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Proclamation Commends His Holinesss Transformative Leadership

(March 24, 2015 Redlands, California) As part of its ceremony to confer an honorary doctorate degree on His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, the University of Redlands issued a formal proclamation. Professor Karen Derris, who had first brought students from the university to India to study with the 17th Karmapa, read the proclamation at the podium immediately prior to the formal granting of the degree. The text in full follows here:

The University of Redlands, with great respect and deep appreciation, commends and honors His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, this 24th day of March, 2015.

We commend His Holiness for his leadership in working with his generational peers to transform our world through education dedicated to broadening awareness of suffering in the world and to informing compassionate action to alleviate it.

We celebrate the Gyalwang Karmapa’s deep commitment to illuminating and building upon the interconnections that unite the world across differences of language, culture, religion or worldview.

We honor the Karmapa’s special relationship with our students, which began at his home in India where he most generously guided them in deeply meaningful cross-cultural conversations. His Holiness now guides liberal arts institutions toward a model of global learning that encourages students to embrace their responsibilities as global citizens as opportunities for forming global friendships.

Serving as an inspiration to millions around the world in their daily lives, His Holiness’s educational efforts have led to meaningful progress toward environmental sustainability, gender equality and humane treatment of animals in the communities of his Buddhist faith, inspiring others around the globe to work for meaningful change in their own communities.

Through the example of his remarkable life story, the Karmapa shows us the endless possibilities arising from courage, service to others and unwavering aspiration to achieve the conditions for freedom and happiness for all beings in the world.

For this and more, the University of Redlands and its Board of Trustees convey our deepest respect and gratitude for His Holiness’s exemplary life and work, and we confer upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, with all rights, privileges and responsibilities pertaining thereto.

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Doctorate Awarded to the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa

(March 24, 2015 Redlands, California) The University of Redlands honored His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, in every possible way this evening, awarding him the highest academic degree, creating a musical arrangement of his song Aspiration for the World, flying the Dream Flag on the campus flagpole, listening attentively to his lecture and to end the night a standing ovation and (since this is, after all, a university campus) Karmapa after-parties!

Listen to the song that was performed in his honor here. Read the proclamation here. Click on the photo above to view the full slide show or watch the video below. The University of Redlands has uploaded a full album of photos documenting his entire visit here.

Next stop: Harvard University. His Holiness lecture there will be webcast live at 4 pm (East Coast time) on March 26, 2015. Please join us there!

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Karmapa in San Francisco: Visit to Gyuto Foundation

(March 20, 2015 – East Richmond Heights, California) As his final activity in the Bay Area, His Holiness the 17th Karmapa was given a ceremonial welcome on a visit this morning to Gyuto Foundation, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery located in East Richmond Heights, California. Although this center in the Bay Area may be physically far from His Holiness the Karmapas residence in India, the two enjoy a close bond. As the 17th Karmapa noted, Gyuto Foundation is also affiliated with Gyuto Tantric College in India, where he has resided for the past 15 years.

“When I arrived from Tibet,” he said, “the initial plan was that I would stay at the Gyuto Temple for a few months and this opportunity was very graciously provided by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, according to his instructions. That plan was that it would be more like a stay at a guesthouse … a brief stay, maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months. Here it is 15 years later, and I’m still living at the Gyuto Tantric College in Sidhbari. This has been a wonderful opportunity for me. I’ve not only been hosted graciously there, but I really have the feeling toward everyone there that they are like members of my family. We are all in the same family.”

Following on his comments to the larger Tibetan community the night before, His Holiness encouraged the local Tibetans to make full use of the resources made available by Gyuto Foundation for preserving Tibetan culture and language in diaspora, as well as for Dharma study and practice. Gyuto Foundation is active in the Tibetan community, offering Dharma study classes for young Tibetans twice a month, in connection with the Tibetan Association of Northern California.

