Golden Ticket!

What a beautiful day!  Picked up my amazing teacher Laura early this morning under a gorgeous sky, sun coming up through fluffy clouds, everything pink and gold and stunning, and headed down to Stanford to see and hear the incomparable Dalai Lama.  I am in a bit of daze right now, still reeling from the fullness of the experience, not just the talk but also lunch afterward and solo chat-time on the long drive.  Pinching myself and deeply feeling my good fortune, and so so grateful to Laura for inviting me.  I so had the Golden Ticket today!

First of all, the Dalai Lama is an utterly delightful creature.   The moment he entered the room was electric.  Every person stood, hands joined in front of our hearts, to greet the good-natured imp of compassion.  Something about him, not just age, maybe the shape of his head, made me think of my father.   Yes, His Holiness is a human being like the rest of us and yet, oh dear, how very special indeed he is.  Like all of my heroes, he speaks and exudes such a genuine pleasure at being alive, such Snoopy Dance-joy.  And really, there is something so delicious about his laugh. Seated where we were, we could really observe his person, his walk, his arms, his robes, his socks, and from the monitors we could really get the expressions on his face.  Absolutely precious in all of the best senses of the word: precious like a jewel, to be cherished; precious like an animal or a child you can't get enough of, full of marvels, to be adored; precious above all like a shining model of humanity, to be admired, emulated.  Delightful.

I'm working my way through my notes, but can't seem to get the words together just yet.  That'll come soon, I imagine.  Meanwhile, I'm being compassionate with myself about my inability to articulate it all.  

Right now I am just resting in this delight, considering all that HH the DL had to say about our innate capacity for compassion, and reveling in the sequence of events that brought me here.