Voices wafted through the glass doors, muffled by heavy cream-colored curtains decorated with rust-hued flowers and gray-green leaves. We’d been told he was meeting a group of new arrivals on the veranda and would then come inside to talk with us. The Dalai Lama would be with us shortly. I urged my breath to calm and my hands to cease their nervous fidgeting. 

From our seats in the reception room, we could hear urgent murmuring laced with soft whimpers and punctuated by an aching wail. 

“Ya, ya.” The deep voice that responded was unmistakable and full of empathy. His Holiness welcomed the group of refugees into the warm embrace of his presence. The force of his listening filled the space like a balm as he comforted and reassured compatriots of all ages who had made the long and perilous trek out of Tibet to Dharamsala, India, to see him at least once in this lifetime. They’d traveled over frozen mountains, spent all their money, risked capture by Chinese guards and shakedowns by Nepali officials for this opportunity to glimpse their exiled leader. They yearned to receive his blessing and, maybe, to give their children the possibility of a Tibetan education. Some would settle here. Others would leave their children here to study their native language and culture among the Tibetan exile community while they themselves made the long journey back to a home where such study is forbidden. 

Inside, I sat erect on the firm edge of a beige tweed sofa, fiddling with the rolled white scarf I’d brought to offer my respect to His Holiness in the customary Tibetan way. Excitement coursed through my body, making it hard to keep my hands still. Every now and then I stretched out my fingers, willing my sweaty palms to dry. 

An arm’s length to my left on the same couch sat my father, quietly thrilled to have been invited to share such an unexpected opportunity with his itinerant daughter. I don’t think I’d ever seen my dad nervous before. It made him look younger than his sixty-two years, and softer. He’d been growing more tender anyway as time passed. The high-strung young father who had expected perfection and made me feel like mistakes were dangerous had been replaced some years back by an easygoing guy I liked a lot better. To have Dad here as my companion and witness in this moment, awaiting the blessing of the kindest man on earth, well, that in itself felt like a blessing. 

The room was large enough to hold fifty people or more and contained as many chairs—some capacious enough to draw one’s legs up and sit cross-legged within them, others straight and narrow. But the furnishings had been arranged with such attention that our seating area at one end of the room felt almost cozy, just right for intimate conversation. Mountain sunlight filtered through leaf-shaded windows softly illuminating the space. 

In one window near our end of the room, curtains had been parted to reveal the Buddha, my Buddha, the silk thangka I’d spent the last two years stitching. It hung from the window latches, precisely framed by the curtains as if it had been made for just this spot, this moment. I delighted at the way the backlighting brought it to life. Was it just the light from the window making it glow in that way? Or was it the fact that His Holiness the Dalai Lama was about to lay eyes on my creation, to offer his assessment, his advice, and (dare I hope?) his approval? 

A door swung open without warning. Dad and I scrambled to our feet, white scarves in hand, as a guard ushered the maroon-robed monk into the room. He paused before the thangka, offering a respectful greeting to the patchwork Buddha, then turned, fully present, to convene with us humans.