Dalai Lama promotes sustainability in front of ‘U’ students, faculty

By Julie Rowe, written on Apr. 22, 2008

At a lecture that has featured scientists and experts in the field of environmental sustainability in the past, the Dalai Lama told University of Michigan students, faculty and staff that environmental stewardship was a moral responsibility.

“We have to do good acts, here, now” he said. “Therefore, I think on the environmental issue, it is important to educate, to make awareness, and then to introduce a responsibility on each of us that should become part of our daily life. And then, we will really make some effect.”

The Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability was his second appearance on Sunday and his fourth over the weekend. The other three lectures, themed “Engaging Wisdom and Compassion,” were sponsored by the Jewel Heart Tibetan Buddhist Center in Ann Arbor.

As examples of ways people could conserve electricity and water, the Buddhist spiritual leader said he turns the lights off when he leaves rooms and takes showers instead of baths.

Humans are responsible for the world’s problems, he said. He criticized Westerners for over-consumption of resources. If all 6 billion people on the planet consumed water and food at the rate Americans, he said, the Earth couldn’t support everyone.

“I think some lifestyles have to change, but this (is) not my business,” he said.

Throughout the weekend, the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, advocated religious tolerance. Because people are interdependent on a global scale, “the very concept of ‘we and they’ no longer exists,” he said. As a result, he called war outdated.

As the Dalai Lama called for people to be peaceful inside Crisler Arena, between 600 and 700 demonstrators waved Chinese flags and held signs questioning his commitment to peace.

Protesters accusing China of human rights violations in Tibet have called for a cancellation of the Olympics during violent anti-Chinese demonstrations in Tibet’s capital city of Lhasa.

James Qian, a sophomore at Michigan Technological University and one of many demonstrators wearing t-shirts that read, “Support Beijing 2008,” said the Dalai Lama has encouraged Buddhists to riot.

“He supports his followers attacking the Olympic flame,” Qian said. “That’s just ridiculous.”

During a meeting with reporters last Friday, the Dalai Lama said he understands the feelings of pro-Tibetan protesters but the violence is unnecessary and has caused more problems than it’s helped.

He said his view “from the very beginning” has been to continue with the Olympic Games because they will bring together different cultures from around the world.

“We need Tibetan and Chinese brothers and sisters to meet face to face from time to time,” he said during the press conference. “That is, I think, very, very important. Otherwise, sometimes we make distance and misunderstandings.”

Rackham student Liang Jiang, president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at the University, said the rally was not in protest of the Dalai Lama, but was rather meant to eliminate misunderstanding of the situation in Tibet.

The rally, Jiang said, was “totally spontaneously organized,” and comprised mostly of college students from Michigan schools, but also included members from the Ann Arbor and Detroit Chinese communities, he said, who were told of the event through Facebook and e-mail.

Jiang said the rally was held to draw attention to what he called distorted and biased reports of Olympic protests that paint China in an unfairly negative light. He said he hoped the Dalai Lama would take action to end violent protest surrounding the Olympics.

“The Dalai Lama has made many actions, but we’ve seen many violent behaviors and the attacks of the torch in the last few months,” Jiang said. “Some people may call him ‘Dalai Liar,’ but from our point of view, we can’t understand this. He’s been saying many good things but his followers have many doing many of the opposite.”

Posted in Campus life | 5 Comments »