Sao Paulo, September 15—His Holiness the Dalai Lama arrived Sao Paulo, the largest city in Brazil, three hours late than his schedule plan of arriving here at 12:30pm due to long flight delay from Buenos Aires. As soon as he arrived at the São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport, he was received by Prof. Lia Diskin, Co-founder of the Palas Athena Association and host of the visit, Dr. Eduardo Jorget Martins Alves Sobrinho and Jose Gregory of the Soa Paulo City government, Mrs. Abhilash Joshi of the Indian Consulate General and members of the Dharma Centers in Brazil.
From the airport, His Holiness left straight by motorcade to the World Trade Center theater, a venue for His Holiness’ address to the business and industrial leaders of Brazil. As he entered the Convention Center of the World Trade Center on his way to the theater, he was greeted a large number of cameramen. At the theater, he was received by Dr. Cristiane Bomeny, an industrialist and daughter of a family which owns World Trade Center in Sao Paulo, Dr. Ozires Silva, a Brazil’s pioneer industrialist, Mr. Fernando Levy, President of the Business Forum of Brazil, and Mr. Affif Domingos, Vice Governor of the State of Sao Paulo.
In his address to the Brazilian industrialists and business leaders, His Holiness said that 20th century has witnessed too much bloodshed and millions of people have lost their life. Therefore, he said, we cannot afford to repeat the history in the 21st century. This century, he said, must be a century of dialogue. He added that no matter how much we try, problems will still remain and will remain as a part of our life. However, he said, important thing is that we must resolve this differences and problems through dialogue. The use of force and violence, he said, is outdated.
One of the sources of problems, he said, is a huge gap between rich and poor everywhere. Therefore, he said, the privilege people, particularly the business leaders should shoulder more responsibility to help the poor by investing in the field of education, health and other social sectors. He also said that natural resources are not infinite and therefore efforts must be made to have more sustainable growth with adequate attention being to ecology. He said that the industrial and business leaders must be visionary so that every effort they make will ultimately benefit the society.
Despite being late for him to retire, His Holiness spoke for nearly two hours at this important forum and also attended questions from the audience. The audiences who have flew to Sao Paulo from various parts of Brazil paid a great attention to his talk and listen to His Holiness’ talk very enthusiastically. .
Later after the conclusion of the event, he offered scarf to Dr. Ozires Silva and Dr. Christiane Bomeny and thank them for organizing the event.
