An unexpected conversation

"My attitude is to give everyone some of my time. If I can contribute in any way to their happiness, that makes me happy"
-Dalai Lama as quoted by The Sunday Bankok Post, April 2nd, 2006.

We arrived in Dharamsala at 4am, hardly the best time to be awake and freezing cold. Repacking my sleeping bag, finding all of my scattered belongings and massaging the lump on my head from where the bus stopped short and my prostrate form went flying become matters requiring thirty seconds at a time to complete.

"Come on, we've gotta go" yawns Evan, wiping the crust from his eyes.

He looks like I feel. Not tired, not exhausted, but weary. A sense that everything inside of you just wants to retreat and attend to matters later on. If I had to choose a way to arrive in the city of the Dalai Lama, this would not be it. We have come to hear his teachings after all, a phenomenally popular event that everyone in the region is headed to, and I'm sure that somewhere in there, he is going to talk about the importance of stillness and comfort. Still and all, we have to get off of the bus and try to figure the rest of this night out.

In the Himalayas, the cold filters into you through any available seam, a seeping agent of espionage intent on wrecking your internal thermometer. I'm layered against the cold, no one single garment up to the task, but a profusion of such clothing is at least keeping the wind off of me. Down a hill, around a curve, eyes furitively seeking the welcoming glow of a light. Any light. There are supposed to be cabs here, or a shuttle or something, yet all I can see now are the dusky outlines of conifers and the occasional snatch of moonlight edging up against a phantasmic peak. Trudging along, we find a number of what look like abandoned cars on the side of the road. I walk up and peer in, my frosty breath needing a wipe or two before I can see clearly. "Hey buddy" slam slam on the window "hey man, wake up, we need a ride." A groan, a shaggy head from underneath a thick blanket, then the door is open, the engine turned over, and we begin our ascent to Mcleod-Ganj, the city-above-a-city that is the primary residence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It's the spiritual refuge for thousands of escaped Tibetans, and a veritable mecca for long haired, smelly backpacked trekkers. The "road" is winding us up now, nearly a thousand vertical meters, the edges of the tires leering out over the face of the switchbacks that we putter through. The engine seems as if it still hasn't decided if it's up to the task of ferrying us up this rock, and gives loud spurts of anger each time a gear is shifted. For my part, all I can think of is the nicely described accomodation from the guide book "...friendly staff, consistent hot water, no fleas." Sounds like paradise to me.

Snag number one: the driver doesn't know where it is. The town is barely more than four streets by six streets, but for some reason, he couldn't be bothered to know them all. I'm too tired and cold and generally miserable to care.

"Look, just take us wherever is open and cheap, okay?"

"Open and cheap?" out of the drivers mouth the words sound like curses "I know"

"You know? Okay great, then lets go."

"No. I. No."

The emphasis now highlights my misinterpretation. He doesn't know anywhere like that, he just doesn't posesess the faculties to tell me. And when I think about it, I lacked the faculties to understand.

Evan chimes in "forget it, we'll walk, here." He shoves some money at the driver, adding yet another tick to the invisibly understood ledger that all companion travelers accumulate over their time together. A beer here, a meal there, a rushed bus ticket or a boat ride on a steaming, stinking river. The plusses and minuses would drive an accountant stark raving mad, never able to account for every last rupee, baht, peso and dollar, the conversions among them presenting a kind of nightmare calculus that is better left as a trust for the friendship to draw from.

We re-emerge into the sharp night, stars outlined against a sky so black that ambient light is drawn up into it, winking away at its extremities. The dull plastic clicking of backpack belts being connected and the soft whir as straps are tightened accompany the various gruntings and utterances attendant to getting your life onto your back, yet again. The street that we have disembarked upon is steep, top-of-a-mountain steep, which is to be expected of the monks and their ascetic lifestyle. What use is it meditating all day if it was easy to get there?

We set off. The only sentient companions that we have are the stray dogs and cats that we occasionally trip over, all either cuddled together for warmth, or up early, panting breath condensing just in front of what must be cold noses, rummaging in a gutter for an early breakfast before getting back to whatever nipping of children's ankles or barking at strange cats is on the agenda for that day. Some approach us, barking and whimpering, but they aren't looking for trouble, they're just curious, and I can't help but think that the lack of ability to see color is certainly not helping these animals distinguish if we are threats or just two strange harmless upright blurs, whipping past them in a flurry of stomping boots and quickened breathing.

