Monday June 2, 1997, (San Francisco Guardian) - His Holiness, The Dalai Lama will be giving a public talk Sunday evening, June 8 at the Bill Graham auditorium. Tickets, at $15.00, are available through BASS at (510) 762-BASS. To receive more information about the "Peacemaking" conference, call (800) 937-8728.

When H.H. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, visits San Francisco on June 8th, he will bring a message of mindfulness and compassionate action. The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace prize almost a decade ago for his highly visible, non-violent campaign against China's often brutal 40-year occupation of Tibet, will visit San Francisco to impart Buddhist teachings to a crowd of social advocates, artists, and youth at the "Peacemaking" conference, to be held June 8 through 11, at the Bill Graham Auditorium. The 3-day series of talks and workshops will also feature sessions with authors Alice Walker and Harry Wu, and Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor.

The supreme head of Tibetan Buddhism has reproved his own religion for sometimes being too insulated from the outside world, and teaches that social engagement is Buddhism's most profound mandate. Tibetan Buddhism belongs to the Mahayana, or "Greater Vehicle", tradition of the religion. Mahayana Buddhism, which also includes Zen, traditionally urges its practitioners to put off their own enlightenment to bring all sentient beings to an awareness of the mind. Buddhists point to a 2,500-year-old tradition of Buddhist social activism in Asia, beginning with the historical Buddha's induction of women and lower- caste untouchables into the order. In the Bay Area, many Buddhists are taking that teaching to heart, and reaching out.

"What distinguishes Tibetan Buddhism is the instruction to act for the benefit of other beings. That's the force that should motivate our every action," says Peggy Bennington, spokesperson for Tse Chen Ling, a Glen Park-based Tibetan Buddhist center. Tse Chen Ling (whose name, translated into "Land of Great Compassion", was given to the center by His Holiness) involves its community in guided meditations in both English and Spanish, and offers special programs to teach creative visualization to children. Its members also tutor local prison inmates in mindfulness techniques.

For Diana Winston, coordinator of the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement (BASE), those programs are an essential model for Buddhist practice in this country. "Social engagement is new to Buddhism in the West, but it is growing very quickly. In the next five to ten years you'll really start hearing about it. It is the future of a particular piece of American Buddhism."

BASE, the volunteer arm of Berkeley-centered Buddhist Peace Fellowship, seeks to be a part of that. The program's core is a six-month service placement for volunteers, which is supplemented by monthly retreats and weekly meetings for Buddhist teachings and meditations. Since its founding three years ago, the organization has grown at a fast clip. It now supports programs locally from Santa Cruz to Arcata, with new ones forming as far away as Boston and Colorado.

Winston, who will be speaking about BASE at the "Peacemaking" conference, sees its success as a harbinger of things to come. "Younger people just assume that social activism will be a part of Buddhism. The new blood will have that quality already a part of them."

Several BASE volunteers serve their placements with the Zen Hospice Project, which has a small center in Hayes Valley and a 30-bed facility in Laguna Honda hospital. The project was founded in the late 80s as a response to the growing AIDS crisis by the San Francisco Zen Center, and has been quietly providing a peaceful place for people with terminal illnesses to live out the end of their lives.

A similar hospice is run in the Castro in association with the Hartford Street Zen Center, which also holds a secular meditation for people who are HIV+. "So many people in the gay community have had trips laid on them because of religion," says George Gayuski, who leads the meditation group. To Gayuski and many Bay Area Buddhsts, the trend toward activism is not only an expression of the practice, but a revitalization of the community.

"Buddhist institutions are feeling more integrated these days," says Winston. "We're moving back and forth from cushion to action more often, and doing it together."

Michael Blanding