The Dalai Lama Acknowledges That He's Met

For Me The First Great Joy Of Traveling Is Simply The Luxury Of Leaving All My Beliefs And Certainties At Home, And Seeing Everything I Thought I Knew In A Different Light, And From A Crooked Angle.

From The Beginning, I've Stressed That Home Is Something Internal, Invisible, Portable, Especially For Those Of Us With Roots In Many Physical Places; We Have To Root Ourselves In Our Passions, Our Values And Our Deepest Friends. My Home, I've Always Felt, Lies In The Songs And Novels That I Love, In The Wife And Mother That I'm Never Far Away From, In The Monastery To Which I've Been Returning For 25 Years.

A Lack Of Affiliation May Mean A Lack Of Accountability, And Forming A Sense Of Commitment Can Be Hard Without A Sense Of Community. Displacement Can Encourage The Wrong Kinds Of Distance, And If The Nationalism We See Sparking Up Around The Globe Arises From Too Narrow And Fixed A Sense Of Loyalty, The Internationalism That's Coming To Birth May Reflect Too Roaming And Undefined A Sense Of Belonging.

[the Dalai Lama] Told Me Some Years Ago, "i've Made Every Concession To China, And I've Been As Open And Tolerant As I Could, And Still Things Get Worse In Tibet." If You Look At It From One Point Of View, As He Himself Says, His Monastic Position Of Forbearance And Nonviolence Hasn't Reaped Any Benefits. And Yet, He's Thinking In Terms Of The Long Term, Of Centuries.

Comedy Is Nothing More Than Tragedy Deferred.