His serene highness the 14th Dalai Lama today told a hastily assembled Dharamsala, India news conference that he would be entering the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics as a high hurdler.
“There are many hurdles to freedom,” the smiling, 73-year-old exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism told reporters. “At least I know I’ll be on the right track when I’m racing this summer in Beijing.”
His Holiness was exiled in boyhood from mainland China due to his commitment to a free Tibet. He has never been known to have competed in athletic events in the past.
“I have discovered,” the Dalai Lama told reporters, “that running track requires the same attributes as it takes to be truly self-realized: compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline. Of course, my winning an Olympic gold medal can only bring more attention to the suffering of the Tibetan people, not to mention many endorsement deals.”
The Dalai Lama denied reports that he had entered the Olympics as a means of continuing his protests against the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
“I am simply trying to live the Olympic ideals of higher, faster, and stronger,” His Holiness insisted.
A spokesman for the Chinese government, asked whether the presence of the Dalai Lama in the Olympic Village in Beijing, presenting his message of peaceful cooperation to the other athletes, might upstage the Chinese government’s attempt to use the games as propaganda for Chinese Communism, offered a terse “No comment.”
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