If ticket sales are any indication, then local interest in Tibet and Buddhism is really taking off.

Organiser DeForest (Shorty) Trimingham last night says a lecture at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute by Nicholas Plait, the fifth president of the Asia Society, and William McKeever also of the Society, is completely sold out.

The talk slated for tomorrow night will feature Mr. Platt a former US Ambassador to the Philippines and Pakistan and Mr. McKeever, a Buddhist in the Tibetan tradition.

"I will discuss the political side of the Tibetan situation and William, who is an expert on Buddhism, will approach it from a spiritual point.'' Mr. Platt told The Royal Gazette yesterday.

"I'm looking forward to coming down to Bermuda and speaking about the situation in Asia and the future of Tibet.'' he said. "People are interested in the future of Tibet, the Dalai Lama and of what policies are in place.'' he said.

Established by John D. Rockerfeller III in the 1950s to increase the awareness of Americans to Asia and help them connect with the continent, the Asia Society today boasts a variety of programmes and services.

"We are an educational institution and are chartered to educate the public.'' said Ambassador Platt. "We do this through events, lectures, conferences and seminars, theatrical performances, exhibitions, films, the works.'' he added.

Mr. Platt attended the launch of Mr. Trimingham's photobook, "Buddha: The Living Way'', and the two made plans to bring the Asia Society to the attention of Bermuda.

"We'd love to encourage Bermudians to become members or to log onto one of our web sites.'' he said.

"They can log on to asiasociety.org for complete insight into our organisation or asiasource.org which is the portal to complete information about Asia including current news and history.'' he added.

According to Mr. Platt, the Asia Society has over 10,000 members in ten cities worldfwide but more impressive, public participation is much wider.

"Our audiences are much bigger than our membership.'' he noted. "Last year we had an audience of 870,000. That is people who participated in our programmes, came to our exhibits and visited our web sites.'' The lecture begins at 7.30 p.m. at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute.