I was curious if the Dalai Lama ever wondered why he is such a people magnet. In one of my interviews with him, I said, 'I'd like to ask you a silly question'.
The Tibetan leader was sitting cross-legged, as usual, in his corner armchair in the audience room inside his residential compound in Dharamsala, India. 'Why are you so popular? What makes you irresistible to so many people?'
A fellow human being
The Dalai Lama sat very still, mulling the question over. He didn't brush my question aside with a joke, as I thought he might.
He was thoughtful as he replied. 'I don't think myself have especially good qualities. Oh, maybe some small things. I have positive mind. Sometimes, of course, I get a little irritated. But in my heart, I never blame, never think bad things against anyone. I also try to consider others more. I believe others more important than me. Maybe people like me for my good heart.
'Now, I think at the beginning, they have curiosity. Then perhaps
usually when I meet someone for the first time, that someone not stranger to me. I always have impression: he another human being. Nothing special. Me too, same.'
He rubbed his cheeks with his fingers and continued, 'Under this skin, same nature, same kinds of desires and emotions. I usually try to give happy feeling to the other person. Eventually many people talking something positive about me. Then more people came, just follow reputation that also possible.'
The Dalai Lama has his own inimitable way with the English language. I had trouble understanding him when I first sat down to work on The Wisdom of Forgiveness with him; he could be frustratingly cryptic at times. Eventually I got used to his manner of speaking and am now thoroughly entranced by its charm and directness.
A karmic link?
'Sometimes when people come into contact with you,' I said, 'even without hearing you speak, just by watching you, they get emotional. Why?'
'I notice sometime, one singer or one actor,' the Dalai Lama replied. 'When they appear, some people almost like crying, jumping and crying. Similar.' He bopped up and down on his chair and flapped his arms a few times.
'You're like a rock star,' I said.
'Yes,' the Dalai Lama said matter-of-factly. 'But there may be other factors. We believe in other lifetimes in the past. So maybe some karmic link, something more mysterious.' He frowned and looked into the distance. I had the impression he was trying to figure out for himself this more subtle explanation of his charisma.
He unwrapped his outer shawl and rearranged it around his torso.
Finally he said: 'Now, this mysterious level. For example, some people get strange dream, then that dream open new future or new life or new connections with other people.'
He pointed at me as he continued with his train of thought. 'Your own case. Somehow, unexpectedly, something brought you here. That kidnap in Afghanistan. If that not happened, you may not be here. Then you may not develop all these connections with me and with the Tibetans. So all these, I'm certain they have causes and conditions. From Buddhist viewpoint: There may be karmic links in many past lives. Perhaps that's why many people feel close to me today.'
Yes, 'That kidnap in Afghanistan'. In 1971, after finishing college, I had bought a VW camper in Utrecht and planned to make my way overland from Holland to India. After traversing Turkey and Iran, I stopped and took a half-year break in Afghanistan a haven then for dropouts and would-be adventurers.
It was near the end of that sojourn when I and two young women Cheryl from New York and Rita from Munich were abducted in Kabul by three Afghan men. Wielding one rifle between them, they forced us into a badly rusted car and drove us to a small village high up in the Hindu Kush. After several days of captivity, we managed to escape when their car skidded on a hairpin curve and crashed into the side of the mountain.
Soon after, Cheryl and I decided to travel together to India. She had a letter of introduction to the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in Dharamsala. We headed directly to the picturesque Tibetan settlement. A few days after our arrival, we were granted an audience. On a crisp, overcast spring day in March 1972, I met the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people for the first time.
Fate. Karma. Whatever it is called. Yes, the Dalai Lama was right. If I had not been kidnapped, I certainly would not have met him then. Let alone collaborate on a book and ask him questions about his charisma.
Laughter
Still pondering my question about his larger-than-life personality, the Dalai Lama continued, 'Also, many people like my laugh. But what kind of laugh, what kind of smile, I don't know.'
'Many people have commented on this laughter,' I said, 'this sense of play that you have. You're close to seventy, but you still love horseplay and you don't take yourself seriously.'
