DESCRIPTION:
This is a recording of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his entourage chanting prayers at the sickbed of his dear friend Vaclav Havel.

It was recorded on a battery powered hand-held tape recorder. His Holiness gave his permission to for it to be reproduced and given as a non-commercial FREE gift. If there are any images that are not public domain, just contact me at www.iamlifechanged.com and I will remove them immediately.

The original recording was cleaned up as best as possible. The first images are of of His Holiness and Vaclav Havel, followed by relaxing images to enjoy this as a personal meditation.

Vaclav Havel faced constant harassment and imprisonment during the Soviet era as Czechoslovakia's most influential dissident. His plays satirized the surreal nature of the Czechoslovakian experience under Soviet domination, which he characterized as 'Absurdistan.' He was a principle author of the 1976 Charter 77, a political manifesto calling for human rights and democratic reform.

In 1989, the year of Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, Havel led the extraordinary display of people power which toppled the ruling communist regime. The world watched with astonishment as, within weeks, the dissident playwright became president.

As president, he presided over Czechoslovakia's transition to democracy and a free-market economy and oversaw its peaceful 1993 split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Havel was awarded the Light of Truth Award in 2004 by the Dalai Lama



In a letter to his wife Mrs. Dagmar Havlova, the Dalai lama wrote that the world has lost a great statesman whose steadfast and unflinching determination played a key role in bringing freedom and democracy to his country.The Dalai Lama said that Havel was an unassuming and courageous leader whom he personally had the greatest admiration and respect for and that he will miss him. The Dalai Lama recalled his meeting with President Havel in February 1990 -- months after he became President following the Velvet Revolution, which he led with an extraordinary display of people power.

With the death of my dear friend Vaclav Havel, the world has lost a great leader, whose steadfast and unflinching determination played a key role in establishing freedom and democracy in what was then Czechoslovakia.

"Gentle, honest, humble and full of humour, he was motivated by the idea that truth must ultimately prevail. It was this insistence on the truth that got him into trouble with the authorities when he was young. The same quality inspired his people to choose him to be the President when they threw off totalitarianism during the Velvet Revolution, which Havel led with an extraordinary display of people power."