HH 14th Dalai Lama
Towards end of 1995 after we had returned from Tibet, we had a scheduled sit down with HH 14th Dalai Lama. We had a couple of jobs to do during the meeting including passing on small gifts we had received from Tibetans we had met along the way, small tokens from their lives that they wanted to pass on through us to HH, knowing they would likely never see him person.
We had also put together a set of interview questions, submitted to the Office in advance. There were I thought, some curly questions in there, and HH answered every one, going well past our thirty allotted minutes. I’ll include a copy of the original questions under the ‘Full Frame’ section shortly where I talk in more depth about images, as sadly the tapes were lost in a theft after we arrived in London.
As annoying as it was to lose the tapes, I have the moment fixed in my mind and was hugely thankful for the opportunity in the first place. I file that loss under ‘non-attachment and the impermanence of life’.
One answer in particular did stick in my mind. I asked, ‘We always see the Dalai Lama as a happy person, often laughing, but what makes the Dalai Lama cry?’.
After a long pause, and with great solemnity he answered, very quietly, ‘Suffering.’
During the week I shadowed HH around Dharamsala as he went to work being the head of a nation in exile. He lead prayers, visited parts of the community for meetings and updates and met with newly arrived refugees who had undertaken the long journey from Tibet as refugees. They had trekked across the Himalaya and into India mostly via Nepal often arriving in very poor condition, but all had arrived with a sense of excitement and anticipation knowing they would be granted a brief audience with HH. Compassion in action.
Photography
© Bruce Mitchell
Residents of Dharamshala begin to line up ahead of a regular event where the Dalai Lama greats new arrivals from Tibet, listens to their concerns and offers blessings.
The queue of devotees is hundreds of people long, with recent arrivals prioritised at the front of the queue. Each person is given a small envelope of prayers and other items as a gift from HH to mark the occasion.
