Dalai Lama speaking today, and so will protesters

In the Kimmel Center's Verizon Hall, 2,500 people will gather today to listen to the 73-year-old spiritual and religious leader of Tibetans around the world.

Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, will speak at 12:30 p.m. in defense of religious freedom and human rights.

But just outside the Broad Street entrance, protesters are expected to gather to claim that the Dalai Lama doesn't practice what he preaches. A demonstration is expected to be followed by a protest march, organizers said.

"Our message is to ask the Dalai Lama to stop lying and give religious freedom to Buddhist practitioners internationally," Buddhist nun Kelsang Pema, a spokeswoman for the Western Shugden Society, said in an interview yesterday.

The society is upset because the Dalai Lama has discouraged a spiritual practice it uses called Dorje Shugden. Pema said that the Dalai Lama had put a ban on the ancient tradition.

John Ackerly, president of the International Campaign for Tibet, an advocacy group that promotes human rights for Tibet, said that the Dalai Lama had discussed the issue in a question-and-answer session after an address Monday at Lehigh University.

"He's really trying to create an atmospheric tolerance around this by saying . . . that he thinks the worship of Shugden is inadvisable and harmful," Ackerly said. "But he says people can worship it or not. That's their choice. There's nothing that should befall anyone who chooses to do so."

Pema said that her society recently asked the Dalai Lama to meet with the group, but he has not agreed to do so. She said that he is causing division, hardship and confusion, and that Tibetans are being ostracized.

"We will stop [protesting] as soon as the Dalai Lama agrees to sit down in a professionally mediated meeting," Pema said.

Ackerly said that the Dalai Lama does not deny the group's right to protest.

"People have the right to demonstrate, and the important thing is that there really needs to be an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance," Ackerly said. "To my knowledge, there is no tolerance for any discrimination, and certainly nothing that says in writing that followers in Shugden should be excluded [from anything]."

While protesters chant outside in Tibetan and English, the sold-out discussion inside will focus on the topic of "Buddhism in the 21st Century."