“I see this as a very important center,” the Karmapa told them. “Therefore I would encourage you to take great pride and delight in having a center with such a noble purpose. Furthermore, there are many Tibetan people who are members of the community and many in the surrounding areas and I would encourage the Tibetan community to use this center as a gathering place to come and meet with each other, become familiar with each other, support each other and do so in an ongoing way. And I really rejoice in this opportunity.”

As part of this same visit, His Holiness shared the morning meal with members of the Dharma center community, before proceeding by car to his next destination.

With the visit to Gyuto Foundation, the 17th Karmapa has completed the northern California stage of his epic journey across the country. We will be reporting soon from southern California, where His Holiness will be making one stop, to visit University of Redlands, a private college that has sent students to study with him at his monastery in India.

Many thanks to Stanford University, the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, Google, Facebook, Palpung Lungtok Choling, Kagyu Droden Kunchab, American Himalayan Foundation, Gyuto Foundation and the Tibetan Association of Northern California for extending such a warm welcome to His Holiness the Karmapa during his time in northern California.

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Karmapa Calls for Better Online Culture by Visiting FB

Ogyen Trinley Dorje visited Facebook world headquarter on March 18.  Amid this visit, the 29-year-old pioneer was not just investigating a critical nearness inside the present worldwide community and pop culture. He was principally interfacing with pioneers of a developing accentuation inside American innovation organizations focused in Silicon Valley, who are attempting to discover approaches to make the Internet a kinder place. This rising development has established in the care development clearing the U.S.A., yet additionally, stretches out to endeavors to instigate more noteworthy sympathy and understanding in the public eye. Despite the fact that His Holiness the Karmapa toured Facebook’s offices, the greater part of the visit was offered over to a roundtable discourse.

Members offered one conversation starter after another to the Karmapa, evoking his insight on philosophy for developing empathy and his perspectives on the utilization of the web in spreading contemplation guidance and his recommendations for how FB could be a power for mending broken relationships. Taking part in that exchange was Facebook’s own particular Arturo Bejar, who heads the 80-man Protect and Care group at Facebook, a group committed to countering cyber bullying, and making an atmosphere of more prominent sympathy and regard on the web. Numerous other significant figures in the Silicon Valley thoughtfulness development joined too, including Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas, science executive of the Greater Good Science Center and Rich Fernandez, organizer of the Wisdom Labs, a research organization gave to prosperity and care.
One conversationalist depicted the reasons she by and large gives in her introductions to advance empathy, which concentrates on organic and neurological advantages, for example, the way that people have developed to nurture their young, and that neurological joy frameworks are animated when one offers support to others. She at that point asked what different reasons His Holiness the Karmapa recommends when he is instructing on the development of sympathy. Accordingly, His Holiness profoundly lauded the exploration being done to distinguish and recognize the organic and neurological advantages of empathy, however, focused on that it was additionally vital to look past such physical impacts.

He additionally forewarned that one ought to consider the advantages to oneself as well as the focal advantage to others when one acts with more prominent sympathy. The two should be corresponding, he said. “It is vital that our inspiration in developing empathy not be restricted to the advantages that have only for us.” “Our own sentiments of empathy do effects affect others,” he said. “For instance, there are many individuals who endure and act in unskillful courses due to not being cherished or not being broadened care and concern. In this way, we can mull over how much our improvement of sympathy can help other people.” As our advancement of empathy advances, the point is to achieve the point where we don’t miss chances to be off down to earth administration to others too.
Another inquiry raised was what His Holiness the Karmapa feels about utilizing the Internet and versatile applications to make reflection directions all the more promptly accessible to a more noteworthy number of individuals. “All in all, I think there is a potential for innovation to be of extraordinary advantage as methods for scattering essential data on contemplation or different lessons about otherworldly practices,” the Karmapa said. “However, I likewise think we require more noteworthy care in the matter of how we are making this data accessible.” He went ahead to take note of that, “individuals have distinctive auras. Somewhere in the range of tending more toward outrage, others toward other ongoing passionate states.

