His Holiness's Guidance for the Dalai Lama Foundation

Founding Members Circle

Regional Chapters

Online Volunteer Positions Open

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has completed his visit to the U.S., which began in San Francisco on September 5th, 2003, and ended in New York on September 24th. Details from each city can be found on the Dalai Lama Foundation website.

Additional information on the US tour can be found at these web sites:

• The American-Himalayan Foundation;
• Chamtse Ling Temple (Bloomington, IN)
• Washington National Cathedral, Washington, DC
• Mind and Life Institute (weekend conference at MIT)
• BeliefNet transcripts and video highlights from the talks in Boston and Central Park.
• Website for New York City visit
• Healing the Divide.

And His Holiness has just completed a week-long public teaching in Paris, France.

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We were fortunate to have an audience with the Dalai Lama during his brief visit to San Francisco on Friday, September 5. Participants included local founding members and members of the Board of Directors.

We asked His Holiness for his guidance on the following two proposed areas of program focus:

• 1. Curricula for Peace and Ethics. Produce curricula for a range of levels, including primary and secondary school, university, and adult study groups. Find the best of the work that has already been developed, develop new material where needed, and make it widely available around the world, in a variety of languages. Include written materials, video, audio, group exercises, homework, suggested readings, etc. Form a first class educational advisory board to guide the effort. In this way we feel we could have a real effect on literally millions of individuals, working on the root causes of ignorance, violence, misunderstanding and hatred.
  
  
• 2. Global Peace Institute. Join with other groups to establish a new Institute for World Peace. It would support the work of the Nobel Peace Laureates, work with youth and interns, and include serious work on arms reduction and nuclear disarmament. A peace institute based on ideas of interdependence, personal responsibility and spiritual development, rather than nation state power dynamics, could become a sustained force for good in the world.

His Holiness responded in detail. A reconstruction of his comments follows.

Education is very important. For basic human values. Understanding that no one exists as an isolated individual. We are all interdependent. Problems far away will eventually affect us. This is not religion, but reality. Understanding the reality of our situation, and developing the basic human values of warmth, affection, kindness and compassion. So this idea of curricula for peace and ethics is very important.

Second, the area of peace, is also very important. Before the war in Iraq, some people sent me letters urging me to go to Iraq to try to prevent violence there. But my feeling was, I am Buddhist, I don’t know many people there, and my going as an individual would not have much meaning. However, if a group of individuals went, such as Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, and people like that, that would be different. That could have an impact. If a group like that could go to regions where there were conflicts, perhaps that would have a good effect. Even if the effort failed, it would not be in vain.

So, both these directions are very good, and in line with my thinking.

Two other areas are very important: the environment, and the gap between the rich and the poor.

It is important to bring more people into this work. And rather than creating a separate effort and big organization, this organization should work to connect and assist the efforts of the many groups and individuals working in these areas.

Sometimes I feel that people turn to efforts like this when their bellies are full and they are comfortable. This is natural. But the real test comes when there is some kind of difficulty or hardship. Then we shall see!

Q: Your Holiness, can you give us any advice on how to take action?

A: One way of working is to see an immediate human need, someone in distress, and immediately take concrete action to help that person. That is very good, nothing wrong with that. But you are only one person. It is also very important to work in a broader way, through education, so you create many people taking that kind of altruistic action. Education is the key. Understanding leads to conviction, which leads to enthusiasm, which sustains action. Through this kind of education you can create many individuals taking concrete action.

So, I think these two areas, education and peace, are very important, and you should concentrate on these. If you do something in these areas, then later you can undertake other things. But this is enough. Also the environment is very important, but this is enough for now.

And this work is not only important, but urgent.

We will give you further news of what we're planning for our education initiative in upcoming newsletters.

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The Founding Members Campaign is our ongoing initiative to broaden our circle of founding members. We are pleased to welcome the following individuals to our founding circle:

• Sharon Bacon, DK Holland, Dana Baldwin, Andrew and Devon Holmes, Joe Firmage, Margarita Kozhevnikova, Susan Griffin, Mitchell Marcus, Kim Cranston, Kristine McKann, May Gu, Judy and Rick Nall, James N. Heuerman, George Meyer, Gregory Hill, and Steven Rowley

If you are interested in becoming a founding member (or think you might be!), please let us know at info@dlfound.org.

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We have continued to lay the groundwork for regional chapters around the world. We now have Founding Members who are eager to develop chapters in several countries, including:

• Japan. Pema Gyalpo has established the nucleus of a strong Japan Committee. In September, Tenzin Tethong, President of the Dalai Lama Foundation, spent several days with Pema Gyalpo in Japan, meeting a number of prominent Japanese businessmen, philanthropists and media figures.
  
  
• Canada. Victor Chen, a Canadian journalist, participated in our recent audience with His Holiness, and is planning a series of events with His Holiness at the University of British Columbia.
  
  
• Russia. Andrei Tarentiev and Margarita Kozhevnikova, prominent figures in contemporary Buddhist activities in Russia, and are enthusiastic about developing a presence for the foundation in Russia.
  
  
• Atlanta, Georgia. Board member Steve Berson, who has been an invaluable team member as our lead attorney at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati in Palo Alto, is relocating to Atlanta, Georgia, where he will join the firm of Kilpatrick Stockton. Both the Carter Center and the King Center are located in Atlanta, and Steve is looking forward to opening up avenues of cooperation with both those organizations, which play a leadership role in the field of peace and ethics.

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Our website has been built and maintained entirely by volunteers. The original site was designed by Jean Yao – sometimes working from India through power outages and 120 degree heat. Ash Ayengar, Rahul Goel and Jai Surai provided the programming, and hosting has been provided by Roy Harvey.

This summer Jim Schuyler joined the foundation as our Chief Technical Officer (CTO), heading up our online initiatives. Jim has a Ph.D. in Computer Science, has founded and served as CEO of several companies, and has been an executive with a number of companies in Silicon Valley.

With Jim on board, we have big plans for the website, including online support for a community oriented around peace and ethics education, an online bookstore, and multi-language support. These features will take us a big step on the way to fulfilling our vision of the website as a major portal for peace, ethics, and altruism.

Our ability to take this next step depends on finding volunteers willing to take on some significant responsibilities for producing, editing and translating content.

Check out the job descriptions listed below. It’s a great way to make your contribution to our mission of "supporting action for peace and ethics, where we live, and around the world." And the great thing about these jobs is they can be done where you live, wherever around the world that is!

• Online Bookstore Manager
• Online Newsletter Editor - English
• Online Newsletter Editor - Chinese or Japanese
• Online Newsletter Editor - Western Languages
• Peace and Ethics Curriculum Manager
• Peace and Ethics Knowledgebase Manager

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