Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama arrives in Washington, D.C today afternoon for a 13-day visit to the United States to confer the Kalachakra initiation on world peace.
Tomorrow, the Dalai Lama will publicly celebrate his 76th birthday at Washington's Verizon Center. He will deliver Kalachakra sermon, an ancient Tibetan Buddhist ritual from July 6 to 16.
During the first three days of the Kalachakra, from July 6-8, the Dalai Lama, along with the monks of Namgyal Monastery and senior religious leaders, will conduct rituals including chanting of prayers and creation of the sand mandala.
The next three days, the Dalai Lama will give preliminary teachings on Gyalsey Thokme Sangpo's 37 Practices of A Boddhisattva & Kamalashila's The Middling States of Meditation.
On July 12, the Kalachakra Ritual Dance will be performed by the monks of Namgyal Monastery.
The Dalai Lama will confer the Kalachakra Initiation from July 13 to 15.
The Kalachakra will close with a long life empowerment and a ceremony offering prayers for the long life of the Dalai Lama.
The 75-year-old nobel laureate is also scheduled to participate in public talk, "A Talk for World Peace" at the US capitol on Saturday morning.
The Tibetan spiritual leader then departs to Chicago to give a public talk on "Bridging the Faith Divide" at the University of Illinois at Chicago July 17, followed by a "Building Bridges" conversation with religious leaders at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance July 18. He will be returning to India on 18 July 2011.
