Loose Tea

Stardate: April 21, 1994. I am finished with my final exams, am free and clear to receive my English degree and have decided not to attend the graduation ceremony but to instead hold my own personal graduation at Crisler Arena where I hear Tenzin Gyatzo speak.

He says,

“While you are gaining an education, be a nice person, be a compassionate person, be yourself…. The brain and the heart must go together. Sometimes in universities not enough attention is paid to the heart. I have the impression that the moral sense is underdeveloped. Knowledge is an instrument, whether used constructively or destructively depends on spirituality, human feeling and affection.” source

Forward to Stardate April 19, 2008: I will have the privilege to listen again to H.H. the Dalai Lama who is offering a two-day workshop on “Engaging Wisdom and Compassion."

A good friend asked why I would be interested in attending the workshop. If need be, I could develop a well thought out, logical explanation. Instead, I recall what I learned in religion class back in junior high. "When you are in the presence of holiness, you know it. You can just feel it." He is a figure of whom it is enough to be in his presence.

I think that is why I eagerly anticipate again sitting in attendance for this exiled world leader, Nobel Peace prize recipient, depression researcher, environmental activist, teacher and friend to us all.