HH the 14th Dalai Lama was conferring the 1991 Kalachakra Initiation for World Peace and eminent lamas from all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism were offering teachings on the nature of mind. New York City’s usual jostle and heated tempo had dissolved as if by magic—everything seemed much less pressing. The amphitheater of Madison Square Garden and local venues had been transformed into a Himalayan hidden land…

How does a nice Jewish girl, raised in the sheltered suburbs of New York, convey to a Tibetan Buddhist master her culturally conditioned phobic reaction to the very sound of the word nun and its implied austerity? I can’t say why monk doesn’t sound as forbidding, lackluster, or as humorless as nun, but I do know my discomfort with the word was an expression of fear that had no real basis.

My 7:30 a.m. flight to Phaplu was on hold—its time for departure anyone’s guess—and all afternoon flights at Tribuvan were cancelled. My useless thoughts scurried across the deserted lobby and crashed into the stacked metal rows of empty baggage carts. I sat on my bags and prayed for a clerk to appear behind the Nepal Airlines check-in desk. Nepal is the ideal country for teaching Westerners patience.

With thousands in attendance and tight security around HH the Dalai Lama, how could there not be ostentatious displays of ego on the hallowed ground? All that I was experiencing at Lerab Ling (the good and the bad) was an expression of karmic force, and how I chose to react would create more karma accordingly. Lama Khyenno! It lit a fire under me to go beyond karma. I missed the rural quiet...