![]() This is not something that can be bought. We are born the same way, we die the same way, and we all want to lead happy lives. Girls and monks all collapsed into a tangle of arms, legs, skis, poles, and wingtip shoes.The basic source of all happiness is a sense of kindness and warm-heartedness towards others. A chorus of shrieks went up, of the piercing kind that only teenage girls can produce, and they plowed into the Dalai Lama and his monks, knocking them down like so many red and yellow bowling pins. Just then four teenage girls came off the quad chair and were skiing down the ramp straight at the group. I could see the operator, caught off guard, scrambling to stop the lift, but he didn’t get to the button in time. “Don’t walk in front of the lift!”īut it was too late. “Come, another view over here!” And they set off, in a compact group, moving swiftly across the snow. The monks admired the view a while longer, and then the Dalai Lama pointed to the opposite side of the area, which commanded a view of 12,000-foot peaks. After a while he lapsed into silence and then, in a voice tinged with sadness, he said, “ This look like Tibet.” The monks were slipping and sliding and I was sure that one would fall and bring down the rest.Īs we stood, the Dalai Lama spoke enthusiastically about the view, the mountains, the snow and the desert. ![]() ![]() Underneath their maroon and saffron robes the Dalai Lama and his monks all wore the same footwear: Oxford wingtip shoes. A hundred skiers stared in disbelief as the four monks, in a tight group, gripping each other’s arms and taking tiny steps, came forward. Then he shooed back the line of skiers to make way for us, and opened the ropes. “Let’s all go to the top.”Ībruzzo spoke to the operator of the quad chair. Just him, or …?” Abruzzo nodded at the other monks. “You mean, ride the lift? Dressed like that?” “The Dalai Lama wants to go up the mountain.” “Can we go up mountain?” the Dalai Lama asked Rutherford. It was a splendid April day, perfect for spring skiing-the temperature in the upper 50s, the slopes crowded, the snow of the kind skiers call “mashed potatoes.” The Dalai Lama and his monks looked around with keen interest at the activity, the humming lifts, the skiers coming and going, and the slopes rising into blue sky. The Dalai Lama seized on this news and began asking questions about skiing-how it was done, if it was difficult, who did it, how fast they went, how did they keep from falling down. During the luncheon, someone mentioned that Santa Fe had a ski area. On the penultimate day of his visit, the Dalai Lama had lunch with Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici, the senators from New Mexico, and Bruce King, the state’s governor. The Dalai Lama met politicians, movie stars, New Age gurus, billionaires, and Pueblo Indian leaders. During the course of the week, many people were angry with me and one fellow called me a “fucking idiot.” But I muddled through. There were scores of reporters and television crews. The press converged from several states to cover the story, which was far bigger than we anticipated. As a result, every day after lunch we took him back to Rancho Encantado for a nap. While he normally went to bed early, in Santa Fe he had to attend dinners most evenings until late. And Thondup eventually made his way to Santa Fe. Many years later, in Dharamsala, India, Thondup talked his way into a private audience with the Dalai Lama, who told Thondup that he had never forgotten the bright teenager in the back of the Pondicherry classroom, waving his hand and answering every question, while the other students sat dumbstruck with awe. One day, the Dalai Lama visited his class. Thondup made it to Nepal and from there to India, where he enrolled in a school in the southeastern city of Pondicherry with other Tibetan refugees. Thondup had escaped the Chinese invasion of Tibet as a kid, crossing the Himalayas with his family in an epic, multiyear journey by yak and horseback. The founder of the Tibetan community was a man named Paljor Thondup. The Tibetans had settled in Santa Fe because its mountains, adobe buildings, and high-altitude environment reminded them of home. ![]() I had become friendly with a group of Tibetan exiles who lived in a compound on Canyon Road, where they ran a business selling Tibetan rugs, jewelry, and religious items. In the mid ’80s, I was living in Santa Fe, N.M., making a shabby living writing magazine articles, when a peculiar assignment came my way.
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