Thousands gathered at Woodstock’s Andy Lee Field on a cool, clear afternoon in September 2006 to hear the Dalai Lama speak. Word-of-mouth had spread news of the free talk, drawing neighbors from across town and giving some an encounter they still recall vividly 20 years later.
“I got up as close as I could be,” Kenny Schneidman of Glenford said. “I thought it was really blissful. It was super chill. It was comforting to hear him speak.”
For Jim Madden of Bearsville, the visit came four days after his wedding. He and his wife walked to the field with a friend from the home they were renting in Byrdcliffe, meeting neighbors along the way. After the talk, attendees headed back up Rock City Road.
“The whole community came out,” Madden said. “It was a magic day.”
The visit highlighted the Catskills’ connections to Tibetan Buddhism, bringing the Dalai Lama to a retreat in Phoenicia, a monastery above Woodstock, and a public field where residents heard him reflect on life and its inevitable end.
In a video of the address posted to YouTube by Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monastery, the Dalai Lama commented on Woodstock’s houses and surrounding forest. He spoke of a life span reaching “100 years.”
“That period should utilize a meaningful life,” he said.
Gesturing toward the adjacent Woodstock Cemetery, he offered another observation.
“And there—there’s the final destination.”
For former Woodstock Supervisor Bill McKenna, who was serving on the town board at the time, the memory of greeting the Dalai Lama is particularly vivid.
“I can’t explain it, but there was just an incredible presence in greeting him,” McKenna said. “You could feel in your bones that you were in the presence of a special person.”
McKenna recalled sitting in the office of Jeremy Wilber, the late town supervisor, when a call came proposing the appearance. The inquiry came a few months before the visit from Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, a short drive from Andy Lee Field.
The monastery is the North American seat of the Gyalwang Karmapa, whom it describes as the head of the 900-year-old Karma Kagyu lineage and a guide to millions of Buddhists worldwide.
McKenna said the Secret Service contacted town officials about security for the Dalai Lama, who stayed at the monastery after his address. Among the logistical questions was where to secure the vehicles in his motorcade overnight. They found a home inside the Woodstock Police Department, McKenna said.
The Woodstock appearance was part of a visit to Ulster County that included a conference at Menla Mountain Retreat & Conference Center in Phoenicia, “Longevity & Optimal Health: Integrating Eastern & Western Perspectives.”
There, the Dalai Lama met with his old friend Robert Thurman, the Columbia University professor and Woodstock-area resident who died in June. He also blessed the land at Menla.
Thurman helped establish the region’s connections to Tibetan culture. He was the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia and president of Tibet House US, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and promoting Tibetan civilization. Menla is a project of the organization.
Lynn Schauwecker, Menla’s managing director, organized the conference that brought the Dalai Lama to Ulster County. She described the opportunity to hear him in a setting as intimate as Andy Lee Field as “very rare.”
“This was a very unusual thing,” she said.
Referring to the Dalai Lama by his customary honorific, Schauwecker said, “Most people don’t get to experience His Holiness that close.”
John W. Barry is a reporter for The Overlook. Reach him at john@theoverlooknews.com.
