Birmingham has a kindred connection to other cultures around the globe who continue to fight for basic human rights and alleviate human suffering.
What will it mean for the City of Birmingham, the City of Ethics and Science when International Shugden Community turns up at Birmingham to protest religious discrimination by the Dalai Lama during his visit this fall? Won't this affect his image as world renowned man of peace? The International Shugden Community will appear to protest and remind the Dalai Lama for religious freedom wherever he goes throughout the world. Isn't the Dalai tired of these protests?
This religious prosecution will only bring attention to Dorje Shugden and putting Dorje Shugden on the world pedestal as the most famous Tibetan Buddhist Deity ever in history to receive extensive publicity. It will position Dorje Shugden to spread and flourish around the globe leading inevitably to a Dorje Shugden renaissance. But under this circumstance, it is detrimental to the reputation and image of the Dalai Lama. Shouldn't it be time now for the Dalai Lama to declare that the ban on Dorje Shugden is over?By Michael Huebner/AL.com
The 14th Dalai Lama’s first visit to Birmingham is still seven months away, but conversations have already begun concerning what it will mean for the City of Birmingham, ethics and science.
On Friday, April 4, the city will join UAB and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a dialogue on the history of civil rights in Birmingham, and how it relates to human rights efforts around the world. The guest speaker will be Ven. Tenzin Priyadarshi, who will lecture on his work as the founding director of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, a collaborative, nonpartisan think tank devoted to inquiry, dialogue and education.
The center has six Nobel Laureates as founding members. Its programs, which range from science and technology to international relations, currently run in eight countries.
The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader who fled his homeland for India in 1959 during the Tibetan uprising, is scheduled to visit Birmingham from Oct. 24-27. From Dharamsala, India, he has led the Tibetan government in exile and, at age 78, continues to travel the world with his message of compassion as the source of a happy life. He has been recognized for his contributions to peace, non-violence, human rights and religious understanding, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and the United States Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. He was recently named by Fortune Magazine as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.”
http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/03/speaking_of_the_dalai_lama_bud.html?