The Dalai Lama

If you live in or near Vancouver, Canada, we are fortunate to be welcoming the Dalai Lama himself this weekend.

He will be inaugurating the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education by hosting a series of dialogues with leading global thinkers. The talks will take place from Friday September 8th-Sunday September 11th, some private, some by invitation and one open to the public on the Saturday. I will be covering this event, and how his philosophy relates to recovery from an Eating Disorder, so check back on Monday for the full article.

The public talk is called "Cultivating Happiness" and he will focus on the causes and conditions for happiness and provide guidance on developing an authentic sense of well being that is not dependent on external circumstances.

The other dialogues include "Educating the Heart," where the Dalai Lama will converse with high school students from the Lower Mainland. The teens will bring their own stories of compassion and courage and engage in conversation around them. The afternoon of this session will be a dialogue with leading educators, researchers and policy makers on the themes of cultivating compassion and educating the heart.

"Happiness and Stress as Determinants of Mental Health" will be a discussion with a different group of leading researchers on the topic of enhancing authentic happiness and physical well being.

"Connecting for Change: Corporate and Social Leaders in Dialogue" will start with a small series of conversations among prominent national and international business leaders and social innovators.

The centre is scheduled for completion in 2009 and will be a non-political, non-religious institution that acts as a beacon for promoting peace through education, research and dialogue. It will run on the Dalai Lama's philosophy that each person must "cultivate the heart, and work for peace within yourself and in the world."

"The key concepts that define the goals of the Dalai Lama Center are: one, the promotion of human values; and two, the promotion of a sense of oneness within humanity. These two ideas serve to promote peace among different communities within one nation, within one world. And they will be particularly useful in shaping the long-term goals of the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education in Vancouver, Canada."

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The centre has an International Advisory Board led by the Dalai Lama. The board also includes four other Nobel Peace Laureates- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi, Jimmy Carter and Mairead Maguire- all of whom will lend their extensive experience to support the Centre's objectives.