My first visit to this tiny Himalayan fastness began with a twelve hour train journey from New Delhi. I was met at Pathenkot by one of His Holiness’ vehicles and whisked away for several hours up precipitous mountain roads to Dharamsala. I had been invited because of my friendship with Fr. Bede Griffiths, who has an ashram in South India and is well known for his openness to dialogue with seekers from all traditions, religions and none, and also my friendly ties with Sr. Pascaline Coff and Dr. Wayne Teasdale of the North American Board for East-West Dialogue.

These people and many others, especially those who have been fortunate enough to participate in the Inter Monastic Exchange Program set up by the Dalai Lama and His Holiness Pope John Paul II, have blazed the trail and, like Fr. Thomas Merton before them, come to be with their Buddhist brothers and sisters, not as research scholars but as pilgrims, anxious not just to obtain facts about other religions, but to drink from the ancient sources of monastic vision and experience.

Like Merton, we who have shared in this journey of communication in depth, across lines that have hitherto divided religious and monastic traditions, see this course as not only possible and desirable, but most important for the destinies of 20th century people. Actually being with and living under the same monastic conditions as my Buddhist hosts, gave me a strong sense of reverence and hope for the qualities of tranquility, peace, patient waiting and meditation found in these monasteries in and around Dharamsala.

There is, in each monastery and nunnery, a sense of what de Mello used to call “enoughness”. Monks are happy to continue their humble embroidery work which brings in a modest income, and the nuns remain content to struggle down the steep mountain slopes to wash their few clothes in the stream in the valley below.

We can no longer afford to simply read and study about such a life style, but where possible we need to experience it in its traditional milieu.

My lectures to six selected monasteries and one nunnery became simpler and simpler as I discovered my listeners knew very little of Christianity, and so I was able to adopt a more relaxed and friendly attitude, encouraging questions which were numerous. Even the youngest novice monk is used to sitting still and concentrating for several hours at once and these lectures were no different.

One of the highlights of my visit was a special gathering of their senior Lamas—Geshes (Doctors of Philosophy) and Rinpoches (reincarnate Lamas mostly)—towards the end of my time there. It was an extraordinary mix of reverential listening with open and enthusiastic dialogue. There were well over 100 monks there, many of whom are men of deep insight and high “attainment” and all of whom have been thoroughly trained in the science of dialectic debate.

At gatherings such as these I realize we have far to go in understanding the meanings we place on words and how easily they can confuse and perhaps sometimes even get in the way of fruitful dialogue. But there is so much that we have in common on the experiential and spiritual level as well as in the growing desire we have to work together to build a more peaceful world and protect what parts of the natural environment we still have left.

As Panikkar has said: “We are the chasm and we are likewise the bridge.” What we need to recover is our original unity, Merton’s sentiments which have an even more urgent ring about them for us men and women of this century.

Moving from monastery to monastery, and when talking to His Holiness, I was struck with their general idea that at least some of their monastics will have to move into the fields of education and caring for the sick and poor. Since the Inter Monastic Exchange Program has begun, and thanks to the example provided by Mother Teresa and her Sisters, there has begun a gradual movement to realizing this new direction for their Religious.

The fact is that not all monks and nuns in Tibetan monasteries are engaged in meditation all of every day. This is something only a certain percentage, perhaps even a minority undertake. And so, as this small yet successful band of refugees takes its place in and adapts to the new world of living beyond the mountainous walls of Tibet, this could certainly be a direction we could assist with from our long experience with all manner of the corporal works of mercy.

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, a large and fit man of over fifty, met me on the verandah of his bungalow. He has taken the cause of world peace to his heart, and does so with humility and constancy, thus earning for himself and his people the Nobel Peace Prize which he received in early December in Oslo.

In spite of the documented evidence showing the brutality of the Chinese occupation of his country, this “simple monk” as he calls himself, bears these opposing forces no ill will and is always encouraging his people to remain patient and positive in the same way.

His own life is clearly one of interior discipline, total dedication and effort relived every day. He is certainly a man of the world and, like all great spiritual leaders, offers the world a way out of its dilemmas: the way of Buddha, of Jesus, of St. Francis and Ghandi, the way of non-violence, of peace and love. He is totally confident that in the end this way will prevail, and that also his people will return to their homeland in Tibet, so that it will once again become “the spiritual heart of Asia on the roof of the world”.

It seemed to me as I took leave of my gentle hosts at the Nechung Monastery, that Tibet is not simply at the heart of Asia, but could even represent for the westerner a part of his deepest and innermost self.

To the extent that we support and assist the legitimate desires of the Tibetan people, we are helping ourselves but, to the extent that we ignore or positively oppose those humble and legitimate yearnings we, in some way, do violence to ourselves.