'First, Tibetan people generally more jovial,' the Dalai Lama said. 'In spite of many difficulties, they usually ready to laugh, something like that. Then my family. All our brothers, except for Gyalo Thondup [his second oldest brother], like that,' the Dalai Lama said. 'Our eldest brother, [Thubten Jigme] Norbu, always make fun, always joke. My immediate brother, the late Lobsang Samten, very dirty jokes, great fun. And me. Then youngest brother, Tenzin Choegyal, younger sister, Jetsun Pema; also late eldest sister, all not serious. Our mother also. Our father also short temper but very light heart.
Ocean mind
'In my own case, my mental state, comparatively more peaceful. In spite of difficult situation or even sometimes very tragic sort of news, my mind not much disturbed. For a short moment, some sad feelings, but never remains long. Within a few minutes or a few hours, and then it goes. So I usually describe something like the ocean. On the surface, waves come and go, but underneath always remain calm.'
People who come into contact with the Dalai Lama seem to sense that he is 'for real', as Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said to me. And without exactly knowing why, they are affected by him, drawn to his larger-than-life humanity, even from a distance.
I have little doubt that the Dalai Lama's vigorous presence has something to do with his deep well of spirituality. His legendary warmth is simply a manifestation of his spiritual attainment.
I've known the Dalai Lama for over three decades. He calls me his 'old friend'. During the last few years, I've been given unprecedented access to him while co-authoring The Wisdom of Forgiveness. I've observed the Dalai Lama at close quarters, travelled with him as part of his entourage, and spent time with him at his home. But I find it difficult to describe, let alone pinpoint, his remarkable magnetism. To try to understand his essence, we have to look at his half-century-long Buddhist training and the singular way he relates to the world around him.
Much of his approach to life is fuelled by a handful of fundamental but difficult-to-relate-to insights. On several occasions, he has told me something about interdependence and emptiness, two ideas that are of crucial importance to him. I have listed carefully and taken notes. I must admit it was a struggle to understand these concepts. But by being his shadow, by being with him for hours on end, I came to identify some of the qualities that define him. The Dalai lama's principles of compassion and non-violence give shape to his global vision. And his unrelenting pursuit of forgiveness as a solution to conflict conditions the way he acts.
A mirror for the highest in ourselves
One thing I know for sure. I feel good around the Dalai Lama. I know people feel good around him. Perhaps we intuit that he walks the talk. We sense an uncommonly pure centre inside him. Like a mirror reflecting light, it allows us to see and get in touch with our own humanity.
Desmond Tutu, his good friend of many years, had this to say about the Dalai Lama when they shared a stage in Vancouver, Canada, in front of a crowd of 14,000.
A few years ago, I was in San Francisco when a woman rushed up to greet me very warmly. She said to me, 'Hello, Archbishop Mandela!' Sort of like getting two for the price of one.
I'm quite certain that no one is likely to make that mistake about His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Isn't it extraordinary, in a culture that worships success, that it isn't the aggressively successful, the abrasive, the macho who are the ones that we admire. We might envy their bank balances, but we do not admire them.
Who are the people we admire? Well, there are many things you might say of a Mother Teresa, but macho is not one of them. All of us revere her for having been such a spendthrift on behalf of derelicts. We admire her because she is good. We admire people such as a Nelson Mandela for being an icon of magnanimity, of forgiveness, of reconciliation.
And we revere the Dalai Lama. He is about the only one of the very, very, very, very few, who can fill Central Park in New York with adoring devotees.
But why? Why? Because he is good, he is good, he is good. I have met very few other persons as holy as His Holiness. I have met very, very few who have his serenity, his deep pool of serenity.
And his sense of fun. He laughs easily, he is almost like a schoolboy with his mischievousness. Fun, fun, bubbling, bubbling joy.
And that's odd. That's odd for someone who has been in exile for forty-five years. By rights, he should be filled with resentment, with anger, with bitterness. And the last thing he should be wanting is to extend compassion and love to those who have treated him and his people so abominably. But he does. He does.
And aren't we all proud to be human? The Dalai Lama makes us feel good about being human. About being alive at a time when someone like him is around.
From The Wisdom of Forgiveness, copyright 2004 by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Victor Chan, published in Great Britain in 2005 by Hodder and Stoughton.
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