ITHACA - Religion carries the hope of peace in the world, but it is up to individuals of different faiths working together to make that hope reality, the Dalai Lama said Wednesday during a special interfaith service for local congregations.
“We need a constant effort to promote genuine harmony in all these different traditions,” Tibet's exiled leader told an audience of more than 1,600 people at the State Theater, a preserved 79-year-old arts hall in downtown Ithaca.
The Dalai Lama encouraged his listeners to “reach out, or there will be more distance, more suspicion” between religions. “You can make a contribution for a better understanding between the traditions,” he said.
The interfaith service was the second of the Dalai Lama's three public speaking appearances during his two-day visit to Ithaca.
Later Wednesday, he gave a lecture on the “Eight Verses for Training the Mind” at a sold-out appearance at Ithaca College.
On Tuesday, the Dalai Lama, making his first visit to Ithaca since 1991, spoke nearly an hour to more than 5,500 people at Cornell University.
The Dalai Lama came to Ithaca to visit and bless the site of the new temple that will be the home of the Namgyal branch of Buddhism in North America.
On Wednesday, the 72-year-old monk told his audience that he still sees much injustice and suffering as violence continues throughout the world.
But, he said, he also sees that the modern world is much more interconnected than in the past, and there is more interaction between people of the world's different religious faiths.
“Occasionally, religion has been an obstacle to coming close, but not because of the religious traditions but because of the followers of those traditions. We are not very serious,” the Dalai Lama said.
“But these traditions have the potential to keep hope alive,” he said.
Urging unity, the Dalai Lama said, “One individual, one nation, one government cannot easily solve these problems. But humanity, six billion people, much depends on our own effort, on our own actions. Ultimately people will have to do something.”
On Wednesday, the Buddhist holy man shared the stage with Audrey Shenandoah, an Onondaga Indian Nation clan mother, and Dorothy Cotton, a former Southern Christian Leadership Conference education director who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, as well as the Catholic, Muslim and Jewish chaplains from Cornell University.
The Dalai Lama encouraged his listeners to “reach out, or there will be more distance, more suspicion” between religions. “You can make a contribution for a better understanding between the traditions,” he said.
The interfaith service was the second of the Dalai Lama's three public speaking appearances during his two-day visit to Ithaca.
Later Wednesday, he gave a lecture on the “Eight Verses for Training the Mind” at a sold-out appearance at Ithaca College.
On Tuesday, the Dalai Lama, making his first visit to Ithaca since 1991, spoke nearly an hour to more than 5,500 people at Cornell University.
The Dalai Lama came to Ithaca to visit and bless the site of the new temple that will be the home of the Namgyal branch of Buddhism in North America.
On Wednesday, the 72-year-old monk told his audience that he still sees much injustice and suffering as violence continues throughout the world.
But, he said, he also sees that the modern world is much more interconnected than in the past, and there is more interaction between people of the world's different religious faiths.
“Occasionally, religion has been an obstacle to coming close, but not because of the religious traditions but because of the followers of those traditions. We are not very serious,” the Dalai Lama said.
“But these traditions have the potential to keep hope alive,” he said.
Urging unity, the Dalai Lama said, “One individual, one nation, one government cannot easily solve these problems. But humanity, six billion people, much depends on our own effort, on our own actions. Ultimately people will have to do something.”
On Wednesday, the Buddhist holy man shared the stage with Audrey Shenandoah, an Onondaga Indian Nation clan mother, and Dorothy Cotton, a former Southern Christian Leadership Conference education director who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, as well as the Catholic, Muslim and Jewish chaplains from Cornell University.
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