I traveled extensively throughout central and southeast asia in 1993 and 1994. I had the opportunity to visit Lhasa, Tibet. The Tibetan plateau is a big buckle in the Earth�s crust and most of it is above 13,000 feet. In Chinese, Tibet is know as Xijang which literally means �western treasure house�. The Chinese have occupied Tibet now for 49 years and have done their best to defile and loot the country and to humiliate its people.
I had the opportunity to visit the Potala Palace, the winter palace of the Dalai Lama, and the Norbulingka, the summer palace. I strolled the grounds of these temples and felt so incredibly lucky that I was able to be there. The Dalai Lama himself cannot stroll the grounds of his own palace. I also felt that the world was so lucky that the Chinese only destroyed 90 percent of Tibet�s temples and not 100 percent. Traveling in Tibet is incredibly gut wrenching because you begin wrestling with a hatred of the Chinese and feeling an incredible sense of empathy for the plight of the Tibetans.
Later in my trip I had the opportunity to return to India and visit the mountainous region known as Himachal Pradesh. The town of Dharamsala is a hot dusty town on the northern Indian plain. Immediately above it, the Himalaya thrusts out of the Earth in a massive fault. The Indian plate is smashing into the Asian plate and the Earth�s crust is shoved into the sky in a long, slow collision that is pushing the Earth�s crust skyward more and more every year. The Tibetan plateau is thrust upward. Rains and glaciers and gravity are slowly trying to tear it down at the same time in the eternal battle between tectonics and weathering.
Perched on the edge of the rising Asian plate is the little former British hill station of McLeod Ganj. It is here that the Dalai Lama has fled. The Chinese have almost pushed him off the plate, but not quite! I had the opportunity to sit in a Vipassana Meditation Course for 10 days. The center operates under the direction of S.N. Goenka, a Burmese buddhist master. I meditated for 10 hours a day for 10 days and did not speak to anyone the whole time except for a few questions to the instructor. It was an introduction to the Burmese interpretation of the teachings of the Buddha and his method of enlightenment. My girlfriend Michelle took a Tibetan meditation retreat at the same time that was an introduction to their colorful form of Buddhism.
After the course, we investigated and learned that the Dalai Lama had returned to town and that he was giving a public audience. We signed up at his office and awaited the day. Early on the morning of the audience we went to the current residence of the Dalai Lama and got in line. Looking back on it now after 9/11 it doesn�t seem so strange, but at the time it seemed to pretty intense security. All the men were subjected to a �crotch grab� and all the women a �boob squeeze�. Not too long before a Tamil woman had presented former Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi with a floral arrangement wearing high explosives tucked under her sari and blew herself and himself to bits.
We went to the end of what looked to be a long line. We were trying to figure out if any of the bald maroon clad monks was the Dalai Lama. We soon discovered that we were actually at the front of the line because standing in front of us was none other than the Dalai Lama himself. He had come out of a building accompanied by another identically dressed monk. There were about 5 or 6 people between myself and the Dalai Lama. He was standing on a step and he began receiving us one by one. You got to shake his hand and have a couple of words with him. You were not supposed to try to have a conversation with him or ask him something like �what is the meaning of life?� or something like that. And he wasn�t doing autographs either.
I watched as he more or less shook their hands, they said a few words and then the second monk presented the �shaker� with a red string that had the Dalai Lama�s personal knot in it. Because the Dalai Lama was on a step, he was taller than all the �shakers�. He would sort of look down at them and nod his head. As I approached him and started to outstretch my hand, he looked out and saw that he was looking at my chest. As he rose his head, he realized that I was considerably taller than him even though he was on a step. He broke into a big smile and he laughed, as Tibetans often do. I was all ready to say �tashi delek� which is the Tibetan greeting, and I chuckled with him before getting out my greeting. We shook hands as he said �Tashi Delek� to me and at that moment I wished that I did have that question although I don�t know what it would have been. I reluctantly moved to the second monk and he gave me the string and then I moved on.
As I left the grounds I felt that it must have been somehow auspicious to have made the Dalai Lama laugh. What did that mean? I kept thinking over and over �the last person I shook hands with was the Dalai Lama!� I was thinking that once I shook hands with someone else, I would never be able to say that again. I thought, �I think I�ll try not to shake anyone�s hand for awhile�. Michelle and I ran into some of her friends from her retreat. She motioned over to one of the guys she knew, a young Israeli. She introduced him to me and he outstretched his hand. A moment of shock came over me, �If I shake his hand I won�t be able to say the last person I shook hands with was the Dalai Lama ever again!� I sort of balked on the right hand and tried to offer my left hand with an explanation, realizing that I was being sort of a jerk �but I had a reason!�. He ended up deciding he didn't want to shake my hand at all.. I lost my special feeling about the handshake. The Israeli felt a little miffed I had been so reluctant to shake his hand he probably felt I was just being unfriendly. He became unfriendly to me and I felt like kind of a jerk. I realized that holding on to the handshake was impossible, it was a form of attachment. The proper thing to do with the handshake was to pass it on to others and not try to keep it for yourself. You get to keep it by giving it away, by trying not to give it away, you lose it. That was the lesson that the Dalai Lama taught me that day.
Was it my reward for making him laugh?
Now, back to Philosophy 101 and the tree in the forest. If you have some amazing experiences in your life and they fade away in your memory and you never write them down or share them, do they still exist?