Dalai Lama

Patrick FRENCH'S first book, "Younghusband," was for me one of the stunning revelations of recent years. Not yet 30, the spirited young writer followed his subject so fearlessly into the Himalayas, and so deeply into archives overlooked by everyone else, that he threw light, somehow, on some essential truth of Britain's surprising encounters with the world at large.

A week or so ago, we asked you to vote for the 10 best sports movies of all time. And, 9,280 ballots later, we unveil your picks. No. 7: "Caddyshack" (102 first-place votes, 19,423 points) It's hard to describe "Caddyshack" to people who haven't seen it, and for those who have, no description is necessary. Because it's not only one of the best sports movies of all time, it's also one of the best comedies of all time. Bill Murray is outstanding as groundskeeper Carl Spackler, and has perhaps one of the most iconic scenes in movie history.

Lawmakers honored the Dalai Lama with a human rights award Tuesday as President Obama faced criticism for delaying a meeting with the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader. The Dalai Lama and the president will not meet until after Obama visits Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing in November. China reviles the Dalai Lama as a separatist and pressures foreign governments not to meet with him. The administration, which needs Chinese support for crucial foreign policy, economic and environmental goals, wants to establish friendly ties between Hu and Obama.

Beyond Religion Ethics for a Whole World His Holiness the Dalai Lama Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 188 pp., $24

The Grammy-winning pop-folk chanteuse Sheryl Crow will open the first large-scale public address that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has given since 2006. The celebration of peace and song will launch Whole Child International's global initiative to raise awareness of the emotional needs of vulnerable children. Gibson Amphitheatre, 100 Universal Terrace Parkway. 1:30 p.m. Sun. $30-$205. (818) 622-4440. www.citywalkhollywood.com.

"India's Nuclear Tests Jolt Its Relations With China" (June 11) reported the Dalai Lama's statement that New Delhi had the right to conduct the nuclear tests. I'm shocked. A nuclear bomb is a weapon of mass destruction, but the Dalai Lama is not against it; his only regard is to be viewed as politically correct by the Indian government. Now he has blown his cover. STEVE LAU Fountain Valley

President Obama will receive the Dalai Lama on Thursday in the Map Room of the White House instead of the Oval Office, not one-on-one but in a group, and then will leave town without a joint appearance before television cameras. Pointedly employing no protocol that implies head-of-state status for the Tibetan leader-in-exile, the White House is also being explicit about its invitation: Obama meets the Dalai Lama as an "internationally respected religious leader and spokesman for Tibetan rights."

When leading Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman gets together with the Dalai Lama, his friend of nearly 50 years, a lighthearted banter usually breaks through their study and heated political discussions. "He called me 'king of the ogres' in public, as a joke," said Thurman, who believes he earned the "ogre" nickname because he can be a bit forceful in expressing his views. Thurman, chair of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, was the first Westerner ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama.

You may think you know the Buddha, because you have seen him standing outside a Chinese restaurant, belly burnished from being rubbed repeatedly for good luck, or hiding in the corner of a garden. But you have more to learn, grasshopper. David Grubin's "The Buddha," which airs Wednesday on PBS, is not the story of Buddhism -- whose history as a religion, like that of Christianity, really gets going after the demise of its founder and is addressed here only in a couple of lines near the end of the film -- but rather that of the historical person who said the things on which followers have based their several, differing practices.

In his first major public appearance in Los Angeles in more than three years, the Dalai Lama spoke to a crowd of several thousand people Sunday about his hopes for Tibet, the need for dialogue in resolving conflicts and the importance of spurning the material world to cultivate compassion. People today are "too much concerned with exterior material values and not our inner values," the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said. Happiness, he said, touching his heart, "ultimately depends on here."

For most of his 76 years, the 14th Dalai Lama has been the spiritual light for followers of Tibetan Buddhism, his every word parsed for guidance to living a better, more fulfilling life. Awarded the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, the Dalai Lama has been an outspoken advocate for compassion, meditation and religious tolerance. Now, as he steps down as leader of Tibet, the perpetually smiling monk in saffron and burgundy robes makes in "Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World" what some may regard as a heretical pronouncement: You don't need religion to lead a happy and ethical life.

Shopkeepers peer out from storefronts festooned with traditional Tibetan prayer flags at platoons of armed police, some carrying an unusual addition to their riot regalia: fire extinguishers. A string of self-immolations by young Buddhist monks in Sichuan province is unnerving the Chinese government and giving a new, more radical momentum to the Tibetan protest movement. On Monday, the ninth young Tibetan — and the first woman — killed herself in the small town of Aba by self-immolation in a protest against Chinese rule.

Entertainment is king in Los Angeles, and the arts are inexorably tugged toward its commercial center. But Judy Mitoma, director of the World Festival of Sacred Music, saw a need for arts and artists expressing other parts of the Angeleno experience — the spiritual, the connection to nature, the acknowledgment of peace. In 1999, when the Dalai Lama sent out a call for a sacred music festival, she knew that was what she was looking for. On Saturday, the fifth World Festival of Sacred Music will fill Los Angeles' historic theaters, churches, temples, museums and beaches with spiritual dance and music for 16 days and nights.

Two retired icons and Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, are being kept waiting as the South African government weighs a decision on granting a visa for the Tibetan spiritual leader. Tutu, the retired Anglican archbishop for Cape Town, invited the Dalai Lama to attend his 80th birthday celebration next week and to deliver the Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture on Oct. 8. But the African National Congress government, wary of irritating the country's largest trading partner, China, has refused to indicate whether it will grant the visa.

Lobsang Sangay, the Tibetan prime minister in exile, vowed to fight China's uncompromising approach toward Tibet during his swearing-in ceremony Monday as he prepared to assume many of the political duties previously handled by the Dalai Lama. Speaking at the Tsuglagkhang Temple in Dharamsala, a hill station in northern India, Sangay vowed to fight Beijing's "colonialism," and said his election sent "a clear message to the hard-liners in the Chinese government that Tibetan leadership is far from fizzling out. " After traditional offerings of tea and sweetened rice, Sangay, 43, took up his new post at exactly nine seconds after 09:09 a.m. Nine is considered an auspicious number that many Tibetans associate with longevity.

Had she lived, Princess Diana would have celebrated her 50th birthday this coming Friday. Ever ponder how things might have turned out for the people's princess had that fatal 1997 car crash never happened? Newsweek's Tina Brown has ever-so-kindly tried her hand at taking some of the guesswork out of that equation. The rather jarring cover features an imaginary present-day Diana strolling with the daughter-in-law she never knew: An age-projected photo illustration of Di is digitally superimposed at the side of the former Kate Middleton, the commoner who married Prince William, emerging from Westminster Abbey in April as Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.

As the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the 14th Dalai Lama says he practices compassion to such an extent that he tries to avoid swatting mosquitoes "when my mood is good and there is no danger of malaria," sometimes watching with interest as they swell with his blood. Yet, in an appearance Tuesday at USC, he appeared to suggest that the United States was justified in killing Osama bin Laden. As a human being, Bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said in answer to a question about the assassination of the Al Qaeda leader.

When leading Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman gets together with the Dalai Lama, his friend of nearly 50 years, a lighthearted banter usually breaks through their study and heated political discussions. "He called me 'king of the ogres' in public, as a joke," said Thurman, who believes he earned the "ogre" nickname because he can be a bit forceful in expressing his views. Thurman, chair of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, was the first Westerner ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama.