Last week His Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama of Tibet returned from a trip to Japan. This brought the possibility of a public audience. So many people want to meet him, that a private audience is near impossible. The small community of foreign visitors was buzzing the prospect of meeting him.

On Friday, I went to the Tibetan Security office to find out if a date had been set fo the audience. I was told to come back on Monday, and then again on Tuesday. On my third visit, I found people queueing up to register, although not date had been fixed. On Wednesday we found out that the audience would be on Friday, on Thursday we found out that it would be at 8 AM.
On Friday morning I met some friends and we joined the flow of people walking to his residence near the temple. Hundreds of people gathered outside of the Dalai Lama’s compound. We were searched once by the Tibetan security, and then given a brief patting down by the Indian police. Once through the gate, we found ourselves in a beautiful garden next to His Holiness’ house. The crowd in the garden was very diverse: travellers from many countries, European Buddhist monks, Indians, newly arrived Tibetans, nuns from Taiwan.
As I stood chatting quietly, the crowd began to move. From where I stood I could see the Dalai Lama smiling as he greeted the first of the visitors. As people began to filter back down from their brief encounter, I noticed that they were much more quiet.
As I neared the front of the line, a monk placed a white scarf around my neck. I watched the people in front of me shake the Dalai Lama’s hand and move on. Then, there I stood. I took his hand in both of mine. I think I had an unconscious belief that he would recognize that I was different from the other visitors, and say something. Of course, nothing like that happened. I looked into his smiling eyes, and there was a brief moment before he gently moved his hand to guide me on. Next, another monk gave out red threads, which are then worn around the neck.
Later that day, I discovered that I had lost the red thread. I was sad, since I wanted to keep it as a reminder of the meeting. Then it struck me, that it’s rather silly to mourn the loss of a gift given to you by a Buddhist monk. Where was my detachment?