His Eminence Gyalwang Karmapa Rinpoche kindly graced the closing ceremony of the ‘Workshop on Secular Ethics and Youth Leadership’ with his presence and distributed ‘Certificate of Participation’ to the participants. In his address, he emphasized that teaching of Secular Ethics is the wish of H.H.The Dalai Lama and therefore Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD) was happy to host the workshop and would be happy to make the space available for this kind of workshop in the future as well. He also stressed the importance of learning Tibetan language as it is the ‘Soktsa’- the root of life- for all Tibetans.
Twenty-two Tibetan university students and young professionals from eleven different states in the U.S. and Canada participated the Workshop on Secular Ethics and Youth Leadership at KTD, Woodstock, New York from August 16-20, 2018.
The workshop aimed to instill in our youth who are our future, a sense of love and compassion,and positive attributes of human values which are critical to nurturing a loving and peaceful humanity and at the same time to infuse with a sense of global leadership and Tibetan identity.
Representative Ngodup Tsering thanked Gyalwa Karmapa Rinpoche for making KTD available for the workshop and expressed his appreciation to Khenpo Karma Tenkyong the president of KTD, the staff and the volunteers for going out of their way in making this event a success. He urged the younger generation of Tibetans to be smart, strong and creative and at the same time to be a good human being. He said that he had mixed feelings of joy and concern to observe the participants during the workshop. He was happy to see such smart, young Tibetans from prestigious American Universities participate actively in the workshop but at the same time it is a matter of concern when the medium of communication had to be in English even for the Tibetans.
The first two days of the workshop was on leadership training and the last two days were dedicated for the Secular Ethics topics. The participants were given exposure to the comprehensive, detailed and systematic description of Secular Ethics, which is the product of many years of study, research, and experiments carried out by the resource personnel from Emory University.
The speakers for the workshop are Bhuchung Tsering, Vice President, International Campaign for Tibet ; Tenzin Dorjee, Program Director at Tibet Action Institute ; By Kunga Tashi, Chinese Liaison Officer, Office of Tibet; Khenpo Pema Wangdak, Director Vikramasila Foundation and Palden Sakya Centers; Ellen Petry Leanse , Author, The Happiness Hack, an Amazon bestseller; Ngodup Tsering, Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to North America and Prof. Lobsang Tenzin Negi & Geshe Dadul from Emory University.
The workshop was organized by Office of Tibet in partnership with Emory University with the support from Dalai Lama Foundation and Karma Triyana Dharmachakra.
