Earth Day Reflections — Dalai Lama Presents the Wege Lecture on Sustainability

Sunday, April 20, 2008 - 2:00pm to 3:30pm

Registration and Fees: Free, but tickets are required for admission

Location: Crisler Arena, 333 East Stadium Boulevard

734-764-1412

As part of 2008 Earth Day activities, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama will deliver a special Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability at 2 PM, Sunday, April 20, 2008. This is sponsored by the University of Michigan Office of the President and by the Center for Sustainable Systems in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and Buddhist leader last visited Ann Arbor in 1994, when about 9,000 people attended a Thursday night lecture at Crisler Arena.

The Wege Lecture is free and open to the public, though tickets are required. Beginning March 4, 2008 tickets to the Wege Lecture will be available to University of Michigan students, faculty and staff who bring their UM ID to the Michigan Union Ticket Office (MUTO). The general public can obtain tickets there or by calling the 734-763-TKTS starting March 5, 2008. There is a limit of two tickets per person.

Tickets arranged by telephone are considered ‘Will Call’ and trigger a confirmation email, which must be printed out and redeemed in person for actual tickets during normal MUTO business hours anytime in advance of the event, but no later than Saturday, April 19, 2008. We expect all tickets to ‘sell out’ so any seats not occupied 15 minutes in advance of the Lecture will be released to the public.

To satisfy a larger audience, we will also provide a link on this page (at a later date) to a live web-cast of the Lecture.

In addition to the public Lecture, the Dalai Lama’s visit to Ann Arbor will include a day and a half of formal Buddhist teachings and an awards presentation which will be sponsored by Jewel Heart, an Ann Arbor-based Tibetan Buddhist center; The Tibet Fund; and the Garrison Institute. Fees will be charged for the teaching sessions. For more information about those events, go to www.DalaiLamaAnnArbor.com.

His Holiness has long held views on the subject of the environment and has talked about it in the past. One address carried these statements:

"We are also being drawn together by the grave problems we face: overpopulation, dwindling natural resources, and an environmental crisis that threatens our air, water, and trees, along with the vast number of beautiful life forms that are the very foundation of existence on this small planet we share. I believe that to meet the challenge of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for his or her own self, family or nation, but for the benefit of all mankind. Universal responsibility is the real key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace, the equitable use of natural resources and, through concern for future generations, the proper care of the environment."

This event is free, but tickets are required for admission.

www.dalailamaannarbor.com

All of the free tickets to the 2 PM April 20 Sustainability Lecture by His Holiness the Dalai Lama have been given away in just three hours!

The only options to see his Wege Lecture on Sustainability are:

1) Volunteer as an usher all day Sunday (you would be required to work the Sunday morning Teaching Session hosted by Jewel Heart plus the Sunday afternoon Sustainability Lecture hosted by U-M)  We will need 100 volunteers for each of the two days.  Please visit:  http://sitemaker.umich.edu/dlvolunteering/home

2) Watch a live web-cast of the Lecture.  Instructions to join the web-cast will be posted, when arranged, at: http://css.snre.umich.edu/facts/dalailama.html

3) Because the Lecture tickets are free, there may be “no-shows” and we don’t want any empty seats at Crisler.  Tickets all stated that seats would be held only until 1:45 PM, at which point, ushers will release any open seat to the general public, regardless of having a ticket or not.