Chan Centre, UBC, June 22, 2017
- His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Mr. Wade Davis, colleagues, students and guests
- Pleased to see so many people here today at the Chan Centre for this important dialogue
- I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered today on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. I would like to acknowledge Grand Chief Ed John of the Musqueam Indian Band, and Elder Mary Charles, who are with us today.
- Thank sponsors, Karma Kagyu Association of Canada and Thrangu Monastery of Richmond, BC.
- The University of British Columbia is delighted to welcome His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, on this, his first visit to Canada.
- The 17th Karmapa is the head of the 900-year-old Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. He guides hundreds of thousands of Buddhists around the world and belongs to the oldest continuing reincarnation lineage in the Tibetan Buddhist world, dating back to the Dusum Khyenpa, the First Karmapa, in the 12th century.
- The 17th Gyalwang Karmapa is known as someone who is deeply committed to social justice, and as an innovator within his own tradition.
- Drawing on years of intensive Buddhist training and passionate sensitivity, the Karmapa has called on people worldwide to take action on some of the biggest challenges facing the globe today, including consumerism, gender inequality, and environmental pollution.
- He has for many years taken a deep interest in the role of women within the Buddhist community, advocating for their equal rights and opportunities.
- In particular, he has taken the responsibility to restore the practice of giving full ordination to Tibetan nuns – a step that will transform the future of Tibetan Buddhism.
- His emphasis on formal education for nuns is foundational to this noble aim, and he has recently announced plans to establish a monastic college for Buddhist women as part of his ongoing efforts to educate and empower female Buddhist practitioners from the Himalayan region.
- As an ardent environmentalist, His Holiness regularly incorporates respect for our natural environment into his teachings and his work.
- He has encouraged Buddhist communities and monasteries in the Himalayan region to act in sustainable and environmentally friendly ways and has helped establish an eco-monastic movement of 55 monasteries across the Himalayas acting as centres of green activism.
- His latest book, The Heart is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out, is based on his interactions with University students during this trips abroad. In his book, he examines urgent challenges facing his generation as a society, as a planet and as individuals.
- He encourages us to rise to these challenges, using a resource we already have in abundance—the basic nobility of our human hearts.
- The issued raised by His Holiness are deeply relevant to UBC.
- These concerns are at the core of our educational and institutional values. UBC has one of the largest programs in Asian Studies in North America, through our Department of Asian Studies and the Institute of Asian Research. Our faculty members have strong expertise, knowledge and interest in Buddhism, particularly focusing in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Tibetan Buddhism, as well as providing the study of Sanskrit, one of the most important classical languages of Buddhism.
- UBC’s Himalaya Program draws upon faculty expertise, student engagement, and community partnerships to create an interdisciplinary hub for sharing knowledge about the Himalayan region – a region that includes Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.
- All of these countries are traversed by the trans-Himalayan Tibetan cultural zone and are marked in various ways by the Tibetan cultural heritage.
- Founded in Fall 2015, the initial projects in our Himalaya Program have included developing a language partner program to create opportunities for learning Nepali and Tibetan; developing a speaker and event series; and creating an interdisciplinary network across UBC and the broader Vancouver community.
- We at UBC are delighted and honoured to have Prof. Wade Davis as a member of our faculty. Wade has a deep interest in indigenous communities, and he has argued passionately that each culture is a unique answer to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive?
- Wade has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.”
- It is fitting that Wade Davis engaged with His Holiness the Karmapa on the subject of “Interconnected – Our Environment and Social (In)equality”. The Buddhist teaching of interdependence underlying all phenomena is deeply relevant to our condition. Buddhist insight has much to offer to our contemporary global social and ecological crises, and Buddhism – at least in its origins – has a long tradition of engagement with social inequality.
- And now I would like to invite Grand Chief Ed John of the Musqueam Indian Band, to say a few words.