The Dalai Lama turns 70 today.
Happy birthday, Your Holiness.
PS: So I am using a photo of the Dalai Lama for my chat buddy icon today, and of course I get the best conversations out of it. Let me quote my two favorite Dalai Lama-related things.
1. The inimitable Carl Spackler: So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking. So, I’m on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one – big hitter, the Lama – long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, “Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.” And he says, “Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.” So I got that goin’ for me ... ... ... which is nice.
2. The Dalai Lama says to the hot dog vendor: "Make me one with everything."
The vendor hands the Dalai Lama a hot dog; the Dalai Lama hands over a twenty-dollar bill and waits patiently for a minute, then he asks: "What about my change?" To which the hot dog vendor replies: "Change must come from within."
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