The Open Road by Pico Iyer
I am rereading The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Pico Iyer, a journalist and novelist, has known the Dalai Lama for decades, first meeting him with his father when he was an adolescent. In this impressionistic biography he peels back layers of the Dalai Lama to present him in nine different facets. The first chapter—the first facet—is The Conundrum.
In it I found this, a kind of poem:
We are not talking about God
We are not talking about Nirvana
We are only talking about how to become
a more compassionate human being.
At times he pulls out a piece of tissue
and polishes his glasses
A metaphor
He has taken off his watch
with its sturdy stainless-steel band.
Know exactly how much time you have
he might be saying
and use that time for some good.
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