Host: What meaning does H. H. the Dalai Lama hold for you personally and as a Buddhist leader?
Kalu Rinpoche: Tashi delek to everyone and thank you so much for the organizers and University of Westminster for organizing such a beautiful event and inviting me over here.
My personal relation with H. H. Dalai Lama is equal to many other Himalayan Buddhist communities. It is not something like a handpicked, special position, nothing like that, because we all love him as a living Buddha. The living Buddha that does not pretend as a Buddha but remains as a human being. That is the reason why Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, India, and also all the whole Buddhist communities and the international different religious communities, we all love him.
For me, H. H. Dalai Lama is very special in terms of my responsibility because you see when you have this monastic upbringing, even though I am not a monk, but you have to go through the monastic training, three-year retreat. I have done three-year retreat when I was like 14 years old, I came out when I was 18. I had a beautiful picture about the Buddhism in what I read in my meditation box, but when you come outside of the retreat, the reality of the religion in Buddhism is absolutely different, there is no black and white, there is a lot of grey area.
Then H. H. Dalai Lama, what it has done for me in my state of mind, is that gives me the realistic picture, how you should function, how you should engage. Because normally, in our very conservative religious world, we sit in a very high golden throne and H. H. Dalai Lama when he interacts with people he sits on the stage, he sits on the chair. First glimpse of or the first impression that I had was “Oh, maybe H. H. is just trying to be relatable” but then later on I understood that his way of engaging with other people is beyond the religious hierarchy, and engaging in the human level, and then the spiritual religious Buddhist cultural level comes in the much more later stages.That is something that helped me in my terms of responsibility because we don’t have a leadership training, we don’t have a business training, we have a training of three-year retreat. During the retreat I used to sleep a lot, so just to be clear. So don’t expect any sort of a highly enlightened solutions for your life. [haha] That is for me, but H. H. Dalai Lama is the figure of how to be realistic and how to approach the people and how to bring the 21st century Buddhadharma into our daily life.
He is the Dalai Lama that is not of the Tibetans only, but himself he said he is the Dalai Lama of the world. And he has taught me a lot and also how you teach, how you interact, how you engage. And it has been very helpful and it is my absolute refuge as well.
Conference on “The Legacy of the 14th Dalai Lama” – University of Westminster, 25 October 2025 (4′ 00”)
Buddhism in the Himalayas and the Dalai Lama
Moderator: Professor Nitasha Kaul (University of Westminster)
Kalu Rinpoche, Shangpa Kagyu Lineage Holder of Tibetan Buddhism
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