the appearance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama is surely one of this year’s highlights.Meeting the Dalai Lama in person was a profound moment of my life. Just to be near him I could feel him radiating peace, love and wisdom to each person he spoke to. The afterglow energized me for months, and still rekindles warm feelings years later.The Dalai Lama is internationally acclaimed as a spiritual, political and cultural leader. His teachings have touched the hearts, minds and souls of millions of people throughout the world. While he is pre-eminently known as a Tibetan Buddhist leader, his message resonates with people of good will of many countries and many faiths.Like Prairie Home Companion, the Dalai Lama’s teachings touch deep subjects with lightness, love, and laughter. Powerful words and issues are wrapped in enormous human empathy and humor.Like Harriet Tubman, the Dalai Lama led thousands of his people into exile to escape oppression, persecution and likely death.Like Martin Luther King Jr., he has been steadfastly devoted to nonviolence, in the face of much repression. His eloquent articulation and lifetime commitment to nonviolence earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.Like Cesar Chavez, his passionate love for human beings led to a deeper understanding of environmental justice and moved him to speak up against policies devastating to Tibetans and the environment.Like Barack Obama, he is not a prisoner of the past but rather a complex interweaving of old and new together. Even while he labors to preserve Tibetan language, clothing, dance and music, he displays openness to change and practices democracy. His affiliated groups, like our local Tibetan Association of Northern California include women leaders, and are working to build a Tibetan Community Center here in the Bay area.The Dalai Lama’s continuing commitment to negotiation in spite of disappearances, crackdowns and media suppression, denote him as a potential partner to reconciliation. Unfortunately his enemies would rather accuse him and his supporters of being a “clique”. That is an absurd and profound misunderstanding of both the Dalai Lama and what he represents.Customarily cliques are snobbish or narrow coterie. In contrast, the Dalai Lama circle includes presidents and other political leaders, and hundreds of thousands of common men and women around the globe. The Dalai Lama has won international respect and admiration. If his supporters are a clique, we are overwhelmingly the largest and most diverse one ever in the history of the world.–The article is reproduced from The Daily Californian Online.