Cambridge, MA, USA, 2 May 2009 (tibet.net) - On May 1, 2009 His Holiness the Dalai Lama participated in several panel discussions at a conference organized by the Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance. During the first morning session on Paths to Compassion, his fellow panelists included Dr. Richard Davidson, Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin; Dr. Christopher K. Germer from the Department of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School; Dr. Judith V Jordan, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the Harvard Medical School; and Dr. George E. Vaillant, Senior Psychiatrist at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
His Holiness responded to questions from the panelists on how compassion impacted mental attitude and talked about Buddhist experience.
In the second morning session, four individuals with experience in working with trauma victims shared them with His Holiness and sought his comments on some of them.
In the afternoon session, His Holiness participated in a discussion on wisdom.
After departing from the conference venue, His Holiness spent nearly two hours with a select group of people, mostly Chinese students. In his opening remarks His Holiness gave a history of his initiative in urging the Tibetan people to reach out to the Chinese community. He also informed them about the situation in Tibet and the status of the dialogue process with the Chinese leadership. He said if the conditions in Tibet were good or if the Tibetan problem is due to a handful of people, there is no reason for the Chinese Government not to allow tourists and journalists to visit there without any hindrances. He said he had appealed to the international community to visit Tibet and see things for themselves. He said if we are proved wrong then we will apologize.
His Holiness said today China is aspiring to be a superpower and said he prayed for it to become one. Any country wanting to be a superpower need to have population (which China has), Military power (which China has), economy (which China has). However, another important condition is moral authority, which China lacks.
Referring to President Hu Jintao's harmonious society theme, His Holiness said that trust was essential for such a society to come into being. He said the current Chinese policy was counterproductive to the creation of a harmonious society.
He then answered several questions from the people, many of which were about the memorandum for genuine autonomy for Tibetan people.
