Dalai Lama gets
honorary Canadian citizenship
IANS,
June 26, 2006
DHARAMSALAHimachal Pradesh (India), -- The Tibetan
government-in-exile has welcomed the decision of the Canadian
government to grant honorary citizenship to Buddhist spiritual
leader the Dalai Lama.
A spokesman for the government-in-exile on Monday welcomed the
decision of the Canadian government to honour their leader and said
the Dalai Lama is scheduled to visit Canada in September this
year.
The Canadian House of Commons last week reportedly unanimously
passed the decision to grant honorary citizenship to the Dalai Lama
for his contribution to world peace and non-violence.
Prior to this the Canadian parliament has bestowed this honour on
South Africa's Nelson Mandela and Hungarian leader Raoul Wallenberg
who saved the lives of thousands of Jews.
The Dalai Lama is holding a weeklong talk here for his followers
from across the world on the Buddhist way of life.
He is delivering the sermon, "Bodhisattva's Way of
Life", at the request of Taiwanese University as some 300
students have come to attend the talk from Taiwan.
Hundreds of his followers were also seen attending the talk that
began on Sunday. "The Bodhisattva
responds with compassion even to an enemy," the Dalai Lama
told his audience.
"Those children who grow up in
compassionate families become mature and balanced adults,"
he added.
The Dalai Lama has recently returned from his visit to Petra in
Jordan where the Nobel laureate had gone to attend a conference, a
spokesman of the Tibetan government in exile said.
The Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers fled Tibet after a
failed uprising against the Chinese Communist regime in 1959.
He was later awarded the Noble peace prize. The Tibetan government
in exile is based in Dharamsala in the northern Indian hill state
of Himachal Pradesh, with some 100,000 Tibetan refugees living in
the country.
