17th Karmapa on heart-centred designs

GANGTOK, November 10: There could be no better way to end the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks than with the ‘moving’ words coming from the world’s youngest spiritual Buddhist leader – the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, making the four-day long programme the first of its kind experience in TED history.
Speaking at the TED Talks in Mysore, India as the closing speaker on November 7, the Tibetan spiritual master implored the international audience not only to work on design and technology but proposed that the worldwide acceleration of technological connectivity should be accompanied by heart-to-heart connections. “Heart to heart connections are very important”, he said reminding that people should never forget this aspect in the pursuit of development.
The 22-year-old highly revered spiritual leader while sharing the storing of his early childhood in Tibet, including the process of his recognition as the Karmapa and what that change signified for him urged the people to shift their motivation to be more sincere and genuinely positive and should aspire to this even ‘when we leave the conference’.
India hosted TED for the first time in Mysore from November 4 to 7 and had invited the Karmapa to also be one of the speakers among a roster of amazing speakers and attendees. “His Holiness received a standing ovation at the conclusion of his talk as did many of the TED speakers,” said Karma Chungyalpa, Deputy Secretary to the Karmapa. Mr. Chungyalpa, who is also escorting the Karmapa said: “The TED audience, which rose unprompted for His Holiness when he walked into the stage, were deeply moved and gave him a standing ovation. Admirers thronged to greet him afterwards and requested heart to heart connections with him, in response to his speech. Some of them were in tears and some said that they felt there could be no better way to end the TED conference, especially one which is the first of its kind.”
The four-day long TED Talks, a fast-paced three-day stage show aimed to gather the world's leading thinkers and doers, offer them four days of rapid-fire stimulation and expect ‘unexpected connections, extraordinary insights and powerful inspiration’.
The Karmapa also took a break from the afternoon the TED session on November 6 to participate in a public prayer session at the NIE stadium in Mysore for the victims of the recent floods in Karnataka. This was organized by the South Zone Kagyu Buddhist Council.
On November 8, he gave teachings to the Tibetan community and students at Tibetan Youth Hostel in Bangalore city. On November 10, the Karmapa will give teachings in New Delhi and return to Gyuto, Dharamsala on the next day.
TED, it is informed is a small non profit organisation devoted to ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize, it is further informed.
TED Talks, which originally focused on technology, entertainment and design, but have now expanded in scope to a broad set of topics including science, arts, politics, education, culture, business, global issues, technology and development have been taken part by such people as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, molecular biologist James D. Watson, physicist Murray Gell-Mann, former Vice President of the United States Al Gore, political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Zoologist Jane Goodall, and Evangelist Billy Graham among others.