Tibetan holy man urges business to incorporate compassion

KETCHUM, Idaho – The symbolism of the Dalai Lama’s Idaho trip was on display during a Monday address to 350 American business and political leaders: The spiritual guide for 20 million Tibetan Buddhists, perched on a stage 5,800 feet up in the Sawtooth Range, giving advice to a flock that had traveled long distances looking for answers.

In a distinctly Sun Valley twist on this “Going to the mountain to see the holy man” tale, some of them had parked their private jets — the pilgrimage vehicle of choice — at the airport in Hailey just south on State Highway 75.

Monday’s event was meant to encourage the powerful to incorporate compassion into how they conduct their business and public lives. Coming in the months after fraud convictions of U.S. executives such as Worldcom Inc.’s Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan and cable-TV magnate John Rigas, the Dalai Lama’s address underscored the importance of respecting employees, shareholders and customers, said Kiril Sokoloff, a financial industry consultant and Buddhist who spent $1 million to bring the exiled Tibetan leader to the Idaho resort area.

“We human beings have the seed of human compassion,” said the Dalai Lama, sitting next to a translator inside an event tent on Sokoloff’s Ketchum estate, where trees along the main road toward Galena Summit hide a house with ponds, fountains and the jagged Sawtooth peaks beyond.

A day earlier, the 70-year-old monk had addressed 10,000 people on a high school football field — and millions of others via a live CNN broadcast — to mark the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to extend sympathy for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

At Monday’s event, guests included business people and fund managers who oversee a combined $3.5 trillion in capital, according to organizers of the event, as well as politicians, including Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash.; Alan Blinken, former U.S. ambassador to Belgium under President Clinton; and the motivational speaker Tony Robbins.

Interviewed by a reporter just before he entered the tent where the Dalai Lama spoke, McDermott, a nine-term Democrat from Seattle, said business people were “very interested” in the oft-dismissed notion of combining caring with hard-nosed corporate instinct.

For instance, in the days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest U.S. company, used its distribution network to rush in aide — in many cases faster than local, state and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials could respond.

“There’s nothing wrong with the free-enterprise system,” said McDermott, a doctor by profession. “But it has to have some compassion.”