The customary Buddhist similarity depicts the profound lessons as pharmaceutical and the instructor as the specialist who controls the drug in light of their examination and determination of the patient. Be that as it may, in the event that you are getting the greater part of your data from the web, it is as though the patient is making a self-determination. I don’t know what we ought to be doing to represent this reality since it implies that you can’t just transfer something for everybody to download to self-cure them. Not every person ought to be taking a similar measurement of medication in the meantime. Consequently, there ought to be some kind of connection amongst teacher and instructed.”
Another member portrayed talks to help factor in the individual decent variety of those seeing reflection devices on the web. Techniques considered incorporating consolidating polls with systematic instruments from gaming innovation to make modified “otherworldly exercises.” The Karmapa was likewise approached what crucial ways he sees for Facebook to shape how individuals collaborate with each other to improve things. Accordingly, His Holiness focused on the open door that web-based social networking bears us to come to perceive how associated we are to each other and to perceive our key shared yearning to be glad and to quit enduring.

Facebook could turn into a place where our essential connectedness and our profound equity is made more obvious. Arturo Bejar remarked that time after time assessments communicated in online networking wind up injuring others and shredding individuals. He asked what Facebook could do to help mend those injured connections. His Holiness communicated his gratefulness for the inquiry and recognized it was excessively profound an inquiry, making it impossible to be replied in one brief reaction. Be that as it may, he could share a few perceptions.
“The vast majority of the general population who come to meet with me are experiencing harsh circumstances,” he reflected. “What I regularly observe is that they come to relate to the troublesome circumstances they are in and overlook who they themselves are. It is as though they dismiss their very own character in their emphasis on the circumstance that is disturbing them. I think it is imperative to discover approaches to get back to ourselves to our identity, past and separated from the agonizing circumstance we end up in.” The seventeenth Karmapa clarified that Facebook has turned out to be so much a piece of the texture of our day by day experience that their endeavors to be a power for struggle determination, empathy and amicability building are genuinely deserving of acclaim and celebrating.

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Karmapa’s Discourse on Nature and Technological Development at Stanford

Leader spent March 17 at Stanford in Palo Alto. He met with both scholars and professors, to whom he read the lesson on the topic of Minding Questions: Sympathy, Technological Development, and Nature.

The University had discharged seats with no earlier declaration, yet even so inside a solitary day all had been disseminated to the common population. The address was at the college’s Hall of Memory to an out-of-print social event of around 2 thousand understudies, staff and graduated class. The occasion was live streamed by Stanford University, and also 3 thousand individuals viewed virtually. The synchronous interpretation was given.

James Doty, the professor at University, set the setting for the night by portraying the logical survey that connections empathetic conduct with significant physiological impacts, like bring down circulatory strain, supported invulnerable framework, and expanded lifetime and serenity.

“Despite the fact that this is my 3rd attendance to North America,” he started, “it’s my 1st occasion to attend any alien nation, and I consider this is a unique open door for me in my experience. Toward the start of this visit, I have a valuation for the incredible opportunity, and I consider that this visit means a huge stride into the prospect for me.”

At that point the leader shared some of his cherished youth recollections with the group of onlookers, demonstrating exactly how profoundly insight was woven into his own Tibetan childhood.

“I think nature I was brought up in by my folks was a situation of extraordinary sympathy. Some portion of this was recently the closeness we as a whole imparted to each other in our natural area. My entire people lived in a shelter made of yak wool, all in a similar place together. You can name it the family apartment, you could name it the dining room—but it was only one we had.”

“What I recollect in that nearby location is the sound, each morning, of my folks making petitions, communicating slants, for example, may every aware being be glad, may every single conscious being be free of anguish. On the other hand, I would nod off to the hints of comparative yearnings at night. Along these lines, I truly believe that I was brought up in a mandala or a hover of sympathy and love.”

The leader at that point clarified that empathy is firmly woven with the truth of reliance that we as a whole offer.

