Touching many with his humor, the Dalai Lama told more than 9,000 Hawaii students that this is their century and it is their responsibility to create a joyful society and a "century of peace."

"This century should be a century of dialogue," he said.

The Dalai Lama spoke Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center as part of this weekend’s "Pillars of Peace Hawaii: Building Peace on a Foundation of Aloha," a community peace-building event sponsored by the Hawaii Community Foundation with funding from the Omidyar Ohana Fund.

While Saturday’s talk, called "Educating the Heart," was for high school and college students, the Dalai Lama will give a talk for the general public today at the Stan Sheriff Center. Before Saturday’s talk, the Dalai Lama also visited the Bishop Museum and ‘Iolani Palace.

Jonathan Lott, a science teacher at Farrington High School, said the Dalai Lama’s speech gave him the boost he needed on a journey to find happiness.

"I needed this to just kind of make me go across. I think I crossed a bridge I will never recross," he said. "This is helping me confirm that I should stay on that path."

Many of the students found the Dalai Lama entertaining and felt his words echoed their personal happenstance.

Randall Wat, 33, a second-year law student at the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law, said he was touched by the Dalai Lama’s words about striving for competition that can benefit the community while avoiding competing to only be the winner, which can turn negative.

"I’m surprised by his sense of humor," Wat said. "Part of conveying having a happy life is approaching things a certain way. I think his approach works very well."

The Dalai Lama drew laughs with his account of peeking in a medicine cabinet in a wealthy person’s bathroom and finding tranquilizers — a sign, he said, that wealth alone cannot bring inner peace.

"He’s not what I expected," said Kiana Tom, 15, a sophomore at Pacific Baptist Academy. "He’s funny. He’s kind of cute."

Farrington High School sophomore Rachel Kamai, 16, said she liked the Dalai Lama’s answer to a question by an anonymous student about how to respond when one doesn’t receive compassion in return. The Dalai Lama answered that if one were filled with "genuine compassion" for the other person, then there would be no room for expecting anything in return.

Kamai, who attended the talk to be touched mentally and spiritually, found it "better than I thought it would be."

The Dalai Lama talked about promoting peace through education, which can reduce the gap between reality and appearance and lower the level of anxiety.

He said mental peace is destroyed by fear and distrust.

"Fear develops frustration; frustration develops anger; anger brings violence," he said, both at the family and national levels.

He suggested looking at one’s enemies as also part of humanity and seeing that they, too, have a right to a happy life. Once a genuine concern for others is developed, there will be no basis for hate, he said, then added that fear will be reduced as self-confidence and a concern for others grow.

Despite the Dalai Lama’s levity, security was tight at the event. An announcer told audience members to wait in their seats for their safety after the Dalai Lama left the stage. When several got up anyway, the announcer said they couldn’t leave the center because the doors were locked.

Before shuttling to the Stan Sheriff Center in a motorcade escorted by police, the Dalai Lama began his second day in Hawaii with a visit to Bishop Museum, where a chant and preschoolers singing a song in Hawaiian greeted His Holiness shortly after 9 a.m.

Allison Gendreau, chairwoman of the Bishop Museum board, presented the Dalai Lama with a lei made from the orange blossoms of the kou trees on the grounds of the Bishop Museum.

Nineteen children, ages 3 and 4, from the Hawaiian immersion school ‘Aha Punana Leo o Honolulu performed "Hele Au," a song about their school.

The Dalai Lama put his palms together to greet the children and nodded his head with the music.

"We feel like we’re blessed to share our olelo (language) of our aina with him," said Alohilani Ho, an official with the school. "We hope that we touched him just as much as we were touched to be able to meet him.

"We feel that our keiki were blessed to have the opportunity to sing for him," she said, adding, "my heart was beating so fast."

After a short tour of the museum, museum officials presented the Dalai Lama with gifts of a mahi‘ole, a traditional Hawaiian headgear worn by chiefs, and a yellow kapa, made from bark of trees at Bishop Museum.

The Dalai Lama quickly put on the helmet, made of ‘ie‘ie vine rather than bird feathers, drawing laughter. He said, "Although I visit, I think a few times, using this hat, first time."

"This is a sign you accept me as a Hawaiian."

At the museum, the Dalai Lama called Native Hawaiians "special brothers and sisters" to the Tibetan people and emphasized the importance of preserving the native language.

"In order to keep your culture alive, language is very essential," he said.

He also urged people to protect nature despite improvements in technology.

"Our survival depends on it, so respect nature," he said.

At the end of his brief comments to reporters at Bishop Museum, the Dalai Lama took off the mahi‘ole and said Tibetans have a similar-looking headpiece, but when they ride on a horse they wear it this way — then he placed the mahi‘ole on his head backward, drawing loud laughter.