Dalai Lama at Miami University

My old friend Bill Warren, a colleague and amazing photographer for The Ithaca Journal newspaper in New York, was the first to teach me about the Dalai Lama.

Bill's passion for chronicling the Dalai Lama - both during His Holiness's visits to a spiritual enclave outside Ithaca and in Dharamsala, India, the Dalai's home in exile - led him to publish a photographic and educational book, "Living Tibet: The Dalai Lama in Dharamsala," in 1995.

It has a foreword by the 14th Dalai Lama.

Bill and his co-author, Nanci Hoetzlein Rose, spent many months in Dharamsala reporting for the book. In fact, Bill was often granted long leaves from his corporate photographer job to travel to India and other spiritual corners of the world.

Here is one of my favorite photos from that book of a young boy, gazing through colorful banners imprinted with Buddhist prayers, as he watches Tibetan New Year festivities.

This Thursday, the 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, visits Miami University to talk to students about ethics in a modern world. His speech is sold out.

Members of my Journalism 201 Honor's course in basic news reporting and writing will be reporting on the event live on this blog.

Peace.