The street is full of hotels that promise everything from "reel god internet" to "all water hot all times." Despite the physical exertion, I am colder than ever, the rivulets of sweat pouring down my face instantly turning into melted glacial rivers, keeping my forehead hot and my eyebrows frozen. The multiple layers bunch up under the waistband of my pack and the sweat accumulates there, making a wet, sweaty spot that stretches the fabric of the shirt and distracts me from the night around me. We bang on the windows of hotels and try to see through locked doors. Occasionally, a head will emerge from under a thick blanket to yell "all full, no rooms!" at us. Then it is back to the street, more walking, more hoping, and all the time that depressing glimmer in the East, the sun rising without the prospect of sleep. There is nothing quite as disheartening as knowing that you could be witness to a beautiful sunrise, yet also knowing full well that you will hate every moment of it, as it will be the terminus of your night and the beginning of a day in which you will not have had sleep.

"I found something." Evans voice reaches out over the concrete curbs and through the pillars holding up balconies, finding me at the wall I've taken to leaning against. It takes a few moments for my thoughts to coalesce enough to know how to respond. The cold seems to be slowing everything in me down, including my mind. As I said, it's not a biting cold, not a cold that makes you aware of it as an entity of coldness. It's more like if someone were to ask how you felt, the dominant feeling would be the lack of warmth, which, though logically speaking is not exactly cold, logic doesn't really occur to you right then either.

"Yeah, what?"

"Pool hall."

Again, the few moments to process.

"Well FUCK man, how does that help us?"

"It's indoors, it's warm. There're people."

My existence heaves a sigh. "Allright, lets go."

We climb a short flight of stairs that may as well have been the steps to the statue of liberty. I can barely move at the top. We get through a thin steel-like door and enter the pool hall. To be more precise, the room is a snooker hall. The difference being so total that to have labeled it a pool hall is akin to calling hockey and curling "essentially the same thing." Vast expanses of green felt, a high-hanging, yet persistent haze of bizarre tobacco smoke and fifteen or so Tibetan men standing around shooting the white balls into the red balls. Snooker is not a game that I have ever devoted much energy to. We are stared at as we enter. Not unkindly stares, more the questioning gaze that you would turn to a stranger who is standing in your living room, one who doesn't seem uninvited, yet you can't figure out what they're doing there or who let them in.

"I guess we'll play snooker."

Evan went to the small counter at the close end of the room to speak with the manager (or whatever) about some food. While he was engaged, I noticed that the room was considerably bigger than I had originally thought, with several other massive tables stretching off into a gloom. I walked nearer to them, and spotted two high benches, just wide enough to perch on while awaiting your chance with the cue and the gaping pockets in the table. My shoulders sag and my knees buckle a bit. Now I remember that I'm still wearing my pack and five layers of clothes. I quickly drop the bag and it settles with a satisfying thump next to me. That thump sounded tired too, and I suddenly find myself jealous of my bags ease of comfort, just lying there on the floor, resting. Realising that I'm anthropomorphizing a possession of mine to a dangerous degree, I alight on the bench to strip off a few layers. As I get my damp clothes off, I think that it would be nice to take out my sleeping bag. I don't put much thought into this, I just go with my instinct. Then I wonder what it would be like to try and lay down a little bit, maybe just put my head on my wet clothes and turn my body sideways and then I can put my other shirt over my eyes to block out the glare and I suppose that the music and the noise and the smoke aren't too difficult to bear and I think that if I just close my eyes and stop thinking for just a moment, just a moment is all I'll need to collect my thoughts and get up and shoot some snooker and maybe drink some tea and wonder at it all and...

And I'm done. My last conscious thought is that the bench would really be much better, in all senses, if it just had some padding. Even if you were just sitting on it, it wasn't a very comfortable object to rest against and I thought that maybe I'd make a joke about it to the manager.

But I don't because being awake is no longer something that I can manage.

My next conscious thought is a warm one. It is gentle and warm and there is sunlight on my face. It is sunlight being diffracted through a shutter, a very dusty shutter so that the little motes are clearly outlined against the eggshell white of the ceiling, but it is warm nonetheless. Then I am aware of a delicate shaking, at once understanding yet insistent. It is being conducted in such a way that words like "get up" or "move" or "come on lets go" are unnecessary. The action of itself is sufficient for understanding. I'm not being told to get up, it is simply the way things must be. I am very pleased with this way of waking up, and try to hold the feeling a few seconds longer while at the same time acknowledging my acquiescence to the urging. Finally, I peel my lids apart and look up, expecting to see Evan's face, or perhaps a kindly day manager telling me that I will have to pay for my choice of improvised bed.

I am surprised.

