The Dalai Lama, usually preoccupied with matters of religion or foreign policy, yesterday tackled a more mundane matter, endorsing the idea of spending nearly $1 billion to turn the Farley Post Office in Manhattan into a new train station for commuters.

The Dalai Lama appeared yesterday on the steps of the post office with Mayor Bloomberg at an event designed to lend momentum to the construction of what would be called Moynihan Station, after the senator from New York who died in 2003. The senator’s daughter, Maura, also attended the event.

The religious and political leader of the people of Tibet said that it was his “unique, close friendship” with Daniel Patrick Moynihan that led to his interest in the train station. For years a harsh critic of Chinese policies in Tibet, which led to the deaths of a million Tibetans and the destruction of thousands of monasteries, Moynihan championed a congressional resolution that recognized the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.

Yesterday, speaking through a translator, the Dalai Lama said the station will “contribute to the joy and ease of movement for the people of this city.” Then he interrupted himself with his halting English. “We should carry out his wish,” he said with a broad smile.

The $930 million Moynihan Station would transform the beaux-arts James A. Farley Post Office, bordered by Eighth and Ninth avenues and 31st and 33rd streets, into a 400,000-square-foot train station that would expand commuter railroad service in the region, serving New Jersey Transit and possibly other commuter lines. It is slated to include an additional 250,000 square feet for the U.S. Postal Service and 750,000 square feet for retail, office, or residential use.

Plans for the station have proceeded in fits and starts for more than a decade.

By the time the senator died in 2003, he had earmarked nearly $800 million for the project, Maura Moynihan, who is a fellow at the Regional Plan Association, said.

The project, though, had become overshadowed by plans to rebuild Lower Manhattan in the wake of September 11, 2001, the mayor’s unsuccessful efforts to construct a West Side stadium, and a host of other transportation projects such as plans for a Second Avenue subway line and a link between JFK Airport and Lower Manhattan.

Last year, Congress nearly reallocated $40 million from Moynihan Station to the extension of the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal known as East Side Access.

Yesterday’s appearance by the 70-year-old Dalai Lama comes at a time of renewed interest in the station.

In July, the Empire State Development Corporation, which is charged with developing the site, selected Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust to develop the building.

Also this summer, Ms. Moynihan joined the Regional Plan Association to help promote her father’s vision.

“The Dalai Lama really wanted to say thank you to his friends who were there during the lean years,” she told The New York Sun, referring to the time before 1987 when the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize and the plight of Tibetan statehood became an international cause celebre.

Mr. Bloomberg, who took some criticism early in his administration for meeting with the vice president of Communist China, yesterday gave the key to the city to the Dalai Lama, who is considered an enemy by the Chinese government. Mr. Bloomberg called the vision of a new station Moynihan’s “final gift.”

“It will stand, I think, as a fitting tribute to Pat Moynihan as well as a bold monument to the international spirit the Dalai Lama has dedicated his life to,” the mayor said.

The Dalai Lama normally eschews such honors and has refused offers of citizenship from other countries. Usually speaking of himself as nothing more than a simple monk, he retains his legal status as a displaced refugee who fled Tibet in 1959. But with about 3,000 Tibetans living in the tri-state area, and thousands more who traveled to the city yesterday to receive his blessing, he received the key graciously.

With the project eight years behind schedule, its proponents say they hope yesterday’s endorsement by the Dalai Lama will give Moynihan Station new momentum to build, as Mr. Bloomberg put it yesterday, “a grand gateway to millions from around the world.”

The Dalai Lama, who is recovering from a cold, is scheduled to complete his two-week tour of America today with an appearance at Columbia University, which is marking a newly endowed faculty position in Tibetan Buddhist studies.