ARLEE - Lake County will receive a first time visitor to Montana late next year, someone who is also a very special spiritual and religious adviser.

The Dalai Lama, the esteemed, pious leader of Tibet known for peace and preaching Buddhism, will visit northwest Montana in late 2011 to commemorate the completion of the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas in Arlee.

The planned visit was announced last Friday during a press conference in Missoula, and while no specific date was named, the year and purpose of the trip by His Holiness was outlined. The Dalai Lama will visit at the behest of Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche, a founder of the Sang-ngag Ling Ewam Center in Arlee, which is also the site of the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas.

A dream as a young child led Rinpoche to Arlee, according to longtime student Diane Syester, and in 2000, an anonymous person donated 60 acres for him to use. The result has been the center and the garden, slated to be complete in fall 2011. Once completed, the Dalai Lama will be on hand to sanctify the area and officially open it to the public.

"It will be a place of peace for everyone," Rinpoche said in 2009 during the center's annual peace festival. "A place for socializing, picnicking and meditation that is not necessarily for Buddhists only."

The completion of the garden continues to be a massive undertaking. Approximately half of the concrete Buddha statues are complete, and there are other important pieces to be constructed to finish the garden. Once completed, the garden will feature a dharma wheel that has eight spokes leading to the center where a 25-foot statue of Yum Chenmo, the "great mother," will rest. Buddhas will line the circle and the eight pathways, which represent the 8-fold path to Enlightenment, as taught by Buddha Shakyamuni, the garden's Web site says.

A press release from Ewam Montana gave the following information about the Tibetan leader: "Everyone knows who the Dalai Lama is, but for the record, he is the 14th Dalai Lama, and the first to travel extensively outside of Tibet. Born Tenzin Gyatso, in 1935, recognized as the next Dalai Lama at an early age, he is both the head of state and the spiritual leader of the Tibetan government in exile, seated in Dharamsala, India, where he has lived since having to flee his homeland in 1959. He won the Nobel Peace prize in 1989, and is the author of dozens of books."