THE DALAI LAMA IN ATLANTA

Peace Reigns at Emory University

By Doc Lawrence

ATLANTA. Compassion and understanding might work well in Washington according to the Dalai Lama who spoke to a packed house at Gwinnett Center just outside Atlanta where he advised the audience to focus on love and to be grateful for all that they have.

The Dalai Lama, enormously popular in the Atlanta region, returned as part of a continuing partnership between the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader and highly influential Emory University.

The Dalai Lama holds the title of presidential distinguished professor at Emory, a position established in 2007 and has visited Emory's campus five times, lecturing, teaching and interacting with students.
"Secular ethics," was the focus of his presentation which he described as a system of shared principles that go beyond religious differences while still respecting and valuing the significance of religion in the lives of others.

His Holiness Brings in the Masses

The Dalai Lama’s participation in a series of lectures and panel discussions extends through much of the week. Emory University’s generosity in assuring public access to a global figure who exemplifies world and personal peace remains a remarkable cultural and spiritual milestone.

Atlanta was the home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose church, Ebenezer Baptist near the Civil Right’s leader’s grave, is an active and influential congregation. The Carter Presidential Center and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library are both a short distance from Emory’s campus.

The Dalai Lama, who has dined at Mary Mac’s, a noted Atlanta restaurant, always seems right at home here in this progressive city, the unofficial spiritual and cultural capital of the Southeast.