The Dalai Lama And Lady Gaga Joined Forces To Talk About This Essential Human Value

We bet you've never seen a meeting of the minds quite like this one.

The Dalai Lama, Lady Gaga, and the billionaire business tycoon Philip Anschutz shared a stage on Sunday during a panel presentation for The United States Conference of Mayors in Indianapolis.

If it sounds like an unlikely trio, the subject chosen for this meeting was just as remarkable. The three big personalities spent their time together talking about the power of kindness and how to make the world a more compassionate place.

During the wide-ranging conversation, which was often more philosophical than practical, all three leaders emphasized the idea that kindness is a basic human value.

The Dalai Lama told the assembly of leaders from more than 200 of the nation's mayors that it is important for American cities to spreading kindness.

"America, in material development, is a leading nation, particularly in innovation [and technology]," the Tibetan Buddhist leader said during a keynote speech before the panel. "Now [the] time [has] come, America should be leading nation of promotion of human compassion, human love in order to achieve compassionate world."

He added that mayors have an important part to play in this effort.

"Mayors, you have direct contact or influence to the people in the city. The federal government is sometimes a little bit far," he said. "So the mayor is a direct link with people."

During the panel, which was moderated by journalist Ann Curry, the trio talked about the factors that divide Americans -- things like sexual orientation, health, and economic class.

"None of this can matter anymore," Gaga said. "We are unified in our humanity and the only thing that we all know, we all appreciate in one another, is kindness. So this has to come before all things."

The entrepreneur Philip Anschutz, who started The Foundation For A Better Life, which produces billboards and television ads that promote "positive values," said that although there is much that separates people, he believes values like fairness, humility, perseverance, love and patience are universal.

"The thing that we learned from the first ten or 15 years of [the foundation] is really the umbrella value here is kindness. If you have an individual that has kindness it correlates very strongly to having these other values that I touched on."

Watch the full panel presentation below.