While Lama Tashi was no hermit, he didn’t dawdle when he came to town, nor did he frequent the coffee shops or restaurants unless practically dragged there by the likes of Professor Hawke. As a result, no one had much idea about the practices that had given rise to his particular presence, that seemingly magical aura he emanated wherever he went. Over the years, on the few occasions he had been asked what he believed, he answered in a way designed to benefit the person asking, using words offering that most precious of all gifts: hope.

To Kathy Branton, a young woman who concealed an abused childhood beneath a prickly exterior, he said simply that he believed in loving-kindness. Had anyone else mouthed such a saccharine sentiment, Kathy would have bristled. But so unfeigned was the guru’s presence, so unreserved the compassion in his eyes, that she came away feeling curiously uplifted.

Asked by Maria Flavio, a lapsed and very guilty Catholic, he had pointed upwards to where the spring sky was a vaulted sweep of pure blue from one horizon to the other. “We are like this,” he told her. “Perfectly clear. No matter what clouds pass through, or how long they remain, they have no power to taint our true nature. That always remains pristine and radiant.”

As Maria had walked away from the encounter she felt a sublime lightness, as if a burden she had been unwittingly carrying around on her shoulders for her whole life had been suddenly and unexpectedly removed.

Sometimes, Lama Tashi didn’t use words at all. Beckoned by Darius Styles, Gwen and Angelo’s teenage son who suffered from cerebral palsy, Lama Tashi stepped over to where the boy was slumped in his wheelchair in dappled sunshine outside a convenience store, waiting for his mother. Physically, Darius’s body was misshapen but there was little wrong with his mind. He had seen Lama Tashi around town before, in his distinctive robes.

As the guru approached, Darius asked a question in sounds the lama couldn’t possibly unravel—at least, not by way of hearing. But it didn’t matter. Lama Tashi reached out, taking him by his right hand, and looked into his eyes.

To begin with Darius was awkwardly self-conscious, and not simply on account of being in the presence of a stranger wearing strange clothes. Being more sensitive than most to non-verbal communication, there was something about the simple goodness of the guru he found, at first, almost too much to bear.

But after a while, Darius looked up to meet his gaze. And when he did, it wasn’t long before he was smiling also. Still holding onto the lama with his own right hand, he shifted himself in his chair so that with his left he was able to reach up and, with the tips of his fingers, touch his heart.

Lama Tashi nodded.