HIS HOLINESS THE 14TH DALAI LAMA AND MOTHER TERESA'S CENTENARY CELEBRATION

In 1995 I happened to visit Darjeeling where I chanced to visit the Tibetan Centre. There I requested a Tibetan monk to teach me a modicum of Tibetan that I might use by way of addressing His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama whenever it would be my good fortune to meet him. I learnt the words and their meaning and stored them in my memory, sometimes revising them to keep them afresh in my mind. I had met Mother Teresa on 12 occasions from 1987, the year of my first visit, to 1997, the year of her passing away. As such, I came to know a few of the nuns of the Missionaries of Charity and one of them, Sister Lynn, who was in charge of the Centenary Celebrations of Mother Teresa, invited me to the Mother Teresa Centenary Memorial Meeting held at Taj Bengal on 1 December, 2011, courtesy, Sunita and Naresh Kumar.

At the end of a 42 minute address by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, he threw the floor open to the audience to question him. It was then that I addressed him thus : "Chho ji Pandey Atisha." (I greet you in the name of Pundit Atisha, that is, Atish Dipankar, the Bengali monk who had been one of the Buddhist emissaries from India to Tibet). The sudden address in Tibetan took His Holiness aback and, after confirming with his interpreter what he had heard, he returned the greeting to me with the same words. I then proceeded to ask him if it was Atish Dipankar who had actually brought Buddhism to Tibet. His Holiness agreed that Atisha's contribution to the propagation of Buddhism in Tibet was significant but that he was preceded by monks such as Padmasambhava, Shantarakshita and others who were the ones that had really introduced Buddhism to Tibet and made seminal contributions towards making it the mainstay of Tibetan spiritual culture. Atisha came somewhat later during a period of imperial decay in Tibet but his influence was profound as well as he re-galvanised Buddhism to further its impress on the Tibetan culture. His Holiness further said that he preferred to call these proselytising Buddhist masters from India professors of Nalanda and that it was the Nalanda School of Buddhism that Tibet owed her spiritual lineage to. He said much more and with what emphatic power! Overall, a very pleasing personality, affable, highly humorous, almost to a fault, and, yet, spiritually most profound.

Photo : At the Terrace Garden of Taj Bengal, Kolkata, 1 December, 2011, on the occasion of the Centenary Memorial Meeting of Mother Teresa. Here I am seen asking His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the guest speaker, a question during the interactive session following his speech. I addressed him in Tibetan to start off the dialogue which is why people all around are palpably amused.