“Women need to be involved in more influ­en­tial posi­tions in the world” — Dalai Lama

I was so hon­ored today to be part of the Van­cou­ver Peace Con­fer­ence and wit­ness con­ver­sa­tions between His Holi­ness, The Dalai Lama and incred­i­ble lead­ers from around the world.

The after­noon kicked off with a musi­cal per­for­mance by Peter Buf­fet on the piano (yes! War­ren Buffet’s son), an Emmy award musi­cian and the Co-Chair of the NoVo Foun­da­tion ( Man­date: fos­ter a cul­ture of col­lab­o­ra­tion and part­ner­ship, empow­er­ing women and girls as the pri­mary agents of change) and Michael Kott on the cello. I thought it was incred­i­bly beau­ti­ful that music was used a uni­fy­ing ele­ment as images of women and girls around the world were played on a slideshow.

After a some­what delayed start, the ses­sion then really began with a con­ver­sa­tion between the Dalai Lama and Maria Shriver, the 1st Lady of Cal­i­for­nia who has used her voice as a won­der­ful advo­cate for women. I must say that Maria Shriver is an incred­i­bly witty and intel­li­gent women as the ques­tions that she posed and the con­fi­dence that she car­ried, com­pletely blew me away. Of all the ques­tions she asked, I would like to high­light 3 that really struck a core with me:

1) Do you think there is a need for the re-branding of the word “com­pas­sion” as some might say that its sig­nif­i­cance has been lost through the ‘overuse of the word?

2) Of all the world issues, what wor­ries you the most in the upcom­ing year?

3) What would you say to a man who doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily believe in mak­ing females equal/ feminism?

The Dalai Lama’s answers to the above three ques­tions sur­prised me to a cer­tain level. His answer to the first, addressed the issue of lan­guage — stat­ing that although in Eng­lish, the word ‘com­pas­sion’ might have been overused, but the Tibetan mean­ing still holds its ground. Some­times I believe we take lan­guage and its mean­ings for granted, and His Holi­ness’ answer was a great reminder that some­times, a lan­guage may not be enough to con­tex­tu­al­ize the power of a word.

His sec­ond answer was: the envi­ron­ment. ( I hon­estly thought his answer would be some­thing along the lines of war and peace) I loved this answer, as liv­ing in Canada, we should be aware that one of the most press­ing issues for this nation is what is hap­pen­ing to the Arc­tic and the effects that global warm­ing could have on not only Canada ( envi­ron­ment, econ­omy), but the world.

His third answer on fem­i­nism was simply:

“I empha­size a spe­cial rule for females very much to this world, so many peo­ple describe me as a feminist.”

I thought this was a won­der­ful answer as it really boils down to the fact that if you believe in empow­er­ing women, you are a fem­i­nist. Women play such a vital role in advanc­ing peace and Aung San Suu Kyi, an hon­orary rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the con­fer­ence, expresses it best in her open­ing keynote in the 1995 NGO Forum on Women, Bei­jing Intl Women’s Conference:

“For mil­lenia women have ded­i­cated them­selves almost exclu­sively to the task of nur­tur­ing, pro­tect­ing and car­ing for the young and the old, striv­ing for the con­di­tions of peace that favour life as a whole. To this can be added the fact that, to the best of my knowl­edge, no war was ever started by women. But it is women and chil­dren who have always suf­fered most in sit­u­a­tions of con­flict. Now that we are gain­ing con­trol of the pri­mary his­tor­i­cal role imposed on us of sus­tain­ing life in the con­text of the home and fam­ily, it is time to apply in the arena of the world the wis­dom and expe­ri­ence thus gained in activ­i­ties of peace over so many thou­sands or years. The edu­ca­tion and empow­er­ment of women through­out the world can­not fail to result in a more car­ing, tol­er­ant, just and peace­ful life for all.” — Aung San Suu Kyi

The ses­sion then pro­ceeded to a panel dis­cus­sion with the Dalai Lama, mod­er­ated by Susan Davis. The panel included Kim Camp­bell ( for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of Canada), Ela Bhatt ( Self– Employed Women’s Asso­ci­a­tion founder, Ex-Member of Indian Par­lia­ment), Fazle Hasn Abed ( Founder of BRC), Peter Buf­fet, Swa­nee Hunt ( For­mer US Ambas­sador to Aus­tria, Pres­i­dent of Hunt Alter­na­tives Fund) and a brief appear­ance (ear­lier on) by Nobel Peace Price Win­ner, Jody Williams.

The con­ver­sa­tion cen­tered around the theme of women’s empow­er­ment and the need for the role of women to be recog­nised. I felt that the panel’s dis­cus­sion really high­lighted how each per­son can make a dif­fer­ence and the source of inspi­ra­tion for change — be it envi­ron­ment, peo­ple in your life or reli­gion. Some­times it can take a life­time , as Fazle Hasan Abed pointed out that the last 37 years of his life has been devoted to empow­er­ing women and girls to be agents of change, as we rec­og­nize the effort and time to really deliver a message.

My main take­away was a chal­lenge that Maria Shriver asked ear­lier to the Dalai Lama. That we often feel par­a­lyzed as the change we want to cre­ate in our minds are too large, too much and too far off in the future that we feel dis­cour­aged. But, when the panel shared their expe­ri­ences, it was reminder that they too, started out just like us. With an idea.

For Jody Williams, it started out with a pam­phlet in the Sub­way. For Peter Buf­fet, it started out with a pas­sion in music. Change occurs step by step. Are you tak­ing your first step?

“I believe that if every­one takes one thing to cre­ate change, the world would be a bet­ter place.” — Jody Williams

Rat­ing: 9/10

Improve­ment: Tim­ing of ses­sions could have been syn­chro­nized bet­ter as some ses­sions were cut short.

Pic­tures dis­claimer: All pho­tos are taken from the Dalai Lama Photo stream on Flickr ( By Ste­fa­nia Seccia).These pho­tos are avail­able under a Cre­ative Com­mons license which allows their use for non-commercial pur­poses — Dalai Lama web­site.  You can browse pho­tos from the Van­cou­ver Peace sum­mit here.

For more infor­ma­tion on the Peace Sum­mit, please visit: http://dalailamacenter.org/