World Tibet Network News Thursday, May 14, 1998

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- The Tibetan flag flew over the City County Building as Madison prepared to welcome the Dalai Lama on his first visit here in 10 years.

The exiled political and spiritual leader of Tibet, making his final stop in a two-week tour of four U.S. cities, had a hectic schedule today, including a meeting with Gov. Tommy Thompson and a speech to legislators in the Assembly chambers of the state Capitol.

During his three-day visit, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, also is to deliver Buddhist teachings to more than 1,000 people from throughout the Midwest, using a dais that has been unused since his last visit.

He receives an honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison at commencement exercises Friday evening. Brocade banners in the rich gold and burgundy colors were erected to decorate the hall at Dane County Exposition Center where the Dalai Lama is to conduct his teachings.

On the wall, an elaborate tonka, a fabric hanging, depicted the thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara, the patron deity of Tibet, and the symbol of Buddha's compassion that Tibetan Buddhists believe is embodied by the Dalai Lama himself.

At the Deer Park Buddhist Center in the town of Dunn, a gate decorated with Tibetan symbols such as the endless knot of love and the golden fish of prosperity was topped with a sign reading, in Tibetan, "Welcome Your Holiness, we are fortunate you are here."

At the UW-Madison police station, meanwhile, Lt. Glen Miller was working Wednesday to coordinate a security team that included every officer on his force, members of the Dane County Sheriff's Department and a delegation from the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service.

"It takes a lot of people," Miller said. "He's a world leader in exile and there have been protesters at his other stops."

The Dalai Lama, 62, was forced to leave his isolated homeland in the 1950s after China took over the nation.

The story has been told in two motion pictures in the past year, "Seven Years in Tibet," starring Brad Pitt, and "Kundun," directed by Martin Scorsese. Both portray the brutality of the military takeover that forced the Dalai Lama to flee.