Getting inside was the easy part, I’m holding the aspiring Buddhist’s equivalent of a backstage pass.

The monk at the entrance to the Dalai Lama’s Tsuglagkhang Temple takes one look at the little saffron-colored book with the title “Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva” stenciled in silver lettering on the cover and wordlessly waves me through the gates. Inside the temple, diffused morning sunlight streams through large windows giving the room a peaceful glow. I pause at the entrance to try and figure out what to do next. Buddhist followers shuffle solemnly past me and take their places on folded yoga mats or small cushions scattered on the red carpet around the large room. Everyone is holding a copy of the little yellow book.

The Dalai Lama’s ornately-carved throne in the middle of the Temple exerts a sort of gravity on everything within sight of it and I find myself walking towards the front of the crowd to a cramped patch of open carpet among the other Buddhists sitting lotus-syle on the ground. I squeeze in beside a woman silently studying an ancient text and wait for His Holiness to arrive and begin lecturing about the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva.

The crowd keeps growing and now the little gaps between the people already seated on the floor are filled by new arrivals like bricks being added to a wall. Realizing that things are about to get a whole lot less roomy, I pull my feet in even tighter to make more room on the floor for somebody else.

With my feet now almost directly beneath my nose, I notice a familiar and unwelcome smell. I try to think of the last time I took a shower since I’ve been in India—maybe one or two overnight bus rides ago? » Read More