The light in the room was just amazing, something I hadn’t expected.
When a friend recently asked me to photograph an important ceremony at a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Seattle, I envisioned a dark, somber space, stuffy and confined. The reality was much different: A large, inviting room full of light that was positively glowing. People assembled for the ceremony smiled at me and I felt comfortable being there and moving about, making photographs.
Because yesterday was the 74th birthday of Tenzin Gyatso, the man the world better knows as the 14th Dalai Lama, this feels like a time I’d like to share one of the photographs I made that day in the Shrine Room of the monastery in Seattle. Though my pictures were done as a favor to my friend and a gift to the monastery, the monastery has kindly given me permission to post one of the pictures.
One gives, and sometimes, without expectations, one receives.
The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. In 1959 as the Chinese invaded Tibet in a bloody military crackdown, His Holiness fled to India. In the years since, the Dalai Lama has been one of our planet’s most inspiring ambassadors for peace and understanding among cultures, winning the Nobel Prize in 1989.
Despite his celebrity, the Dalai Lama (sometimes also known as Kundun, which means “Presence”) remains, by all accounts, a humble man. If you are ever having a bad day, I highly recommend a Google search of any Dalai Lama interview (for a link to one, click here) as his positive outlook and infectious giggle will lift your spirits.
One of my Tibetan friends wears the hat you see in the picture below. I’m adding this picture to this post as my way of saying: “Happy Birthday Kundun!”
