Robert Thurman and Victor Chan: Reflections on half a century with the Dalai Lama

 

Robert Thurman, a past chair of the Department of Religion at Columbia, is one of the most influential spokesmen of Buddhism, Tibet and the Dalai Lama today. Thurman met the Dalai Lama in 1962 and he was the first American to be ordained as a Buddhist monk by him.

 

Victor Chan first met the Dalai Lama at his home in 1972, 10 years after Thurman’s life-changing encounter. He co-authored the Wisdom of Forgiveness with the Dalai Lama and founded the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education in Vancouver in 2005.

 

In this one-of-kind conversation Thurman and Chan will share stories about meeting and spending time with the Dalai Lama. They will explore the multiple dimensions of the Dalai Lama’s worldview: his core spiritual beliefs and his distinctive take on education and science.