New York: His Holiness the Dalai Lama responded to questions from Chinese web users about issues related to Tibet during his first-ever interview on the social networking site Twitter on Friday.
The interview was moderated by Chinese writer Wang Lixiong, who said he had started preparing for this interview on 10 May by inviting people to submit their questions on Google Moderator and also to vote on their preferred questions.
Wang said altogether there were 1253 people who posed 289 questions with 12473 votes revealing preferences and their results are the questions that he would be posing during the interview on Friday.
He hoped that as all questions may not be able to be touched this time there would be occasions in the future for His Holiness to answer them.
In his opening remark, His Holiness said he “greatly appreciated Wang Lixiong’s tremendous effort in recent times to present this forum for a direct people-to-people contact.”
His Holiness said “he has been saying that the Tibetan dialogue process with the Chinese Government is not seeing any movement as the Chinese Government is solely bent on stating its views without making any effort to listen to us.” He said “he was greatly concerned by this.” However, he said he always had a “faith in the Chinese people. They are people who can ponder on the reality of the issue,” he said. “Therefore, it is good that we are having this opportunity today to interact with the Chinese people,” His Holiness added.
Following the interview, His Holiness left for Radio City Music Hall to continue his teachings. On the way, His Holiness granted an audience to a group of Tibetans who informed him that they had abandoned their practice of propitiating Dholgyal.
During the teaching His Holiness responded to some questions before the afternoon session. Before the afternoon session, His Holiness had given some audiences.
The media has been reporting on His Holiness’s programme in New York City with headlines such as “Thousands Gather to Hear the Dalai Lama, New Yorkers listen to lecture on meditation and Buddhist way of life” (Voice of America); “No matter their religion, reverent fans of Dalai Lama extol his message of love” (New York Daily News); and “The Dalai Lama Packs Radio City Music Hall” (FOX News), etc.
On 22 May 2010, His Holiness will address the Tibetan community before resuming his teaching schedule. His address is being webcast live on www.tcnynj.org and begins from 8:00 am eastern time (5:30 pm in India and 8:00 pm in Tibet).
–Report filed by Bhuchung K Tsering of ICT