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By Root 608 0

the next life, I would get it right: enter a profession where I did some good for humanity—become a teacher or a scientist or a social worker. Or fall in love with a wonderful man and be a full-time best-mother-in-the-world to our many adopted children. Dangling in this fleeting daydream about the laments of the past and unknowable future, something occurred to me: This life right now, as a forty-three-year-old woman from Brooklyn, New York, who had moved to Los Angeles for a job in public radio, who was temporarily residing in a remote kingdom in the Himalayas, with all the strange, wondrous, and sometimes awful chapters that had led me here, was pretty okay. With each passing day, a little more than okay.

I sat on a rickety chair right next to Rinpoche, hoping that a little of his spectral radiance might wash over me.

Sir Tenzin entered the room and the staff rose to greet him, as if they were addressing the teacher in grade school. “Hello, sir.” Sir Tenzin didn’t respond, but started speaking to Rinpoche in Dzongkha, as if he’d been expecting him to be there.

Rinpoche didn’t engage in formalities, either. “I need some rice,” he said in English.

Sir Tenzin rushed back out as quickly as he’d rushed in. In moments he returned with a small bowl of uncooked grains, from which sprouted four sticks of incense. Sir Tenzin presented this offering, formally, with both hands. Rinpoche accepted it and rose. He walked to the other side of the room, lit the incense, and sat down near the transmitter that beamed Kuzoo’s signal out to Thimphu Valley, the technical heart of the station.

Some of the Kuzooers who’d been glued to their desks now stood. A few others remained seated but turned away from their computers to watch. Pink’s mother giggled a bit, like a teenager, her cheeks flushed red. Sir Tenzin stood proudly next to Rinpoche, who closed his eyes and began to chant, presumably for the station’s well-being and success. It was a murmuring hum; it sounded like a longer version of the blessing that accompanied the cord. The incense burned bright and strong, wafting around the room with its powerful, earthy smell. Every few measures, Rinpoche would toss a few grains of rice in one direction, then the next, as if to scatter his prayers evenly around the room.

Though I didn’t understand the words, I felt moved by the ritual, by the power of Rinpoche.

The prayers continued for about fifteen minutes. A few of the Kuzooers impatiently stroked their keyboards, eager to get back to work. The station phone rang, and Pema scurried over to answer it in a whisper, lest it keep bleating in interruption. At last Rinpoche gave a final bow, indicating he was through. Grains of rice were strewn across the tattered burgundy floor covering. I had just witnessed my first puja.

As everyone resumed their positions at their keyboards and settled back into work, Rinpoche crossed the room and addressed me solemnly.

“Is everything okay?” he asked in perfect English.

What do you say to a holy man when he asks you that question?

Did he want a real answer, or was this the Bhutanese equivalent of the empty American query “How are you?” Could he tell I’d been struggling? Someone with the spiritual powers of a reincarnated lama could likely feel from a distance that I’d had a disastrous few years. I didn’t know what to say. We were in a cramped room, surrounded by young people I was supposed to be teaching. How much did I want them to know about me?

To answer Rinpoche honestly, I mustered up something to the effect that I was okay, yes, but “searching.” I’d never used that word before—I thought it vague and pretentious—but now it felt honest. What exactly I was searching for I couldn’t quite say. A plan for the future? Cleansing? Peace?

For a moment it wasn’t clear if Rinpoche had understood me. Then he called out for a piece of paper and a pen.

“Call me if you’d like to talk more,” he said. And slowly and deliberately, he scribbled down his cell phone number. In case I forgot whose number it was, he added above it in block letters: RINPOCHE.

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