By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, November 3: His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje will take part in a four-day TEDIndia Conference to be held at the Infosys campus in the South Indian city of Mysore from November 4 to 7.
Over 1,000 delegates from 35 countries across the world will attend the Global Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference, which is world famous for its annual, invitation-only conference devoted to “ideas worth spreading”.
Karmapa will attend the conference as a speaker and participant. On Saturday, November 7, Karmapa will preside over a conference session by delivering a talk on “Within You, Without You.”
TED speakers have included such people as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, molecular biologist James D. Watson, physicist Murray Gell-Mann, former Vice President of the United States Al Gore, political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Zoologist Jane Goodall, and Evangelist Billy Graham.
TEDIndia site has described Karmapa as a “revered figure in Tibetan Buddhism devoted to preserving and propagating Buddhist teachings.”
Karmapa began his weeklong visit to Mysore on Monday.
During the visit, Tibetans will organise a peace prayer at the NIE College auditorium to pray for the flood affected in North Karnataka. The religious leader is also expected to announce flood aid, Times of India reported.
The South zone Kagyudpa Buddhist Council will host the peace prayer on November 6 at 2 pm. Karnataka coordinator of the council Karma Rinpoche on Sunday said the spiritual leader the mass peace prayer is to pay homage to the dead in the North Karnataka floods.
“The peace meeting is being held following directions from our spiritual leader Dalai Lama,” he told TOI.
On November 8, Karmapa will give teachings to the Tibetan community and students at Tibetan Youth Hostel in Bangalore city on November 8. He will also give teachings in New Delhi on November 10, before finally returning to Dharamsala the following day.
The 24-year old 17th Gyalwang Karmapa is the head of the Karma Kagyu lineage of the Tibetan Buddhism.
He has been temporarily living at the Gyuto Tantric Monastic University in Dharamsala, the exile seat of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in northern India, since he made his daring escape to India from Tsurphu in Tibet in January 2000 when he was just 14.
