Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/26/nyregion/26dalai.html

On September 26, 2005 The New York Times reported, "Draped in saffron robes, [three] Tibetan men quietly absorbed the vast milieu of ponytails and funnel cakes, blue jeans and baseball caps as some 36,000 people filled the space around them. They still recall the thin crowd of hundreds who greeted their leader on a visit to New Jersey in 1978, four years after they moved here in exile. But since then, they have watched the Buddhist religion bloom. 'Every year more and more people are coming to temple,' said one of the monks, Yonten Gyantso, 84, who lives in a monastery in Howell, N.J. 'The reason people come to hear his teachings is they trust him. There's a lot of suffering on the earth, especially this year. The teaching is medication they need to heal themselves.' Under a cool, gray sky, the Tibetan leader and 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, rose to the stage and addressed the audience with the disarming humor and message of compassion that has won him a loyal following across religions, cultures and languages... Still, he quickly arrived at a serious discussion of political and social conflict, calling war 'out of date' and urging listeners to dream of a demilitarized world. 'Eventually the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons,' he said, but to arrive at external disarmament, people must first learn 'internal disarmament,' he said."