I had the immense priviledge of spending three days with the Dalai-Lama last week.
Obviously not one to one, I took part in a 2 day seminar and attended his public talk on the "Art of Happiness" on Sunday morning, both arranged at the occasion of his visit to Klagenfurt in Austria.
Since I already missed twice the opportunity to see him in France, I was thinking how unlikely it was that of all the places to live (after London, Paris or Singapore), I would finally end up in exactly the right place.
"If you can't go the mountain, let the mountain come to you" one might say.
The most amazing thing during these 3 days was to see how profoundly human the Dalai-Lama is. He is of course famous for his deep sense of humour but what is unique is his ability to laugh at himself and not take himself seriously. It is this simplicity and this humility which has really impressed and touched me the most.
The governor of Carinthia (who I must admit despite our very different political opinions seems to be very supportive of the Tibetan cause - which gets to show you always have something in common with people, even when you first believe the contrary) put it in quite a nice way during the final speech: "the Pope has the papamobile but you simply walk amongst the people".