“When we take a gander at the way things occur, all things considered, we can see that numerous issues emerge with regards to issues, for example, the land, sexual orientation disparity, et cetera, in light of the fact that we don’t have an energy about the related idea of reality. Rather, maybe accidentally, we receive a default state of mind of childishness, fundamentally just appreciating our own particular concerns. We can see this is the foundation of huge numbers of these issues.”

The leader drew cases from regular day to day existence to show the intense reality of reliance amongst creatures and the normal society we rely upon.

“We can particularly perceive how this wonder of reliance plays out with regards to innovation. We’re seeing quick headways in innovation, and as people, we’re likewise is attached to more mechanical progressions and putting much a greater amount of our expectations in innovation. In any case, innovation continually needs changes, and that consistent stream of changes and upgrades thus relies upon an awesome cluster of regular assets,” the leader brought up.

“Be that as it may, we just observe what we have in our grasp with regards to innovation. We see, for instance, the new Apple device that we’ve gained or that we need to obtain—we don’t see specifically with our own particular eyes all the regular assets and all the challenges of the Apple people. We’re not taking a gander at the more drawn out or bigger view from where this is all originating.”

He utilized another capable, regular case to delineate the link and the shared view we as a whole offer of needing to be glad and not having any desire to endure.

“We may wear garments here in the America, however the greater part of those garments aren’t made in the US,” he said. “They’re made in different nations, frequently creating nations. So creating sympathy may include offering ascend to more noteworthy familiarity with the circs in the processing plants where our garments are made and the troubles the common population who participate at those production lines may persevere. Insight may include offering ascend to more noteworthy mindfulness about their troublesome circumstance, rather than the charming circumstance we appreciate. With the buy of apparel, it appears that we get the well done, and they get the terrible stuff. We receive the great circumstances, and they get the difficult circumstances.”

As opposed to simply kicking back and observing the circumstance, the leader clarified that our sympathy likewise should be dynamic and included.

“We can likewise perceive how in some cases we isolate from the misery of the world by seeing it as a demonstration that we’re kicking back and looking,” he said. “For instance, we may wind up noticeably mindful of the agony and troubles that are going on in the Middle East. Be that as it may, we’re quite recently sort of kicking back and seeing as though it were a show to take in, not by any means including ourselves by making a progress or winding up more devoted toward that circumstance.

“Sympathy implies ending up more included, making more progress, growing more devotion. Also, that implies we have to go out on a limb. In any case, our propensity as individuals is that not very many individuals appear to appreciate going out on a limb.

Dr. Doty arranged a few imperative and topical inquiries, anxious to look for his knowledge. He started by asking the leader when he had understood the basic criticalness of guarding the universe.

The leader clarified that his profound gratefulness for the globe started in his initial adolescence in a secluded piece of territory, where individuals carried on with a convenient way of life near nature.

“Around then the range where we lived was exceptionally unblemished, not polluted, not influenced by a great deal of improvement by any stretch of the imagination,” he related. “So I believe that was a valuable open door for me to influence an exceptionally to quick and prompt association with how lovely the regular world is and to truly welcome it. It’s currently been fifteen years or so since I exited my family land and I’ve adapted more about what’s going on to the planet there. For instance, the precipitation is quickly softening with huge effects on nature. So that was truly what offered to ascend to a characteristic want to offer assistance. Once in a while, the tragic idea jumps out at me that if I somehow managed to come back to Tibet perhaps things would never again be as delightful as I recollect.”

Whenever Dr. Doty at that point asked him how to decidedly impact the development of our youngsters with ecological mindfulness and creating understanding during a time of innovation, he shared own particular guardians’ insight.

“I consider that a standout amongst essential points is for the guardians them to endeavor to rehearse empathy and to enhance their sympathy. What’s more, on the off chance that they’re ready to do that then this will have a characteristic, solid and good impact on their youngsters. I think it is imperative if those of us who are guardians can take a mentality of obligation regarding future eras as a feature of our explanation behind creating empathy.”

