By TONY EVANS
On Monday morning, following the Dalai Lama's Compassion address at the Wood River High School, I Googled the international news media for his mention of global warming and the resulting increase of natural disasters (like Hurricanes).
I found 23 stories posted from Russia to Italy to Seattle that mentioned our little valley and the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who came to speak.
In these stories the Dalai Lama was cast as an affable monk, as a jokester, even as a thoughtful military analyst. Nothing about his "contingencies," which link us together as human beings, the provincial attitudes of Islamic extremists, or the pointlessness of revenge.
Many of these stories had near identical phrases describing the event, as though they had been prepared from a single source. Could this have been Burson Marsteller, the multi-billion-dollar global public relations firm that handled press for the event?
According to the Center for Media and Democracy and PR Watch, Burson Marsteller has reaped millions working for major oil companies for decades, helping to defeat Clinton-era legislation that would have curtailed greenhouse gases.
The power of PR giants like Burson Marsteller lies in their network with hundreds of newspapers around the world to provide "reputation management." According to BM's own Web site, they employ "award-winning journalists" and believe that "targeted and compelling communications play a crucial role in influencing perceptions and reputations."
Was BM's client the Dalai Lama, or the U.S. State Department, which handled security for his visit?
One could, of course, point out that the Dalai Lama is not a climatologist, and therefore should not be taken seriously on matters of climate change, but it would be wrong to assume that he is ignorant of science in general and the implications of scientific thinking for the world community.
In his latest book, "The Universe in a Single Atom," he proffers the advancement of scientific evidence above out-moded religious dogmas, including his own, while describing many parallels between ancient Tibetan philosophical texts and recent advances in scientific theory.
In a statement which might pose a challenge to Christian fundamentalists, he writes, "Buddhism and science share a fundamental reluctance to posit a transcendent being as the origin of all things." How can someone be so spiritual, so tolerant of others, and yet not really believe in a human-like "God"? This is a question well worth asking?
During the first week of November, the Dalai Lama will join noted neuroscientists at the 13th Mind and Life Institute gathering in Washington, D.C, sponsored by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
One of the goals of this conference is to share the latest brain scanning technology with Tibetan meditation masters, to scientifically measure the effects of meditation on brain function or neuroplasticity.
It is hoped by some that the subjective experiences of meditation masters will be measured objectively by science. Before special interests got in the way, there were similar hopes for the measurement of global warming.
Tony Evans
