Back in the heartland

The Dalai Lama makes his third visit to Wisconsin

In the summer of 1996, Paul Donnelly requested — and received — an audience with the Dalai Lama. Donnelly was in India, translating a text on Buddhist philosophy written by the founder of the Tibetan Buddhist sect to which the Dalai Lama belongs. But Donnelly suspects ultimately it was his Wisconsin ties that won him his audience.

The Dalai Lama’s presentations are part instruction, part theater. He will share his perspectives with a Kohl Center audience May 13.

How to see the Dalai Lama If you didn’t get a ticket for the May 13 address by Nobel laureate Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, you will have several opportunities to view it on television. The Television Wisconsin Network, formerly WISC2, will broadcast the event live beginning at 6 p.m. Wisconsin Public Television will air the address at 10:30 p.m. that evening and again at 9 p.m. on Friday, May 15. TVW can be seen on TCI Cable channel 6, CTI Cable channel 39, Sky Cable channel 51, and Marcus Cable channel 52, 3, 39 or 98, depending on the community in which you live. Tickets for the Dalai Lama’s appearance at the Kohl Center were gone before they were to be made available to the public on April 13. By April 6, more than 12,350 tickets had been distributed.

“Other than the importance of the material, I suspect the main reason I was granted an audience was because I made it clear I was a student in the UW–Madison Buddhist Studies Program, where I was working with Geshe Lhundup Sopa,” says Donnelly, a lecturer in the Department of South Asian Studies. Sopa, who joined the UW faculty in 1968 and is now an emeritus professor, had been on the Dalai Lama’s examination committee when he completed his geshe degree — similar to a Ph.D.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, clearly holds a place for Madison in his heart. And he will renew his connections May 13-15 as he makes his third visit here in the past two decades. While here, he will deliver a speech May 13 at the Kohl Center and receive an honorary degree from UW–Madison at commencement exercises May 15.

UW–Madison’s Tibetan Buddhist Studies Program ranks as one of the world’s best centers for the scholarly study of Tibetan Buddhism. Many of its graduates have gone to establish similar programs at other universities, including a well-known program at the University of Virginia.

The Dalai Lama has been to campus in 1981 and in 1989, the year he won the Nobel Prize. During this visit he will be appearing under the auspices of the Deer Park Buddhist Center in Oregon, where Sopa lives.

Donnelly, who has been teaching Tibetan Buddhist studies courses since Sopa retired last year, says program students will be able to experience for themselves the various positions in Tibetan culture the Dalai Lama occupies.

“The institution of the Dalai Lama goes back to the 15th century, although it wasn’t until the 17th century that Dalai Lamas actually ruled the country,” Donnelly says. “He is also considered to be the incarnation of the Buddhist deity that is the embodiment of the Buddha’s compassion, so he is regarded with the utmost respect and devotion by most Tibetans.”

Many of the graduate students in the Buddhist Studies program also find the Dalai Lama inspiring. James Boyd Apple, for example, remembers him as a worthy scholar: “His discussion was very precise and thorough, giving all points of his discourse in a subtle and profound manner.”

Katherine Anne Paul, a first-year master’s candidate, is looking forward to comparing how the Dalai Lama portrays tradition in the different activities. While in Madison he also will teach “The Stages of Meditation,” a well-known Buddhist text, and conduct an initiation for Buddhist practitioners. Both the teaching and the initiation will take place at the Dane County Expo Center.

Donnelly says one segment of the community for whom the Dalai Lama’s visit will hold special significance will be Madison’s Tibetan refugees, many of whom are in Madison through the independently sponsored Tibetan-U.S. Resettlement Project. Donnelly says in addition to the Dalai Lama’s political, religious and academic significance, many Tibetans find him a particularly poignant reminder of their homeland, which the Dalai Lama fled in 1959 when China invaded Tibet. “In exile he has come to represent the lost Tibetan nation, as well as the embodiment of their hope for freedom,” Donnelly says.

For more information about the Dalai Lama’s activities, contact Penny Paster at Deer Park, 833-5572.