T

laugh to his improbable and invaluable friend.

•           •           •

he next day the rest of the film crew flew out of the airport in
Dharamsala on a clear day. Forty-five seconds after their plane took
off, an enormous 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck in Nepal.
The devastation was enormous and the tremors were felt all the way in
Dharamsala. We thought of all the people we knew and cared for in the
region and we mourned the thousands who had died. We witnessed as
people from all around the world poured in to help the displaced, repair
the broken, and heal the thousands who were wounded. It was hard not to
think of the Dalai Lama’s comment on the first day of the dialogues that
the suffering of natural disasters we cannot stop, but so much of the rest
of our suffering we can. Adversity, illness, and death are real and
inevitable. We choose whether to add to these unavoidable facts of life
with the suffering we create in our own minds and hearts, the chosen
suffering. The more we make a different choice, to heal our own
suffering, the more we can turn to others and help to address their
suffering with the laughter-filled, tear-stained eyes of the heart. And the
more we turn away from our self-regard to wipe the tears from the eyes
of another, the more—incredibly—we are able to bear, to heal, and to
transcend our own suffering. This was their true secret to joy.