Bridging Worlds: Lessons from the Himalayas

What my journey through India's Buddhist heartland taught me about ancient wisdom for modern life and leadership

View of the Himalayas from McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala

The monsoon rains fell for days in Dharamsala, shrouding the Himalayas in an impenetrable white fog. From my hotel room window, where I should have seen snow-capped peaks rising like ancient guardians, there was only blankness—a white curtain that seemed to mock the romantic visions of the Himalayas I'd carried from countless stories and descriptions. But as I sat watching that fog, something shifted. The absence of the expected view became its own teaching: beauty exists whether we can see it or not, and perhaps the most profound landscapes are the ones we cultivate within.

I had come to Dharamsala at the end of June to witness something historic: the 90th birthday celebrations of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, where thousands of people would gather to celebrate a key milestone in the life of the spiritual leader and Nobel Peace laureate. What I hadn't expected was how this journey would challenge everything I thought I knew about leadership, devotion, resilience, and what it means to bridge ancient wisdom with contemporary life.

Arrival test and the big filter

The journey began, as many meaningful experiences do, with complete disruption. At Delhi's airport, our flight to Dharamsala was delayed, then delayed again, then threatened with cancellation altogether. The monsoon season had settled in with stubborn determination, and fog was grounding flights across northern India. My fellow retreat-goers and I found ourselves in that peculiar limbo of modern travel, caught between the illusion of control that airline schedules provide and the humbling reality of weather systems that care nothing for our plans.

In that moment of uncertainty, I realized I was already being tested. Could I practice the equanimity I had come to learn about, or would I default to the familiar patterns of frustration and complaint that characterize ordinary life? Buddhist philosophy teaches that suffering arises from our attachment to how we think things should be. Here, before I had even reached my destination, the curriculum had begun.

Our immersion retreat organizers, Anahita and Carol-Anne, described arriving in Dharamsala as passing through "the big filter." If we're not fully committed to coming to this sacred land, they explained, we will face obstacles. Obstacles come anyway, but if we're meant to be there, we will be. There is a filter to pass that tests the strength of our intention, our readiness to receive what this highly charged place has to offer.

Modern leadership theory has much to say about adaptability and resilience, but there's something qualitatively different about the kind of presence required when truly nothing is within your control. In our hyperconnected world, where every delay can be tracked on apps and every inconvenience can be aired on social media, the simple act of waiting—really waiting, without distraction or complaint has become a radical practice.

Against all odds, our flight made it through. But the lesson had already been delivered: how we arrive anywhere becomes practice for how we meet everything else.

An unexpected new moon blessing

An audience with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet (Photo Courtesy of OHHDL)

A few days before the main birthday celebrations, I found myself standing in line outside the Office of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama through what can only be described as a series of fortunate accidents. A friend had an appointment for an audience, and through a combination of good karma and administrative flexibility, I managed to join the list. The Dalai Lama turned 90 surrounded by thousands of followers, who arrived to the Himalayan town of McLeod Ganj where the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism lives, yet I was among a smaller group who would meet him personally before the larger festivities began.

There was a palpable energy in the room as soon as I walked in, flanked by my dear friends Naheima Sears, a Zen Buddhist chaplain and superwoman entrepreneur, and Michele Leow, one of my teachers and a scholar of Vajra Yoga & Tibetan Buddhism. Between these two women I felt like a humble, giddy student, totally excited. I just couldn't believe this was happening. Here was a figure revered by millions, someone whose teachings on compassion have influenced everyone from neuroscientists to heads of state, and he was offering personal blessings to each and every person in the room. As I approached, one of His Holiness’s ministers translates into Tibetan my name and the country I come from: an act of true seeing us as individuals even among the interconnected system and web of life we are part of. And then, no grand gestures, no lengthy pronouncements: just a hand placed on mine, a direct gaze, and a blessing offered as if I were the most important person in existence at that moment. It was a shot of love and compassion straight to my heart, a blast of loving energy so embodied it defies description.

Recent neuroscience research has begun to illuminate what contemplatives have long known about the power of presence. Studies suggest that cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make a person more empathetic to other peoples' mental states. But experiencing this quality of attention in-person reveals something that brain scans cannot capture: the profound impact of encountering someone who has spent decades training their mind to be fully present with whatever arises. This presence is the natural expression of a mind that has been refined through contemplative practice into an instrument of pure awareness and care.

