But it was the singing of "Hawai'i Aloha" by the participants, their hands joined under the tender gaze of the guest of honor, that produced the deepest bond, and the most chicken skin, in the intimate gathering on the Maui Arts & Cultural Center's Castle Theater stage.

"When they started to sing, it was like a celestial choir," Hollywood filmmaker and part-time Maui resident Richard Donner told The Maui News. Donner was part of the small audience attending the meeting.

The gathering was not open to the public and was one of the lowest profile but most touching events during the two-day Maui visit by the Dalai Lama.

Hosted by filmmaker and actress Elizabeth Kapu'uwailani Lindsey, it brought together the spiritual and exiled political leader of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso, with kumu and other cultural leaders.

Beginning with two elders identified simply as "Aunty Nona" and "Aunty Kahili," Lindsey introduced the rest of the participants – Gordean Bailey, Hokulani Holt-Padilla, Raylene Kawaiai'a, Noe Noe Wong-Wilson, Clifford Nae'ole, Kaniela Akaka and Luana Busby-Neff – to the red-and-gold-robed Nobel Peace Prize winner who is addressed as "His Holiness."

Also in the group was Michael Mancini, headmaster of Haleakala Waldorf School, who had organized the "Visions of Peace" program for Hawaii's students that had brought 1,000 of them to the Dalai Lama's presentation in War Memorial Stadium the day before.

During that stadium presentation, the Dalai Lama spoke of effective ways of preserving indigenous cultures in the modern world. The answer, he said, was not isolation, but utilizing education and modernization "to preserve their identity."

Some aspects of culture were more important to preserve than others, he observed.

Shep Gordon, head of the committee that organized the Dalai Lama's visit to Maui, talked to the Hawaiian representatives before the Dalai Lama arrived.

"Closing down your society to save it is not an option," he said, urging them to explore new solutions with the Nobel Prize winner.

Once the gathering began, Mancini noted that Hawaiians and Tibetans both value compassion and connectedness at the core of their spiritual beliefs. Both cultures had experienced oppression and dislocation, he said. He cited a "monumental challenge to create a homeland of the soul."

Holt-Padilla's question to the spiritual leader was more impassioned, accompanied by tears. Noting that Hawaiians "are hospitable" by nature, she said they had been victimized as a consequence of this generosity. Hawaiians, she said, now "fill up the prisons and have the highest death rates from diabetes and heart disease.

"Many of our young people are distressed."

In answer, the Dalai Lama echoed the same theme of nonviolence that has echoed through all of his teachings on the Valley Isle: Compassion, in place of anger or resentment, as a basis for moving forward.

History presents countless examples of meetings between so-called "developed" and native or indigenous cultures, resulting in oppression and injustice, he said.

"Colonialism, imperialism, they happen.

"As a consequence, many people suffer. The numbers in Hawaii are not great compared with China or India.

"But later in the century, the rules changed," he went on, noting the rise of "noble qualities" like democracy and freedom.

"Human beings seem to be more civilized now."

He saw the present moment as one of opportunity and hope.

Noting that "some (native cultures) prefer isolation where the anger is still there," he advocated "education, training and knowledge" as the keys to creating a new society where the people "by themselves will be able to rise up to a higher standard."

As a living symbol of Tibet's resistance to the oppression and assimilation by the government of China, the Dalai Lama stressed that advocating compassion did not mean accepting injustice by an oppressor.

"You must have a sense of outrage toward injustice," he said – but it should not be directed at another person.

"Tolerance is not the same thing as giving in," he said.

Hearing the words from the Dalai Lama "gave me more energy," said participant Clifford Nae'ole following the meeting.

Nae'ole, cultural adviser at The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua and organizer of the resort's annual Celebration of the Arts, continued, "It's about reacting to the act rather than the individuals. It's not about us versus them or the so-called 'h-word' vs. the Hawaiians. It's about the whole ideology of it. That's what we need to understand.

"Once we do that, I think, then we can make the moves forward. As he says, I think education is the key component to doing it. I think we're on the right track."