Dalai Lama to Visit Harvard; Tibetan Will Discuss Buddhism

The Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, will come to Harvard in early August to deliver a series of five lectures.

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of World Religions and the American Institute for Buddhist Studies, the stop will be part of a six-week lecture tour that will take the Dalai Lama to England and the Midwest before he arrives here August 1.

An estimated 6 million Tibetans still follow the exiled leader, who serves as de facto political as well as spiritual leader of the tiny Himalayan mountain country. Exiled by the Chinese in 1959, the Dalai Lama has lived since in northern India.

His topic during the week-long lecture series will be "Buddhism and the Modern World."

During his last appearance at Harvard, in October of 1979, the Dalai Lama told a crowd of more than 1000 gathered in Sanders Theater that an understanding of one's inner self was vital to eliminating "coarser levels" of understanding.

"If you look at them with respect and sincerlly, then an religions are good, and through that you can get peace," he said.

Officials of the two groups sponsoring the visit said no plans had been made for another major address like the Sanders speech. "Dalai Lama" is a Mongolian title meaning "ocean of wisdom"; the current Dalai Lama is 46 years old.