With a head cold and a sense of humor, the Dalai Lama shared his wisdom with thousands of people Friday during his visit to UCSB.

“My voice is unusual today,” Tibet’s exiled spiritual and political leader said as he settled cross-legged into a divan onstage, interpreter by his side.

Using Tibetan to explain his finer points and English to kid around with the audience, the monk broke down topics as heady as the primordial qualities of Buddha that he says we all possess.

“We have to know the ultimate nature of the mind,” the Dalai Lama said during a morning lecture on the mind. Through it we can control destructive emotions, he said.

In the afternoon, he discussed compassion in a lecture on ethics for today and commented that the economic crisis might be an opportunity for people to establish limits on material things.

Along the way he told stories like the one of his life as a 7-year-old Buddhist monk, already recognized as the reincarnation of the the previous Dalai Lama and the manifestation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

“I had no interest in Buddhism,” he said. “My only interest was playing.” But with the aid of a stern tutor and a “holy whip” kept just for him, he learned the root Buddhist texts by heart, he said.

The visit to UCSB was the Dalai Lama’s fourth. He was welcomed by Chancellor Henry Yang; religious studies professor Jose Cabezón, who holds UCSB’s XIV Dalai Lama Endowed Chair in Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies; Humanities and Fine Arts dean David Marshall; and Richard Blum, chairman of the UC Board of Regents.

Friday’s lectures were the apex of a series of recent events relating to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism at the university, including talks by Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman and local author Pico Iyer, a friend of the Dalai Lama’s.

The University Art Museum is currently holding an exhibition called “The Sacred Art of Tibet,” featuring centuries-old paintings of Buddhist deities, some of which served as a guide for tantric meditation, or as symbols of devotion. Buddhist monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery created a sand mandala to be ritually destroyed Saturday.

— Noozhawk staff writer Sonia Fernandez can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) .