In this life, declarations of love have long, winding echoes. Kindred souls can detect one another from worlds apart. The ancient wisdom of the Buddhist monk Tenzin Gyatso travels with the speed of e-mail.

He is a smiling man of 63, the Dalai Lama of our lifetime. And his smile has traveled many miles. There he was on Friday afternoon, half a planet away from his Himalayan homeland, beaming upon an audience at Florida International University in West Miami-Dade County, grinning and clasping his hands in a prayerful steeple.

The visit of the revered god-king of Tibet to FIU, for an honorary doctorate, generated curious contrasts. There he was, a gentle man whose presence stirs tremendous thunder. The enlightened who warmly greets the elected. The monk who returns respectful bows to the millionaires.

It is no wonder. He explained that he comes from a land of great contrast, where ''spirituality is very high, very rich, but in material is very poor.''

After he was presented with a key to the city by Miami Mayor Joe Carollo at a lunch before the commencement ceremony, the Dalai Lama remarked in Tibetan through an interpreter: ''I do not know what the key is to open.''

Then, switching to his melodic English, he ventured, somewhat slyly: ''I think the key is to open our inner world.''

The Dalai Lama speaks of this inner world as if it were a vast nation to which all of humanity holds a passport. It is there, in this common land, that language is unimportant, race is invisible, religion is porous. People communicate not with words, but with smiles. Children are lovingly nurtured from birth. Schools cultivate the soul as well as the mind.

''In modern society, you pay attention about the proper development of the brain, but do not pay attention to the development of the heart, the development of a good heart, a warm heart,'' he said during his address to a packed arena. ''So, teaching compassion is not like teaching history.''

It is no wonder this Dalai Lama is believed to be the modern-day personification of the Buddha of Compassion.

He advocates dialogue and non-violence. ''The destruction of your enemy,'' he said, ''is the destruction of yourself.''

He is an exile, forced out of his native Tibet 40 years ago. But the impression he transmits is not one of victim or captive. He exudes a sense of freedom, one that does not depend on the whim of any government.

He does not miss an opportunity to advocate for Tibet, to smile upon the young, multi-ethnic American students who wave banners for a free Tibet. But his is not a provincial campaign. It is one defined by universal threads.

He brought to Miami not only contrasts -- he brought parallels. Those who have known oppression in their homelands can find familiar passages in his story. Like his people, Cuban exiles were driven away from their homeland in that same year, 1959.

But what the Dalai Lama taught us on Friday had nothing to do with nationalism and everything to do with globalism. ''Our worlds,'' he said, ''are heavily interdependent.''

He seemed so harmless standing there on stage, sipping our bottled water, smiling. But he is a threat to those who propagate violence. He has proven that no oppressor, no matter how mighty, can trap a free spirit. He is living proof that freedom can thrive in the darkest, farthest reaches of exile.

Unintentionally, it was his oppressors who gave us the Dalai Lama. Their attempts to silence and discredit him only made him larger and more loved. What do you call that but karma?