Dalai Lama To Dedicate Seattle Monastery

The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, is set to visit Seattle in June, his first visit here since 1979.

Leaders of the local Buddhist community said he was expected to give a public talk, tentatively scheduled for June 14, and consecrate the Sakya Monastery at 108 N.W. 83rd St. in Seattle's Greenwood neighborhood, among other activities.

The exiled leader of Tibet likely will be in Seattle from June 13 through 16, according to Dagmola Sakya, cultural adviser for the monastery.

During his last visit here, the Dalai Lama, who enjoys science, was given a reflecting telescope by members of the Sakya Tegchen Choling, the Tibetan center that was the monastery's precursor. He also received an honorary doctorate from Seattle University.

The Dalai Lama was invited to Seattle in November by representatives of seven Buddhist groups. Sakya's son, Ani V. Sakya, a lawyer who works with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, followed up with a personal invitation.

Rinchen Dharlo, the New York-based representative of the Dalai Lama, said the spiritual leader had "in principle accepted" the invitation to visit Seattle following his visit to the Tibetan community in Vancouver, B.C.

Details of the Seattle trip are still being worked out.

Dagmola Sakya said she didn't know what the Dalai Lama would speak about at his lecture, nor had local organizers yet located an auditorium for the public address, expected to draw several thousand people.

Sakya's husband, Kyabje Dagchen Sakya, head lama and principal teacher at the Sakya Monastery, will lead the local coordinating committee, composed of representatives from the various Seattle Dharma centers, the Tibetan community and the Tibetan Rights Campaign.

The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet was born Tenzin Gyatso in 1935. He was selected as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama when he was 2. In 1959, he fled Tibet after China's occupation of his homeland. He has lived in exile in India since then, though he travels worldwide, teaching and speaking out on compassion and non-violence.

In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle to free his Himalayan country from Chinese rule. The Chinese government condemned the Norwegian Nobel Committee's selection as meddling in China's internal affairs.

Adrienne Chan, the Sakya Monastery's executive administrator, said Buddhism has been growing in the Seattle area, in some measure because of the influence of the Dalai Lama's teachings since leaving Tibet.

She estimated there are some 25,000 Buddhists in the Seattle area, including those of Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cambodian and Western, or non-Asian, backgrounds.

The Sakya Monastery was founded in 1974 and purchased its present building in 1984. It draws approximately 30 people for Sunday morning meditation services and about two dozen for Thursday evening services. It offers lecture series on Tibetan Buddhist practices, as well.

The building, which used to house a Christian church, is slowly being remodeled into a Tibetan Buddhist temple that will feature a statue of Buddha that is twice human size.

Chan said the monastery will be used as a set for Bernardo Bertolucci's "Little Buddha," being filmed in Seattle.