In our attention economy where focus has become our scarcest resource, this kind of presence feels revolutionary. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, at 90, receives visitors multiple times a week, greeting each person with the same quality of attention he offered me. It's a masterclass in what leadership scholars call "authentic presence"—but elevated to a level that transforms the very concept of power from dominance to service. The dharma talks I attended throughout the week reinforced this understanding: all contemplative practice and all inner cultivation is ultimately in service to others. We don't develop wisdom and compassion to hoard them for ourselves, but to become vessels through which healing can flow into the world.

The devotion of the displaced: lessons from exile

On the morning of the Dalai Lama's birthday, when the main temple was too crowded for me to enter, I found myself in a neighboring monastery watching the celebrations live-streamed on big screens alongside hundreds of Tibetans. The woman sitting next to me a nun shared with me that she had 35 years ago, fled Tibet and walked by foot for 30 days to cross the Himalayas, arriving in India. When I asked if she had been afraid during that journey, she replied simply: "No, I am Tibetan." Her response contained multitudes. Here was someone who had left behind everything: her family, her homeland, language dominance, cultural context, yet maintained an unshakeable sense of identity and purpose. The Tibetan experience of exile offers a profound case study in what psychologists call "post-traumatic growth"—the way some individuals and communities emerge from adversity with enhanced capabilities and deeper wisdom.

During my week in Dharamsala, I was immersed in the full spectrum of Tibetan Buddhist culture and wisdom. I attended dharma talks where monks skilled in translating ancient philosophy for modern minds shared teachings on consciousness, compassion, and the nature of reality. I visited the Parliament in Exile, where the Tibetan government continues to operate nearly seven decades after losing their homeland. At the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, I saw manuscripts dating back to the 10th century, feeling the weight of knowledge preserved against all odds.

Perhaps most moving was the Tibet Museum, which tells the unvarnished story of the Chinese occupation and the 1959 uprising that forced the young Dalai Lama to flee Tibet. He has never returned. The museum is a testament to resilience; not bitter or vengeful, but clear-eyed about history while maintaining hope for reconciliation. I also had the extraordinary experience of meeting the Oracle of the Dalai Lama, who enters trance states to channel prophetic guidance for the Tibetan people. Watching this ancient practice continue in the modern world felt like witnessing the continuity of the sacred across time.

What's remarkable is how this community has maintained not just their cultural practices but their fundamental orientation toward compassion, even toward those who displaced them. The Dalai Lama himself has consistently advocated for dialogue with China rather than armed resistance, embodying what conflict resolution experts call "principled negotiation"—holding firm to core values while remaining open to relationship.

The exile experience also illuminates the difference between home as geography and home as a way of being in the world. Without their physical homeland, Tibetans have created home through practice, community, and shared values. This understanding offers a template for creating belonging that transcends location—something essential in our increasingly mobile world.

On my last rainy evening in Dharamsala, I had a ginger-lemon-honey tea with Loten Namling, a Tibetan folk singer whose story embodies this complex relationship to home and identity. Born in Kham, a region whose people are considered the warriors of Tibet, Loten is the love child of a monk and a nun, raised in secret until his parents' families accepted the blessing of his existence. His mother, who couldn't sing publicly because of her vows, sang to him at home, planting the seeds of a musical journey that would take him around the world. Through song, he carries his people's traditions, their pain, and their unextinguishable hope.

Despite living in Switzerland for 35 years, he carries no passport. "I am Tibetan," he told me, his braided white beard catching the light. "How can I advocate for my people while under the protection of a passport that gives me access to the world?" He travels with refugee papers, getting visas the hard way. As an activist, he once dragged a black coffin as he walked overland from Bern to Geneva in protest of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. His integrity in refusing Swiss citizenship speaks to a different kind of freedom: the freedom that comes from unwavering commitment to one's people and principles.

Women's wisdom and Dolma Ling nunnery

One afternoon, we visited Dolma Ling Nunnery, one of the first women-run institutions where women could pursue the highest levels of Buddhist education—the Geshema degree, equivalent to a PhD in Buddhist philosophy. The contrast with the male-dominated monastic tradition was immediate and profound. Where traditional monasteries often buzzed with competitive intellectual energy, the nunnery emanated a different quality of power.

