The Dalai Lama is just an ordinary monk, but he knows how to play Wembley

By Madeleine Bunting

The world's most famous Buddhist, the Dalai Lama, ended three days of 'teachings' at Wembley yesterday. Tickets were sold out four months ago. More than 2,000 people listened for 10 hours to one man sitting on a near-empty stage explaining complex Buddhist philosophy through an interpreter or in halting English.

They listened without the rustling, coughing and murmuring usual in a large crowd. His audience hung on every word as if it offered them the ultimate meaning of life - which was, after all, what many of them believed. Among the audience were the purple and yellow robes and shaved heads of Buddhist monks and nuns who travelled from throughout Europe to hear the man who, in many cases, inspired them to undertake their unusual life.

No Archbishop of Canterbury could sell out Wembley for 10 hours of sermons, so how does the Dalai Lama do it? The most obvious explanation is the romantic fantasy factory attached to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism. Hollywood's recent offerings, Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet, stand in a long tradition of Shangri-La mythology about Tibet as somehow pure and untainted by Western civilisation.

The Dalai Lama deals briskly with such an illusion; he prefaces his talks on Buddhism by pointing out sternly that people should look to their own culture's spiritual traditions first - Christianity and Judaism - and if they find them difficult, they should look into themselves to find out why.

On the other hand, the Dalai Lama is aware that the political cause of Tibet benefits from the exotic appeal its religion has for Westerners and, as a shrewd, pragmatic political leader, he exploits that. He knows his celebrity groupies such as Richard Gere and Harrison Ford can raise the profile of Tibet's plight when most Western governments would prefer to ignore it rather than give offence to China. But the appeal of the Dalai Lama goes far beyond his street-cred as guru to the stars, or as the oriental mystic. He has single-handedly brought Buddhism into the mainstream of Western culture.

Much of his popularisation pitches the Dalai Lama as a sweet, cuddly man who always smiles and talks about peace and love, but that is far from the truth. At Wembley, he explained profound and subtle philosophical insights. What he said was abstract and difficult to understand, yet he had the rapt attention of his audience. His popularity is a remarkable feat for a monk from a strict, scholarly, monastic tradition who spends a lot of time in silent meditation, chanting or studying religious scriptures.

He is a monk from a culture profoundly alien to Westerners. Martin Scorsese's Kundun offered a vivid picture of the medieval world into which the Dalai Lama was born. Much of that still bulks large in the Dalai Lama's life. He is surrounded by all the trappings of Tibetan theocracy. He holds absolute authority as a spiritual and political leader, served by courtiers and lamas in his exile capital in northern India. For most Tibetans he is revered as the reincarnation of the Buddha. Yet, he has a remarkable capacity to reach out beyond his own culture.

This is what drew the crowds to Wembley. Buddhists often describe their first sight of the Dalai Lama as a moment of Damascene-like conversion. Often people remember the man rather than what he said.

Stephen Batchelor, author of several studies of Buddhism, has known him for 30 years. He believes that the Dalai Lama has done little to develop Buddhist teaching in a Western context, but that his power lies in the way he embodies the core principles of his faith: 'He has distilled Buddhism - compassion, patience etc - and conveys them through his living presence as he tirelessly travels round the world meeting and impressing people. He comes across not as a predictable holy man, but as an utterly engaging person.'

I booked tickets for myself, friends and relatives for Wembley months ago. Three years ago, on the Dalai Lama's last visit to Britain, I attended one of his talks and found his explanation of Buddhism compellingly straightforward and sensible.

I also had a half-hour interview with the Dalai Lama, when he turned my preconceptions about holiness upside down. He was not meek and mild; he was vibrant, and full of laughter. He had a great intellectual appetite and relished debate and discussion. I recognised him as holier than anyone I'd met before.

Alex Norman, who has worked with the Dalai Lama on his new book, describes him as being present in the moment - all his abilities, all of his personality. 'This guy is what he says he is - an ordinary Buddhist monk who has devoted his life to service and part of that service is being genuinely humble - that's the litmus test of holiness.'

At Wembley this weekend, he talked to an audience of thousands as if he was chatting to them over a cup of tea in their homes. There is no pomp, no circumstance; he stops when he's forgotten what he was going to say and chuckles, his shoulders shaking with mirth at his fallibility.

The Dalai Lama's second book, Ancient Wisdom, Modern World is published by Little Brown this weekend.

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Last updated: 19-May-99