mr-damon/buddhism

Nepalese police detained more than 500 Tibetan exiles decrying a crackdown in their homeland in a protest near the Chinese Embassy on Thursday, police said.

Police officers in blue camouflage uniforms chased down red-robed Buddhist monks and nuns and other Tibetans, struggling with the protesters and dragging them along the ground as they resisted. They were tossed into vans and open trucks and driven to detention centers.

Police official Sarbendra Khanal said that 505 Tibetans were detained, including several women and monks, from at least three separate protests near the embassy in an upscale neighborhood.

It was so far the largest number of Tibetans detained in Nepal's capital, Katmandu, since the exiles began almost daily protests last month against a Chinese crackdown in Tibet.

"The visit by the Dalai Lama, who arrived here on Thursday afternoon on a flight from Japan, is his first to the United States since the onset of international protests over the crackdown in Tibet. But the trip was planned long before the recent troubles, and in any event he is not expected to make radical demands for Tibetan independence.

""Nor, for that matter, is he expected to guest on bass or bellow backup vocals when he joins the rocker and local organic parent Dave Matthews onstage here Friday evening.

"The expectation, instead, is that he will stick with what got him here, "dialoguing" about the importance of an inclusive kindness and compassion: pitch-perfect preaching for an area with one of the country's lowest rates of church attendance and a widespread lack of interest in mainstream American religion.

""How can you argue about compassion?" said Dan Kranzler, whose charitable organization, the Kirlin Foundation, has been the lead fund-raiser for the conference, called Seeds of Compassion.

"The last time the Dalai Lama visited Seattle, in 1993, his total audience was perhaps a tenth of what is expected this time. In addition to the Dave Matthews concert and a variety of other events, including an address at the University of Washington, he is to speak at Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks. More than 50,000 people are expected there.

"The conference will feature workshops on topics as varied as scientific studies of compassion, business issues and ideas for improving foster care.

"It's got nothing to do with religion," Kranzler said.

"Much of Seattle has long had Sunday mornings free. Some Lutheran churches in the old Scandinavian fishing neighborhoods of Ballard have been converted to housing. Churches downtown have been sold. The Episcopal cathedral, on a hill overlooking the city, has struggled with budgets and internal politics.

"Yet Pettis, of the monastery, estimated that more than 100,000 people now practiced Tibetan Buddhism here, by most accounts a huge increase in the past two decades, even if the noninstitutional nature of Buddhism makes clean counts elusive.

"People have long moved to Seattle "to separate, to differentiate themselves from their families and their traditions," said James Wellman Jr., an associate professor in the comparative religion department at the University of Washington. "And then they get here, and there's not many people, so there's this sense of isolation. There's an ambivalence about it. They both love it and they wonder, 'Well, how can I connect?' "

"Spirituality and self-help sections in bookstores do well, neighborhood farmers' markets thrive, and craigslist is the place to go this week if you want to buy tickets from scalpers to see the "simple monk" from Tibet."

Organizers of the five-day Seeds of Compassion conference in Seattle say the Dalai Lama's visit is expected to draw more than 150,000 people.

Despite political pressure from China, the Dalai Lama was determined to attend the conference because of his commitment to global peace, organizers said.

"He wants compassion for both sides, for the Tibetans, for the Chinese brothers," said Lama Tenzin Dhonden, a Tibetan monk who spearheaded the development of the conference.

Seeds of Compassion will feature dozens of workshops on various subjects, beginning with a panel discussion Friday with the Dalai Lama on "The Scientific Basis for Compassion: What We Know Now." Early childhood development is one of the main focuses of the conference.

Tickets for events involving the Dalai Lama have already sold out, according to the conference Web site.

I took this photo from the top of the Three Sisters' Restaurant in Boudhanath, Nepal. The central structure is the Great Stupa at Boudhanath.