(TibetanReview.net, May15, 2014) – Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, on May 12 met with members of the Dutch Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and other MPs in The Hague. He was welcomed by the Committee Chairperson Angeline Eijsink who recalled his previous meeting with the committee five years earlier and expressed admiration for his work for peace and human rights.
The Dalai Lama thanked the people of The Netherland and other EU countries, as well as the USA and Canada, for having shown great concern for Tibet and its people over the decades.
Asked about the possibility of renewing dialogue with the Chinese authorities, the Dalai Lama said that over the years the Chinese Communist Party had shown an ability to act according to changed reality and that the current president Mr Xi Jinping seemed to be a more practical and realistic person.
Asked whether the continuing self-immolations in Tibet were an expression of protest, anger or despair, he replied, “Despair.”
Later in the afternoon, the Dalai Lama took part in a seminar on ‘Education of the Heart’ at Erasmus University, the seat of learning that bears the name of the great Dutch humanist. He was introduced by former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers to the audience of 600.
The seminar was based on the Dalai Lama’s book ‘Beyond Religion’, which aims to bring inner values and secular ethics into contemporary education.