Hand In Hand With The Dalai Lama

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Six weeks later, tape in hand, I arrived at McLeod Ganj, the section of Dharamsala where the Tibetan Parliament, monks' school and Dalai Lama's offices are located. I was ushered through several security checks and then sat in a waiting room, nervous as hell. In all my preparation, I had not studied or even bothered to ask about the protocols involved upon meeting a Tibetan lama, much less the highest ranking lama. I knew that one should not touch a lama. So I decided I would just bow with palms together at my chest. But as I approached him, he extended his hand, Western style. The Dalai Lama – the 14th reincarnation of the Buddha of Compassion, recipient of the Nobel Prize and now the Congressional Gold Medal, revered as an enlightened being – took my hand and shook it robustly. After several shakes, I tried to withdraw my hand, working on the assumption there must be a protocol I was equally unaware of that dictated when to let go. But much to my surprise and delight, he tightened his grip.

Sure, I thought, keep my hand – forever. Then he led me, his right hand still holding my right hand, across a long hall to where we would sit. I decided I would hold on until he let go. We must have held hands walking side by side like that for close to two minutes. It completely disarmed me – as a man, as a journalist, as a human being – and at the same time it made me feel completely embraced. It was asexual but it stimulated, or perhaps awakened, a place deep in my soul I knew existed only theoretically. But now that place felt palpable. Somehow his calm made me feel calm, as though he was giving me a hand-to-hand tranquility transfusion.

Garfinkel's Buddha or Bust chronicles the author's journey in the footsteps of the Buddha and investigates Buddhism's worldwide resurgence.

The man had me at hello.

As soon as we sat down, I pulled out my recorder, explaining I had been to Tatkser and had brought him a taped message from his nephew, Gongbu Tashi. His eyes lit up. As he listened to the three-minute section I'd cued up, this almost fatherly look crossed his face. This time it was his own eyes misting over.

"Every day they are thinking that way," he said. Then he went silent.

I told him when I first saw the village, I thought, "How amazing that from such humble beginnings a man would rise to such world renown."

"Does it ever amaze you too?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "If you look back, a person from very small village eventually reaches Lhasa with the name of Dalai Lama. So then in the last few decades the Tibetan nation's interest is somehow very connected with that village boy." He laughed his signature laugh – an endless, uninhibited giggle -- as though the ludicrous randomness of his own life had just struck him.

I held the tape recorder up to his mouth as he laughed. Nowadays when life seems ludicrous and random – and frankly, these days when doesn't it? – I replay the Dalai Lama's laugh track. I don't know; it seems to help.