"The Diamond Cutter Sutra" and Nagarjuna's "Seventy Verses on Emptiness"
with His Holiness the Dalai Lama

October 12: 10 am-12 pm and 2-4 pm
October 13: 10 am-12 pm and 2-4 pm
October 14: - 10 am-12 pm
Admission: $80-$330

Public Talk ("Peace and Prosperity")

October 14: 2-4 pm
Admission: $25 or buy tickets here

Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue
(btwn W. 50th St. and W. 51st St.)
212.307.5554
radiocity.com
dalailamany.org
tibetcenter.org

This weekend, His Holiness the Dalai Lama will give a public talk and lecture in New York at the landmark Radio City Music Hall. His lecture on the Buddha's "Diamond Cutter Sutra" and Nagarjuna's "Seventy Verses on Emptiness" will spread out to five talks running from Friday through Sunday. Each year, His Holiness travels throughout the world offering teachings to hundreds of thousands of individuals of all faiths. During these travels, he gives public talks to offer spiritual guidance and provide a better understanding of Buddhist philosophy.

His Holiness will explain both texts and their philosophical views. His commentary will bring to life the fundamentals and intricacies of emptiness as outlined in the texts, and ultimately how we can deepen our realization of emptiness, and thereby diminish our grasping at a sense of self. This is how we progress along the path to enlightenment.

Following these special teachings, His Holiness will give a public talk on "Peace and Prosperity." His Holiness will discuss the ways that individuals can best cultivate virtuous qualities within themselves to bring about peace and prosperity in today's world.

"The Diamond Cutter Sutra" is one of the Wisdom Sutras in which the Buddha presents our ultimate state of being, our lack of any truly existent, independent self. A realization of this emptiness is essential for a Buddhist practitioner to attain the ultimate state of enlightenment—Buddhahood.

"Seventy Verses on Emptiness" is one of six works Nagarjuna wrote on the Madhyamika, or Middle Way School of Buddhist thought, which steers a path between the extremes of reification and nihilism. Nagarjuna is considered by many to be the most influential Buddhist thinker since the Buddha seven centuries before.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is both the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people. He was born to a farming family in northeastern Tibet in 1935 and at the age of two, the child whose birth name was Lhamo Dhondup, was recognized as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso.

His Holiness began his monastic education at the age of six. The curriculum consisted of five main topics: Prajnaparimita, the perfection of wisdom; Madhyamika, the philosophy of the Middle-Way; Vinaya, the canon of monastic discipline; Abidharma, metaphysics and cosmology; and Pramana, logic and epistemology. At twenty-five he passed his final examination in the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa with honours and was awarded a Geshe Lharampa degree, which is equivalent to a doctorate of Buddhist philosophy.

His Holiness assumed full political power of Tibet in 1950, after China invaded one year prior. In 1954, he went to Beijing for peace talks with Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders, including Deng Xiaoping and Chou Enlai. However, in 1959, following the brutal suppression of the Tibetan national uprising in Lhasa by Chinese troops, His Holiness was forced to escape into exile. Since then he has lived in Dharamsala, northern India, where he and his fellow exiled Tibetans have established the seat of the Tibetan Administration in Exile.

The teachings in New York City began in 1991, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama was invited by Richard Gere and The Tibet Center's Khyongla Rato Rinpoche to present the Kalachakra initiation. A Kalachakra sand mandala was created after eight days and bestowed upon 4,000 people in Madison Square Garden's Paramount Theater. In 1991, His Holiness returned in New York and addressed over 200,000 people in Central Park. His last visit was in 2003 at the request of the Tibet Center and Healing the Divide, and included teachings on The Bodhisattva's "Jewel Garland" and a Concert for Peace and Reconciliation at Lincoln Center.

His Holiness has traveled to more than 60 countries on six continents, meeting with the leaders of most major nations as an ambassador of peace, and in 1989, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for the people of Tibet. His policies of non-violence, even in the face of extreme aggression by the Chinese communist government have inspired people of all faiths and backgrounds thoughout the world. He became the first Nobel Laureate to be formally recognized for his concern for environmental issues.

Since 1959, His Holiness has received over 84 awards, medals and honorary doctorates in recognition of his message of compassion, peace, non-violence, interfaith understanding and universal responsibility. His Holiness has also authored over seventy books, which include "An Open Heart," "Ethics for the New Millennium," "The Art of Happiness" and "The Universe in a Single Atom."

The Dalai Lama's teachings and public talk are two separate events and will be sold individually.

The teachings are a series event, sold as one package. Each teaching package provides access to all five of the teaching sessions listed above. Tickets cannot be purchased for individual sessions.