Episode 1: The Challenge

These practices didn't come to us easily.

It's worth taking a moment to step back and pick up that story.

It's 1959.

We're in a high mountain pass in the Himalaya Mountains at 18,000 feet with a band of travelers who are not fit nor equipped for this journey.

The 24-year-old Dalai Lama is among this group.

He fled his palace in the capital city of Lhasa because tensions with the Chinese occupiers were coming to a boil.

He's with his fellow monks, administrators, family members.

He hoped to settle into a remote village in Tibet until tensions could calm.

The group had traveled 700 miles by horseback over severe terrain through extreme weather with no news from the capital, but now friendly horsemen were approaching.

The 14th Dalai Lama was selected to be the spiritual leader of Tibet at two years old.

A bit of a mischievous child, he sometimes chafed at the strict training in Tibetan Buddhism he'd received growing up.

But on this day, he would lean fully into these teachings.

The scouts now told the Dalai Lama that the Chinese launched an attack on Lhasa the very morning after he had escaped.

Many were dead, including monks.

Likely, had he stayed, the Dalai Lama himself would have been killed or captured.

Stephen Talty, in his book Escape from the Land of Snows, writes that the Dalai Lama found it difficult at first to comprehend what he was hearing.

Then he experienced a violent sympathy for the weak.

Talty writes, He closed his eyes and recited to himself Buddha's teaching, One's enemy can be one's greatest teacher.

It was horribly difficult.

The anger rose like bile in his throat.

The savagery of his young self wished to be released.

The Tibetan Buddhists believe compassion must even be extended to oppressors for the karmic burden they are taking upon themselves and to preserve the quality of our own minds.

The Dalai Lama accepted the weight of this teaching at that moment.

He also realized he had to get out of Tibet.

It was now a race for the border of India.

These practices didn't come to us easily.

It's worth taking a moment to step back and pick up that story.

It's 1959.

We're in a high mountain pass in the Himalaya Mountains at 18,000 feet with a band of travelers who are not fit nor equipped for this journey.

The 24-year-old Dalai Lama is among this group.

He fled his palace in the capital city of Lhasa because tensions with the Chinese occupiers were coming to a boil.

He's with his fellow monks, administrators, family members.

He hoped to settle into a remote village in Tibet until tensions could calm.

The group had traveled 700 miles by horseback over severe terrain through extreme weather with no news from the capital, but now friendly horsemen were approaching.

The 14th Dalai Lama was selected to be the spiritual leader of Tibet at two years old.

A bit of a mischievous child, he sometimes chafed at the strict training in Tibetan Buddhism he'd received growing up.

But on this day, he would lean fully into these teachings.

The scouts now told the Dalai Lama that the Chinese launched an attack on Lhasa the very morning after he had escaped.

Many were dead, including monks.

Likely, had he stayed, the Dalai Lama himself would have been killed or captured.

Stephen Talty, in his book Escape from the Land of Snows, writes that the Dalai Lama found it difficult at first to comprehend what he was hearing.

Then he experienced a violent sympathy for the weak.

Talty writes, He closed his eyes and recited to himself Buddha's teaching, One's enemy can be one's greatest teacher.

It was horribly difficult.

The anger rose like bile in his throat.

The savagery of his young self wished to be released.

The Tibetan Buddhists believe compassion must even be extended to oppressors for the karmic burden they are taking upon themselves and to preserve the quality of our own minds.

The Dalai Lama accepted the weight of this teaching at that moment.

He also realized he had to get out of Tibet.

It was now a race for the border of India.