nwasianweekly.com
April 12, 2008

Raj Manhas

Sowing seeds of compassion

By Eleanor Lee
Northwest Asian Weekly

In case you haven’t heard, the Dalai Lama is coming to Seattle this weekend. The revered Buddhist leader will arrive April 11, as a participant of Seeds of Compassion, a five-day event of workshops, panels, talks and concerts.

His visit this week is generating a huge amount of interest and activity. The Seattle Symphony and the Seattle International Film Festival are both offering programs that complement the Dalai Lama’s visit, for example. Tickets, which are free but required, have been completely issued for weeks.

The aim of the conference is to generate and foster compassion, primarily through educating children. Seeds of Compassion is not an organization so much as it is “an initiative,” said Executive Director Raj Manhas.

Manhas, a former Seattle Public Schools superintendent, said that up to 150,000 people were expected to attend over the course of all five days, with 50,000 alone expected for the Dalai Lama’s address at Qwest Field on Saturday.

Not only that, but some of the programs will be televised, and webcasts will transmit worldwide in 20 different languages. “The reach of the whole event is beyond this state,” Manhas said. “With so many people, we will definitely raise awareness.”
The logistics of planning and executing such an ambitious schedule of events is daunting, but Manhas said that they were very fortunate “to be in the Seattle area, to have so many people who are professional and talented” working with them. He mentioned John Vadino, CEO of TPN Productions, who has such high-profile clients as Boeing and Microsoft and yet was helping Seeds pro bono.

Manhas joined Seeds as executive director in the middle of this past September, but said that various people and organizations had been working for more than a year and a half to bring the event to fruition.

Two features of the event were actually stipulated by the Dalai Lama himself. Manhas said that this “world traveler and most-sought-after speaker” made two requests in exchange for his participation. “He said, ‘I’ll give you my time, but it should be focused on kids only,’” without any religious or political themes. Manhas said that as far as he knows, the Dalai Lama has never spent such a sustained amount of time in the U.S. focusing on children. The Dalai Lama’s other requirement was that the event be free.

Not everyone is excited about the Dalai Lama’s visit, however. The Chinese Students and Scholars Association at the University of Washington is upset about the school’s conferment of an honorary doctorate on the Tibetan leader. The association sent a letter to UW President Mark Emmert, and later met with Emmert and Vice Provost Ed Taylor. The university assured CSSA that the event was an academic exchange only, with no political agenda involved. An e-mail sent out to CSSA members deemed the meeting “friendly and nice” and that UW respected their concerns. E-mails are circulating, however, of a planned demonstration. An unofficial group of Chinese UW students plans to march April 14 from Red Square to Hec Ed Pavilion, where the Dalai Lama is scheduled to receive his honorary degree.

For his part, Manhas hopes that the Dalai Lama’s visit will show people “there are such little things we can do with our kids” to nurture compassion, and it needn’t always be the responsibility of the parent. “It can be community members, baby-sitters, teachers, principals, grandparents, everyone has a role,” he said. “My dream is if even 10, 20, 30 whatever percentage of people gets engaged to do little things, this will be a great success.”

One of the scheduled programs is titled, “The Scientific Basis for Compassion.” Researchers will present scientific findings on compassion to the Dalai Lama at the University of Washington on Friday. While such work is promising, compassion is, of course, a quality, something intangible. How will Seeds measure the work they do? Manhas said he felt an analogy best attempts an answer to that question: “I think that in the long run, it’s like the environmental movement, which started, what, 20, 30, 40 years ago. And now, finally, people are seeing it makes sense. It was difficult back then to say there were problems. We (in society) want to say, ‘Show me the numbers.’ Well, to a point, we can do surveys (on compassion), ask people what they think before and after the event, and we can do follow-ups. In the long term, it will take enormous interest and commitment.”

Manhas is optimistic that there will be a long term. He said, “there is so much energy building around this work that we have been thinking and talking about how to sustain the work that’s been generated from this.” He doesn’t know yet what shape that will take but he is confident that bringing together so many people to have a conversation about compassion will have untold effects, not only for Seeds, but the area as a whole.

“Seattle is known for its entrepreneurial leadership, for Boeing and Microsoft, for coffee. Can we also be the leaders in compassion and support of our kids? I think this will be one of our future leadership roles as a region.”

For more information, visit www.seedsofcompassion.org.

Eleanor Lee can be reached at e.lee@nwasianweekly.com.

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