The face looking back at me is not one that I have ever set eyes upon in person, yet is as familiar to me as it would be to nearly anyone in the world. I see large rimmed glasses, over eyes deep as space. The eyes, they extend back into forever, they seem all things at once. The dominant emotion that they evoke though, is one of unbridled joy, of pure and true and utter happiness such that to contain it within something as simple as a person seems ludicrous. Yet there it is, plain to read as the lines from a story. The stubble on the top of his head is of exactly the same length as that on his face, clearly both being attended to with the same amount of regularity and care. I realize that I am squinting and wonder at it, as the sun is coming in over my head, not into my eyes. As more of my sense begin sending the daily reports up to the processing center, I understand that I am squinting to protect my eyes from the most brilliant saffron-orange color that I have ever seen. It is penetrating, it is sublime. It puts to shame any conception that I had every previously had of what the color "orange" could be. The robe is draped over a shoulder, one arm exposed in what even my addled senses know is still a bitter cold. The mouth turns up and the smile in the eyes is duplicated over the mouth.

Then the Dalai Lama asks: "Would you like to play a game of snooker?"

I will never know why I did what I did next. To be faced with such a question upon awakening is strange enough, but to be queried by one of the holiest people on Earth is something which words lack absolutely the power to describe.

So I looked at my watch.

7:01.

The Dalai Lama had woken me up at seven in the morning to ask me if I would like to play snooker. This unreal seeming chain of events didn't phase him in the least, and as I finally roused myself fully from sleep, I realized that he was still talking. His voice, a deep, guttural sensation, growling over my ears and demanding my attention.

"...you would think that I could play just whenever I wanted, maybe in between meditating and meeting with The Sultan of Brunei. But there simply aren't that many snooker tables in the places that I go. It is an unfortunate circumstance of my reincarnation that as an international figure, I can't simply go out and play some snooker. People wouldn't understand. It doesn't fit with their worldview. Yet at most levels, those of humanity really, I am just a man. I may be the posessor of a soul much older than most, but it doesn't change who I am. It doesn't seem right that the next person to reincarnate as the Dalai Lama should have a collection of souls with preferences, and then the final one was simply a slave to the others. Each should be unique..."

He continued on. He spoke for what seemed like hours, yet a quick glance back at my watch revealed only 8 minutes had passed. I remained mute, there was never a pause in his speech long enough for words anyway, silently nodding assent to what he was saying.

"So I come down here, sneak really, and this is pushing it now because people get up rather early here. The ones who live here know, or at least they have an idea that I have some human habits, some itches that I scratch from time to time, but they are harmless beacuse they love me, and they know that I love them. I walk the streets sometimes, I say hello to people. It isn't a formal thing, sometimes I just enjoy a walk up this big hill. Do you know how to play snooker?"

I finally found my voice "No sir, just pool." Even as I said them the words sounded stupid and base. But could I lie to this man? He of all people would know.

"I didn't think so. I could teach you the basics if you'd like. I do quite enjoy the teaching."

"That would be nice." Again, wholly inadequate. I want to tell him that I don't really have access to snooker tables anywhere that I can think of, and that it would be a wasted effort. Instead, I reach for the cue that he has handed me.

He has continued speaking, occasionally interrupting himself to explain a rule or to take a shot. The way he shoots is something of an excercise in fluidity. He never has to think about his shot, he is always ready for it and knows which ball he would like to shoot for. His motion happens quickly, he bends at the waist and lines the cue up with his eye, exactly as any pool player will tell you to do. He doesn't make every shot. That would be stretching it a bit. He is very good, but he doesn't have the practiced air that some of the people that you find in pool halls do. I attribute it to his lack of being able to play on a regular basis, as he was telling me about before.

He asks me my name and I tell him. He thinks about it for a minute, then, over his next shot says:

"I haven't met many Normans before. There have been a few, one that I remember from California. I was speaking at Berklee and afterwards a few people were granted an audience, he was the second to last one I think, he asked me..."

At this he sighed, the memory seeming to weigh him down. In that moment, he had the wearied look that I remembered from earlier, only a more terrible weariness, one that he carried around all the time. I kept quiet, waiting to hear about a fellow Norman. A full minute passed with nothing said, no words, no shots taken. Finally, I found my voice, "what did he ask you?"

A look. A tired look in my direction, then a small grin.

"He asked me what nearly everyone asks me. Everyone comes in with a question on their minds. Sometimes they've thought of it ahead of time, or they've been put up to it as a joke by their friends, you know 'ask the greatest spiritual figure on Earth how much a street hot dog should cost', things like that. Other times they'll come in and you can see that it is a question that is causing them pain, usually about someone that they care about, 'will they die?', 'will she come back?', things like that."

He paused again, his tone again carrying with it that terrible weightiness. I bent down to take my shot, by the time I had missed and straightened up, he was speaking again.

"...they all come in with something on their minds, but what nearly everyone ends up asking me is 'Are you happy?'"

I looked at him with surprise. It was exactly the question that I had been waiting to ask him myself. I just hadn't found a convenient time yet.

"You were going to ask me that eventually weren't you?" His smile was again light and happy, he enjoyed reading my thoughts.

"Yeah, I was actually. Why does everyone ask you that?"

