Dalai Lama Wins Templeton Prize

Dalai Lama Wins Templeton Prize

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He calls himself a “simple Buddhist monk.” But his biographers and religion experts say the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is way more than that. A monk, yes. But, also an exiled spiritual and temporal leader of 6 million Tibetan Buddhists, a philosopher-scientist, an author, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

And now, the Dalai Lama received yet another honor: the 2012 Templeton Prize, which honors a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension. In its announcement of the award, which is worth about $1.7 million this year, the Templeton Award noted how the Dalai Lama has focused on the connections between the investigative traditions of science and Buddhism “as a way to better understand and advance what both disciplines might offer the world.”