The Dalai Lama at Colgate
On April 22nd I was fortunate enough to see the Dalai Lama speak at Colgate University. What’s more amazing is that my position as a photography intern for the Communications Department got me press credentials so I could join the swarms of photographers in the front rows of the field house during the event.
Unfortunately, the experience was not without problems. Being so close to the Dalai Lama was amazing, and the photos I got were shots I can expect to get just once in my lifetime. This is precisely the problem. Upon bringing my photos of the event to the office, the memory card with 200 of my 250 shots of the event failed, and the pictures have yet to be recovered. My boss tells me there’s still hope, but I have basically given up on retrieving them.
On the bright side, I still have about 50 shots from the event, though only one or two of them are the close-ups which were so amazing to shoot. Regardless, the Dalai Lama is an amazing human, and his speech (from what I could understand through the thick accent and heavily-amplified voice) was just as incredible.
I remember him saying something like “80 percent of all hate you see in others is projected upon them by you.” His entire talk focused upon the way that our outlook influences our happiness and the way the world seems to be. I have tried to embrace this attitude, as difficult as it sometimes is.
