Oh, Blessed Bloomington, Indiana
His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, will be visiting the Tibetan Cultural Center in Bloomington, Indiana, this week. Details of the visit are linked in the title of this post. He will be giving a series of teachings, as well as visiting his elder brother, who founded the TCC in 1979, and has been incapacitated by a series of strokes.
In addition to his talks, other Buddhist scholars will be giving presentations, including my dear friend, Fr. Scott Steinkerchner, OP, a member of the Central Dominican Province who teaches interreligious dialogue at the Aquinas Institute in St. Louis. Fr. Scott got his Ph.D. in Interreligious Dialogue a couple of years ago and received a Fulbright Scholarship to continue his studies of Buddhism in Kathmandu, Nepal. Lets just say our discussions while hiking have a different character now.
"Wow, the blisters on my feet really hurt"
"Your aversion to pain is a manifestation of the illusion of a real self."
"Come closer, Scott, so my illusory fist can be introduced to your face."
"Ah, you have not subdued your passions and cultivated an attitude of caring and self-forgetfulness through meditation."
Seriously, please say a prayer for Scott. Tonight he presents a lecture on Tsongkhapa, a fifteenth century Buddhist scholar who founded the Gelukpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama will be present, and my ever-confident friend is just a bit on edge. I imagine it must be like lecturing on dogmatics before Pope Benedict XVI.
But Bloomington is thrice blessed: not only the Dalai Lama will be visiting, along with Fr. Scott, but SHERRY WEDDELL will be in town February 11-13 to give a mission at the St. Paul Catholic Center at the University of Indiana. I'll be there, too, as a tag-along.
posted by Fr. Mike, O.P. @ 9:42 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Hi!
Having just finished reading Vanora Bennett's wonderful book "Portrait of an Unknown Woman", I have been doing a LOT of online research into the life and times of St. Thomas More. Your blog site has given me some very interesting information about his children's lives. I have some questions for you about Mr. Jack Leslau (who did extensive research on Thomas More, John Clement, and Margaret Roper). Can you tell me if Mr. Leslau is still alive and active? Do you know if there may be some DNA testing on the skull and other bones of some of the known resting places of Thomas More's wives and children?
Indiana University, if you please!
Some of the Dalai Lama's address was shown live on yesterday's noon news. He quoted with warm approval a sentence in what I suppose was the prayer booklet for the event: "Our God is a compassionate God." He also urged people to be serious abou their own faith and make it part of their everyday lives.
That's Sherry Lama to you!
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