"Well, I have a theory about it. I'm not certain, but I think that it makes a person like me a little easier to have in the world. A question like that is so simple and so personal, that it makes me a little bit more human, gives them a little bit more access. It's like asking someone if they're enjoying their food or like their new house. It's something that you can find out about a person that is benign and simple. As I've already said, I have to maintain a certain aura around myself, of untouchability, of unhumanity, but that aura needs to be approachable. That's why we have the audiences. Did you know that before me, no Dalai Lama had ever granted an audience to a non-buddhist before?"

I hadn't known and told him so.

"It wasn't that they refused, any of my past selves would have been happy to speak to anyone. It was the people around them that made it difficult. The monks can be very posessive, and buddhism, despite its tenets, can be a difficult thing to bring to others."

I had a thought. "So in a way, you've been spending your time answering the questions that have gone unasked to all those other, umm, yous?"

His eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch, and I swear that he paused over his shot a beat longer than normal.

"In a way, that is what I do. I create an aura into which nothing can penetrate, yet at the same time I allow anyone who chooses to, to approach to within a hairsbreadsth of that center, to look in and see what they want to."

"Do people ever see what they want in you?"

"I don't know, I hope so. Most seem to go away pleased at least. But the question is tiring, as it is repeated so often."

Of course, the suspense was killing me. The question hung in the air between us like the motes suspended in the sunlight over my shoulder. A sunlight that was rapidly getting more full as it crested the mountaintops.

The sly grin. "You want me to tell you if I'm happy or not." Not a question. Simple. Declarative. What could I do?

"Yes, I would like that very much."

"Of course I am!"

The force of his response shook me. It wasn't that he said it loudly, because he didn't. His voice barely raised above the conversational tone that we had been batting back and forth, light as air. Instead, it was the certainty, the absolute and complete certainty with which he proclaimed his happiness. It was at once the most powerful, and most disastrous statement that I have ever heard. It contained within it all of the hope and desire and pain and longing and ecstasy that you could conjure for yourself, and it compressed all of that feeling down into a single thought, a knowledge of himself so complete that it would make anyone who heard it question their own belief on the matter.

"I see" I managed.

His expression was unchanged, but his eyes told me that I was forgiven for being weak. I was forgiven for needing to know the answer.

"Noone really wants to know if I'm happy, what they want is to know if there is happiness, however they concieve of it. Everyone has their own conception of what a happy existence is, but not one person will ever attain it totally, not even me. So people doubt, they question. They're perpetually nervous because they think that their ideal is out there and real but they want confirmation. People see me as a goal, an end, as an apex. If I'm happy, no matter how hard it is, then that happiness exists. It gives them comfort because even though they may never reach it, they still have something to reach for, a goal they can believe in. The most awful truth that I could give to someone would be to tell them that what they think of as their ultimate happiness is an impossibility. Look at me. There is much in the world that I can do, places I can go and people that I can meet that others can only dream of. Much of this gives me pleasure. The idea that I am a leader, that I can strive to be a good leader and teacher pleases me and gives me happiness. But of course, I cannot be completely happy, I am a human. I am imperfect and that is not something that is in any way negative. It is precisely what makes me able to empathize, to lead, to teach. It is greatly comforting to know that I am imperfect, with imperfect needs and desires."

He illustrates his point by sinking three shots in a row.

"If I were in my state of perfect happiness, I could come out and play snooker whenever I pleased. People could approach me and we would have a game and a conversation. But by doing that, I would take away my aura, I would take away from my ability to impart hope in the search for happiness to thousands of people."

I sunk the remaining ball, winning the game. The fact of the matter didn't seem to be terribly important. I felt very light and wanted a glass of water. The gravelly voice stayed in my head, repeating itself over and over "...happiness", the idea changing shape, becoming solid and real to me. After a moment, I looked over to where the Dalai Lama was standing.

He was close to a door that led out onto a deck. The sun was shining through the panes of glass set into the wood, illuminating his face, yet keeping his robes and feet in shadow. He looked awake, alert, ready for the day. The glimmer of the sun off of his glasses blinded me for a moment as he turned.

"Sorry. That happens sometimes...Thank you for playing snooker with me. It really is one of my secret pleasures."

"Thank you very much sir, it has been an honor."

He winked at me. He bowed slightly, and I bowed much lower, as I had been taught to do. His robes swished on the floor as he walked out, and I wondered how he kept the hems so clean. As the door closed with a low click, I began to think back over the last half hour of our conversation. It was certainly a lot to ponder, and just as I began looking around the room to find Evan to tell him the story, a thought occured to me;

I didn't know what he was apologizing for when he told me that "that happens sometimes."

If I ever get a chance to play a little snooker with him again, it will be the only question that I ask him.

Carpe diem