On his 15th trip to the US, the Dalai Lama has been met by sold-out crowds from coast to coast, and tickets to his events were bid up on eBay. He filled Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and on Sept. 11 packed Washington National Cathedral, as 3,000 more people listened outside on the lawn. Scalpers did brisk business outside the basketball arena in Boston last Sunday selling tickets to last-minute seekers.
As he begins the first of nine days of events in New York, this son of Tibetan peasants finds himself at the high point of his global fame as a religious leader, head of state, pop icon, multimedia phenomenon, and, perhaps strangest of all, ascetic Buddhist superstar.
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The Dalai Lama has always drawn a small subculture of devotees in this country, but the huge turnouts on this trip are testimony to the growing American fascination with Buddhist practices and the search for genuine spiritual heroes who profess nonviolence in an era of religious strife and disillusionment.
"I think I'm looking for something; I don't know quite what," said Vivian de Mello, a Roman Catholic from Providence who paid US$60 for a ticket in Boston last Sunday in what she called her quest to find a new religion.
Michelle Caron, a financial controller from Medford, said as she descended the stadium stairs from an upper tier after the event: "He makes me feel good, and I need that right now. Just his aura, and the simplicity."
The Dalai Lama's popularity also owes something to the branding of his beatific visage on hundreds of books and videos, some which have recently crossed over from religious and New Age audiences to the mainstream market. One, The Art of Happiness, sold more than 1.2 million copies and lasted nearly two years on The New York Times best-seller list.
There are more than 300 listings for Dalai Lama books on Amazon.com, said Lynn Garrett, religion editor of Publishers Weekly, though some are different editions of the same book.
"He is regarded as a religious voice, but he definitely crosses over into self-help," she said.
As Tibet's leader in exile the Dalai Lama is primarily concerned with pressing for Tibetan autonomy from Chinese rule. Some supporters say they worry that mass marketing of the Dalai Lama's image has diluted his message, but others say his celebrity status has only broadened the appeal of Buddhism and the cause of Tibetan freedom.
Among Tibetans and their supporters, the Dalai Lama's high visibility is prompting some controversy, said Matthew Wiener, director of programming at the Interfaith Center of New York and its Buddhism analyst.
"There is a consistent internal debate and question -- the more trendy the Dalai Lama gets, how does that affect the cause of Tibetan freedom, and how does it affect the Buddhist message of compassion?" he said.
The Dalai Lama has lent his name to so many books and projects, said Yodon Thonden, executive director of the Isdell Foundation, which supports Tibetan causes, "in some ways it dilutes the impact of his presence."
Nevertheless, she said, his high profile is ultimately a good thing for the Tibetan cause.
The reason for the proliferation of Dalai Lama products is that he gives permission to almost every proposal, many who know him say.
"He'll give a talk and someone will ask him if they can put it in a book, and he almost always says yes," said Amy Hertz, who is executive editor of Riverhead Books.
Wiener said the Dalai Lama has made a conscious decision to be highly public, partly motivated by a sense among Tibetans that their history of isolation has left them vulnerable to the Chinese takeover.
"The reverse of that is to say, `Hey, we have to get publicity, we have to get the word out about our problems,"' Wiener said. "The Dalai Lama's extroverted response is in large part the result of thinking they got it wrong."
Advances and any profits from the books are usually divided between the co-authors and the Tibetan government-in-exile, said Hertz.
The Dalai Lama was born Lhamo Thondup, the son of peasants in northeastern Tibet. At age 2, he was recognized as the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama and brought to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, to be educated by Buddhist scholars and monks. He was enthroned in 1940, at the age of 5.Ten years later, China began its invasion of Tibet, and when China suppressed an attempted uprising of Tibetans in 1959, the Dalai Lama escaped to India. He has lived in Dharamsala ever since, and has never been allowed by the Chinese to return to his native country.
Those who have visited him in Dharamsala say the Dalai Lama lives in the ascetic style of a "simple Buddhist monk."
"He lives very, very simply, his quarters and everything about him, there's not even a hint of luxury," said Dr. Bobbi Nassar, a social work professor at Yeshiva University who has worked on Tibetan resettlement projects at the UN.
Yet his travels across the globe have helped him develop a mastery of the media event. At a news conference on Tuesday to kick off his visit in New York, he walked out onto the stage at an auditorium at the Guggenheim Museum and after a tempest of camera flashes, he asked the photographers to stop taking pictures. He leisurely peered into the audience and greeted familiar faces one by one. Then, with a broad smile, he bid the photographers return to work. "Well, yes, flash!"
Tickets for the teaching sessions at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan have long since sold out -- at US$400 each, or US$1,200 and US$3,000 for VIPs and big donors. The steep prices are to defray the cost of advertising and producing the Dalai Lama's appearance in Central Park tomorrow, said Josh Baran, a publicist for the Dalai Lama's New York visit.
The Dalai Lama said recent contacts between Tibetans and Beijing were a "good start," and described a delicately balanced approach to China. He said he had always stressed that China should not be isolated, and that issues of human rights, democracy and freedom should be raised in a "friendly atmosphere."
"Unfortunately, sometimes our Chinese brothers and sisters need a little pressure," he said, adding, "And basically I feel pressure is not right. The friendly manner, the compassionate way, to educate them, explain to them and persuade them, that's the proper way."
He did not always draw such attention. The Dalai Lama first came to the US in an era of widespread fear about new religions and dangerous cults.
Jeffrey Hopkins, a professor of Tibetan Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia who served as the Dalai Lama's interpreter from 1979 to 1989, said, "Twenty-five years ago, almost all the venues were small, people didn't know who he was, they had no idea where Tibet was, and they didn't know what religion to associate with him. They thought he might have been some far-out guru who maybe had selfish purposes."
But as his popularity has grown some Buddhist leaders have recently expressed concern about what they call "bookstore Buddhists" who buy his latest releases and adopt Asian trappings without delving deeply into his teachings.
"We need to adopt the wisdom practice," said Surya Das, a widely known American lama, "not the Asian accouterments."
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