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Students impressed with Dalai Lama’s talk
By LAUREN NEWKIRK MAYNARD
Reporter Contributor
Finding hope and a happy life—and using education to do it—was the message His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama delivered to UB students during his Distinguished Speakers Series address on Tuesday.
During his lecture in UB Stadium, as well as throughout his three-day visit, His Holiness focused on how society can be humanely served by the next generation of doctors, lawyers, politicians and scientists. The possibility of creating a world filled with peace and human compassion, or "warm-heartedness" as he described it, is in their hands, he told students.
For many of them, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the Nobel Peace Prize winner and spiritual leader.
Undergraduates Ilija Aleksic (top) and Peter Zhang were impressed by the scope of the Dalai Lama’s visit to campus.
Anna Falicov and Rebecca Town, both first-year law students, appreciated the Dalai Lama's thoughts on how governments can bring about social change through more compassionate policies.
"I was most impressed with his message to the university about being more socially conscious concerning the curriculum," said Falicov. She said she hoped the Dalai Lama would touch on how to use law as a tool for social change during the "Law, Buddhism and Social Change" conference, which was held yesterday at the UB Law School. "I'd like to hear how he would suggest that law help poor or otherwise disenfranchised people," she said.
Town agreed, adding "I think it's great that UB worked so hard to bring him here. I was also excited to hear him say that students who are going into medicine, politics and law should be focusing on what we'll be doing for the world once we get out of here."
Law students Anna Falicov (left)
and Rebecca Town (right) liked the Dalai Lama's thoughts on how
government can bring about social change through compassionate
policies.
PHOTOS: NANCY J. PARISI
Nicole Tomasello, a second-year doctoral student in the School of Social Work, said she took away a rather simple, yet profound lesson from the Dalai Lama: "That happiness and peace come from within, and that we should share it with others."
His Holiness told those attending his address that one of the reasons he chose to visit UB was because the university enrolls a large and diverse community of international students. That community was well represented on the main stage platform by elected representatives of several student groups, including several Tibetan students who have received scholarships from UB under the auspices of the Tibet Fund and the Fulbright Program.
International students Ilija Aleksic and Peter Zhang were visibly impressed by the scope of the event and said they were inspired by the insights of the Tibetan leader-in-exile, who answered several pre-selected questions from students after his lecture. The students, both freshmen, had been greatly anticipating the Dalai Lama's visit since they first heard about it.
A pharmacy major originally from Fu Zhou, a city in the mainland China province of Fu Jian, Zhang said he especially wanted to learn more about improving relations between Tibet and his native country. "I felt I needed to know more about his views on China, since that's where I'm from." He also wanted to hear what the Dalai Lama would say about nonviolence, a topic Zhang is studying in English class.
Aleksic, a biochemistry major and native of Macedonia, said he enjoyed reading the Dalai Lama's autobiography, "Freedom in Exile," which was required reading of all freshmen taking UB 101. "You always hear about the Dalai Lama, but you never really know who he is. It was really amazing to hear somebody of this magnitude speak in person," Aleksic said.
To encourage attendance at the DSS lecture, the Office of Special Events offered 13,000 free student tickets and gave away limited-edition posters to the first 4,000 students who picked up their tickets.
Student response was strong. The UB Graduate Student Association reported that all 300 of the tickets it received to distribute were gone before the event, and it had another 5,100 tickets available at kiosks around campus.
Mark Sorel, administrative director of the undergraduate Student Association, reported that 8,000 tickets had been distributed to undergraduates.
"It (ticket distribution) started off slow, but it's been a great response overall," Sorel said. "As of Tuesday morning, they were still calling about tickets."
By the time the audience was seated around 3 p.m., nearly all of the general admission seats—most of which were given to students—were filled with a cross-section of UB's diverse student population.