At Lehigh, Dalai Lama defends Islam
The Tibetan spiritual leader is giving a series of talks at the university. He is to appear here Wed.
BETHLEHEM, Pa. - The Dalai Lama said yesterday that "it's totally wrong, unfair" to call Islam a violent religion.
The Tibetan spiritual leader, appearing at Lehigh University, offered a defense of Islam in response to a question about the rise of violent religious fundamentalism.
He has made a point of reaching out to Muslims since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he said.
The Dalai Lama arrived at Lehigh Thursday for a series of talks on a 600-year-old Buddhist text. He took a break yesterday to lecture on "Generating a Good Heart," and afterward took questions that had been submitted in advance by the public and posed to him by Lehigh president Alice P. Gast.
Asked why so many Americans are depressed and anxious, he joked:
"I'm the wrong person to ask. You should ask Americans."
Then he said that American society is too competitive and that people always want "something more, something more, something more."
The Dalai Lama, who attracted a capacity crowd of about 5,000, did not mention the Olympic Games scheduled for next month in Beijing. The Chinese government has demanded that the Dalai Lama express support for the Olympics and repudiate efforts to disrupt them as a condition for continued talks.
China has governed Tibet since the 1950s. The Dalai Lama, who fled to India amid a failed uprising in 1959, has said he wants some form of autonomy that would allow Tibetans to freely practice their culture, language and religion.
The Dalai Lama, who turned 73 July 6, said that he's looking forward to "complete retirement." He has been semiretired, he said, since 2001, when Tibetans around the world elected a prime minister.
He joked yesterday that he's now considered a "senior most respected adviser" to Tibet's government in exile.
He is scheduled to speak at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia Wednesday.