Wednesday, October 7, 2009

In Good Time...

On April 26 of this year, I had the awesome opportunity to ask His Holiness the Dalai Lama if he had met or spoken to President Obama. He replied he had no plans to go to Washington D.C. and that he would return in October to meet with the President. (see My Lunch with a Living Buddha).

As fate and global politics would have it, President Obama will not meet with His Holiness this month as originally planned. In September, the President sent Valerie Jarrett, his close Chicago friend and senior adviser, and Under Secretary Otero, to meet with the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, India. While many were hopeful that President Obama sent two representatives to meet with His Holiness ahead of their meeting the following month; they were there to ask His Holiness to postpone his trip to Washington.

President Obama has pledged support for the Dalai Lama but will not meet him during his upcoming visit to Washington, taking his own "Middle Way" and outraging some Tibet activists and followers of the Dalai Lama. The Obama administration views Chinese support for global economic and environmental goals as crucial and wants to establish friendly ties between Hu and Obama during next month’s visit. China reviles the Dalai Lama and pressures foreign governments not to meet with him. (China invaded and illegally annexed Tibet on the 7th of October, 1950, forty-nine years ago to date!.) The U.S. does not want to "upset" China before the presidential meeting in November. The latest White House reports put the meeting in December after Obama visits Chinese President Hu Jintao this November.

A White House delegation including Valerie Jarrett and Otero, met Monday (October 5th) with Tibet's spiritual leader in his home in northern India, Dharamshala. The Dalai Lama, in a statement released by his office, said that he "looks forward to meeting with President Obama after (Obama's) visit to China," which is not scheduled until November. Kate Saunders, spokeswoman for the International Campaign for Tibet, which works closely with the Dalai Lama, said Obama would likely meet the Tibetan leader before the end of the year. She said Obama, who met with the Dalai Lama as a senator, and Dharamshala made a "strategic" decision to wait until after Obama's first presidential trip to Beijing.

The Dalai Lama did not cancel his trip to Washington D.C., and although he did not meet with President Obama, he was presented the Lantos Human Rights Prize by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a ceremony attended by several members of Congress including Senator McCain. (The late Representative Tom Lantos was the only Holocaust survivor to have served in Congress.

In his acceptance speech His Holiness said "those people who work for human rights...generally those people who have some greater potential to change the society, to build a better society...these people usually become the first casualties." He went on to add, "the very idea of human rights, taking care about human rights is taking care of other's well being. So that's act of compassion, act of human affection."....today, I think, we generally speaking, we are lacking about that sense of responsibility and taking care of other's well being. He went on the reprimand the United States for not taking care of its' less fortunate, "Huge gap, rich to poor. This is unhealthy," he said. "You have to think seriously about those less-privileged people. They're also human beings."

I recalled His Holiness's message to us at St. Martin's House of Hospitiality in San Francisco earlier this year. As the AP reporter described the occasion, "The guests included some of San Francisco's most desperate, reviled citizens, men and women who carry their life's possessions in shopping carts and sleep under bridges." He told us there was no shame in being homeless, at one point saying "You know, I'm homeless too." (His Holiness left Lhasa on the 17th of March 1959 with an entourage of 20 men, including six Cabinet ministers, and escaped to India.) And yet, "Our lives depend on others," said the Dalai Lama. "Me too. My life depends on others. You are still in human society, human community. Please feel happy and feel dignity."

To end his acceptance of the Lantos Human Rights Award, His Holiness related his budding affection for America as a child because it was "the champion of liberty, freedom, democracy", and chuckling he added also perhaps because of a gold watch sent to him by then President Roosevelt! "When I think of America, I think of the idea -- concept of freedom, liberty, equality. I think these are real human values," he said. He ended his speech by pointing out while "American weapons, military forces" are to be taken seriously, he insisted "the real greatness of America, is your ancestors' principles," and urged the U.S. to preserve those principles at any cost.

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