Dalai Lama to visit MIT, Boston, Medford

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Syracuse University

The Dalai Lama is expected to make a three-day tour of Boston, Cambridge, and Medford starting Sunday for a series of talks.

By Matt Byrne, Town Correspondent

His Holiness the Dalai Lama will visit Boston next week, and is slated to make a round of appearances downtown, in Cambridge at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in Medford.

The tour begins Sunday, Oct. 14 at the Marriot Copley Grand Ballroom, where the 14th Dalai Lama will give a talk, "Beyond Religion Ethics, Values, and Wellbeing."

The event begins at 1:30 p.m., and will also feature response discussion from Reverend Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk with Massachusetts roots, and Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Catholic monk.

Singer-songwriter James Taylor is also expected to make a special appearance.

On Monday, the Dalai Lama will visit MIT's Kresge Auditorium to talk about Global Systems 2.0, a discussion of ethics, environment, academia, and government. The talk begins at 9:30 a.m. and will feature a slate of other panelists. A second panel, Peace, Governance, and Diminishing Resources, is slated for 1:30 p.m.

Tuesday events begin with a morning discussion presented by the Prajnopaya Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Kresge Auditorium at 9:30 a.m., followed by the Dalai Lama's last stop, in Medford, at the Kurukulla Center on Magoun Avenue.

The Medford festivities begin at 10 a.m., hours before His Holiness arrives, and will include a traditional Tibetan market place set up on Washington Street.

The visit to the Kurukulla Center is the fruition of a dying wish by the group's late teacher, Geshe Tsulga, who died in 2010.

At the Karululla Center, the Dalai Lama is expected to bless the Gompa, or Temple, and give brief remarks and advice, which will be broadcast throughout the area for spectators to hear.

The Medford discussion will be streamed live online at madeinmedford.com, and on ustream.tv; Comcast, an event sponsor, will also set up a large outdoor television monitor for those gathered outside the center without tickets to the event.