His Holiness's teaching at Tibetan Children's Village School

Yesterday, I was lucky and honored to be invited, along with all of the other faculty and guests with the Emory Tibet Science Initiative, to a special teaching on Buddhism by the Dalai Lama at the Tibetan Children's Village in Dharamsala. We took a cab to the event. Here are three photos taken from the cab on the way there. The village had an air of excitement and was very full of people attending, hoping to catch a glimpse of His Holiness outside the venue, or listen to the event with a radio broadcast from outside the building where the teaching occured.

As you would expect, all cameras were forbidden (so I have no photos at this time) and all bags were checked. We got special badges to pin on and presumed we would be sitting in the auditorium proper with the other attendees. However, leaders from the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (those who are leading this project and are those with whom we are working this week) directed us to stand to the side while arrangements were made. We walked down to a side door of the building and when we got inside, it dawned on us that we were not going to be seated with the hundreds of others. Rather, we were standing on the right side of the stage and realized that our seats were ON the stage. We sat on floor cushions on the right side of the stage with some other guests who appeared to be lay persons. The left side of the stage was filled with monks who were already seated on floor cushions. After about 10 minutes, the Dalai Lama arrived and was seated in a large chair in the middle of the stage at the front.

His Holiness spoke for about 3 hours in the school auditorium to college students who had traveled far and wide to be there with him. The upper level was reserved for the local school children. We got FM transistor radios and used our ear phones (yes, I did manage to pick up a set in McLeod Ganj when we went there the other night) and tuned to the station that was broadcasting in English. There were other translators and I could see that we were sitting near the man translating into Chinese.

After the event ended, we walked to the residence of Tara Doyle, Senior Lecturer at Emory and Director of the Tibetan Studies program in India for the University. She lives 5 months each year in Dharamsala in a home originally built by the British in the late 1800's. We stopped by a roadside stand for some produce and juice and had a very nice lunch on her terrace before heading back to Sara College at the end of the afternoon. Here you see her buying fruit from the local produce man.