Asking leader’s recommendation, Dr. Doty mourned that a lot of individuals don’t act since they fear what may happen to them—which is an incredible trouble saw all through mankind’s story.

“A decent case of what your inquiry focuses to is the mistreatment that numerous Tibetans are confronting and bearing,” he reacted. “Many individuals would prefer not to get included with that problem and they sort of push it off to the side since they consider it would be so troublesome for them to end up noticeably included—exceptionally troublesome governmental issues, it’s an extremely troublesome circumstance, which appears to be unmanageable, et cetera.

“In any case, I imagine that on the off chance that we request it from the perspective of apt means and truly consider what strategies are most apt for us to draw in with, at that point more roads of getting to be plainly included can reveal for us. All things considered, it’s not only a political subject. It’s a profound issue, it’s a social concern and it’s a natural point too.”

Expressing gratitude toward his remarks, Doty at that point talented the leader a Stanford T-shirt and pendant, among different blessings, while consequently exhibited him.

Before the finish of the address, this Silicon Valley-swarm had produced a constant flow of cheerful tweets with photographs of the leader.

For the individuals who were absent at the address, the institution will be transferring the recording on its web resource.

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Karmapa at Stanford: Touring Campus, Meeting with Students

(March 17, 2015 – Palo Alto, California, USA) His Holiness the 17th Karmapa set foot on an American university campus for the first time today. Setting a pattern for the many university visits planned for his two-month trip around the USA, His Holiness today visited key sites on the Stanford campus, met with students, interacted with faculty—including neuroscientists, psychologists and religious studies professors—and delivered a lecture to a packed auditorium. (Separate reports to follow.)

Click on photo above to view slide show.

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Karmapa Had Ride on A Self-Driven Auto in Google

The primary step of his genuine voyage in North America conveyed the Karmapa to Silicon vale. Properly enough for a pioneer who does not modest from making powerful utilization of innovation to expand the Dharma, the 17th leader attended Google office, visiting its offices, taking a ride in its model auto with no operator and providing a discussion to corporation team toward the evening.

Corporation frequently shows up with the highest priority on the rundown of top organizations on the planet to go for. The company supports care rehearse among its representatives, and the underlying period of the attend concentrated on the organization’s broad health administrations. Amid his attendance to Google, a leader was facilitated by Chade-Meng Tan, Google’s winner of self-awareness and writer of the novel Look Inside Yourself. He gladly demonstrated Karmapa around Google’s yoga lobbies, wellness focuses and reflection places, which representatives are urged to use whenever, and handled the leader’s various inquiries regarding Google’s methods to advance prosperity among its workers.

The individual voyage through Google’s offices wound from working to working, past an auto equipped to photo road level for incorporation in Google Maps. Next, His Holiness touched base at an office with a wraparound, 3D show of the app Google Earth. Showed a 3D voyage through the Grand Canyon, the demand was also to see Tibet also, and his sister and different individuals from the organization gravitated toward to view. As they zoomed from an airborne picture and approached area level, and afterward twisted their journey finished a track and into the vale where Lhasa is found, the pioneer took the handles to see everything around the town.

During the dinner with  workers, he was given the chance to ride in Google’s cutting edge self-driven auto. He and his sister acknowledged the welcome and were given an uncommon opportunity to encounter the juvenile innovation. A Google team member associated his visit remarked that when she was putting in the device for him to have the capacity to ride this ‘Car’, they ensure that she should not trouble since it had been numerous periods since any models had been allowed. Nonetheless, she attempted, at any rate, just to get the eager reaction that unquestionably the leader would be the most honored to encounter the auto.

Attention: A point by point give an account the Karmapa’s discussion at Google and connections to the video of his discussion.

Tap on photograph above to see a full slide appear.

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Karmapa Speaks at Reception to Welcome Him to USA

On the first day of his official trip, His Holiness the Karmapa attended a reception in his honor at the Rosewood Sand Hill in Palo Alto, Calfornia, a few hours after the traditional tea-and-rice ceremony at the same venue. In the interim, old Dharma friends reconnected as Western Buddhist teachers and long-time practitioners mingled, basking together in the glow of the moment.

Many familiar faces filled the hall, including teachers Jack Kornfield, Lama Palden Drolma, Lama Surya Das, Lama Tsultrim Allione, Norbu Tenzing and even Michael Imperioli. Representatives of local Tibetan Buddhist centers from all over North America were on hand, including Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, various KTCs, Karma Sonam Dargye Ling in Toronto, Tergar Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Palpung Lungtok Choeling and other centers. The crowd spilled outdoors onto the lawn, and clusters of Tibetans sat on the grass, giving the afternoon the feel of a large family picnic.

Just before seven o’clock, His Holiness the Karmapa returned to the ballroom at the Rosewood Sand Hill, which had been transformed for the occasion into a less formal seating arrangement.

Patty Waltcher, who had organized the welcome reception, opened the event by introducing the three board members of the Karmapa Foundation, who were all present: Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Eric Colombel, president and founder of Tsadra Foundation and Dekila Chungyalpa, an environmentalist and research scientist at Yale University. She warmly thanked them for all their efforts to make it possible for His Holiness the Karmapa to visit so many universities and Dharma communities on this trip.

As managing director of the tour, Peter Volz offered a brief introduction to the Karmapa and his activities. As soon as he mentioned His Holiness’ plans to establish full ordination for women, the hall burst into applause. Speaking as a father of a college-age child, Peter Volz expressed his concern at the existential crisis of today’s young people, who are overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenges facing the world today. He described the urgent need for leadership on social change, and the aim of this trip to help meet that need.

Next to speak was Dekila Chungyalpa, who recalled the aspiration that His Holiness the Karmapa had expressed during his first visit to the USA to spend two months a year here, an aspiration that was now coming to fruition. She outlined the stops at universities and spoke of Yale’s plans to award His Holiness its most prestigious award, the Chubb Fellowship, and of the University of Redlands’ plans to grant him an honorary PhD. She noted too the overwhelming interest that has led to seats at university lectures being snatched up within hours or even minutes of opening for ticketing. As an environmentalist she spoke movingly of the positive impact the Karmapa has had on conservation in the Himalayas, turning Buddhist monasteries and nunneries into local centers of environmental action and education. She evoked his particular quality as a spiritual leader who inspires transformation that moves from the meditation cushion to permeate society.

Following this, time was allowed for people to mingle, and a long line swiftly grew of people eager to interact with the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa himself. When all had had their moment with His Holiness, the organizers requested that His Holiness share his thoughts.

He first expressed his sheer joy at having this opportunity to spend two months in the United States. He then spoke of his own experience listening to the plans for him to deliver lectures on so many different topics at the various universities.

“I appreciate their kind words, but all this praise puts me under a lot of pressure and puts me on the spot to say something important,” he said wryly. “I am not sure how I will perform under such pressure, but hopefully it will turn out well.”

He went on to express his gratitude to everyone for showing him such a warm welcome, and singled out those who had exerted such efforts on behalf of this trip. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he said.

“This is the first time I have had an opportunity to spend such an extensive amount of time in any foreign country,” he observed. “Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere thanks to the Indian Government, and to all my supporters and friends in India who helped to make this possible.”

When he learned that he would be able to make this two-month trip, initially he was elated, the 17th Karmapa said. He joked that only later did it sink in just how hectic the pace and complex the logistics would be. “Two months really is a long time,” he said playfully.

“Here we are,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

With a final thanks to all assembled, His Holiness arose and departed. Long after he had left the hall, those gathered lingered on, reluctant to bring the joyful occasion to a close, even knowing that the months ahead hold many more opportunities for closeness and connection.

Click on photo above to see slide show.

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