The nuns received with big smiles and grace, sharing their stories with openness: some had chosen the dharma path to avoid the complications of marriage and family, others saw monasticism as their best access to education and spiritual development. The abbess herself had walked from Tibet, arriving with nothing but determination and rising through decades of study to lead this institution.

Walking through the immaculate grounds, I found myself imagining what our institutions might look like if designed around these principles of collaboration and care. In a world where female leadership remains undervalued, the nunnery offered a glimpse of what becomes possible when women create their own structures for learning and growth.

(For those who feel moved to support their work, the Dolma Ling Nunnery is currently accepting donations to support building a house for the eldest nuns to have their own rooms and toilets rather than sharing space in the over-capacity dormitories: https://tnp.org/nuns/dolmaling/)

Indra’s Net: interconnection in action

Buddhist cosmology includes the image of Indra's Net, an infinite web of jewels, each reflecting all the others, symbolizing the fundamental interconnectedness of existence. And this didn’t feel like just a philosophical theory during my time in India; it was lived experience. Synchronicities abounded: my friend Alia, whose visa had been denied and couldn't join the trip, dreamed that we received a blessing from the Dalai Lama together the night before I shared her the news on the phone. People I hadn’t seen in years appeared in my text messages to show me my blind spots. Strangers offered insights that echoed questions I’d been carrying privately.

These moments of alignment point to something that systems theorists and complexity scientists now understand: the world operates more like a living system than a mechanical one. Small actions can have large consequences, and patterns of meaning emerge from what might appear to be random events.

In organizational contexts, this translates to Peter Senge’s models on systems thinking and the ability to see connections, understand feedback loops, and recognize that problems rarely have single causes or simple solutions. Leaders who develop this capacity become skilled at working with emergence rather than trying to control outcomes, at creating conditions for positive change rather than mandating specific behaviors.

The interconnectedness principle also challenges hyper-individualism that pervades contemporary culture. Here, success becomes less about personal achievement and more about contribution to the larger web of relationships and communities we're part of.

From Dharamsala to Ladakh: The silk road of consciousness

Nubra Velley, Ladakh

The second part of my journey took me from the Tibetan Buddhist refuge of Dharamsala to Ladakh, a high-altitude desert that sits at the crossroads of Central Asian cultures. If Dharamsala represented depth—a diving deep into contemplative wisdom—Ladakh represented breadth: the beautiful complexity that emerges when different traditions meet and influence each other.

Ladakh has been shaped by the ancient Silk Road, the network of trade routes that connected East and West for over a millennium. Here, Buddhist monasteries perch on cliffs overlooking valleys where Islamic mosques call the faithful to prayer. The landscape itself tells a story of cultures in conversation, from Kashmir to Pakistan, from Tibet to Nepal and beyond.

The stark beauty of the high altitude mountains and the high desert, where barley fields create green ribbons in an otherwise moonscape terrain, mirrors a kind of cultural resilience. Life flourishes here not despite the harsh conditions but because of the wisdom developed over centuries for thriving in challenging environments. Like the cultures that have learned to coexist in this remote place, true innovation often emerges not from isolation but from the creative tension of boundaries where different worlds meet.

Economics of the heart

One of my most profound teachings in Ladakh came not in a temple or meditation hall but on a windswept mountain pass at 17,482 feet. We were driving to Taglang-La, one of the highest motorable roads in the world, when we encountered a man walking on the road in the rain. Krishnam is a yoga teacher from Bangalore who had been traveling only by foot across India, Nepal, and Bhutan since 2022, visiting schools and villages to teach yoga and promote wellness.

My driver, Saleem—a 22-year-old from a town in Ladakh called Drass (and the second coldest inhabited place on Earth) insisted we turn back to offer the man a ride. Though he refused the ride as part of his commitment, we wanted to help. And despite earning so little each month, Saleem immediately gave Krishnam one of his winter jackets, and I gave him my lunch. I watched this exchange with growing amazement: here was someone who had almost nothing in material terms, yet gave freely from a place of genuine abundance.

This interaction illuminated something that the 91-year-old economist Amartya Sen has written about extensively—the distinction between income poverty and capability poverty. Saleem possessed what Sen might call "functionings": the ability to live with dignity, to exercise agency, to participate meaningfully in his community. His generosity flowed not from surplus wealth but from a rich understanding of what it means to be human in relationship with others.

Saleem's spontaneous generosity embodied what His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaches about interdependence: the recognition that our wellbeing is inseparable from the wellbeing of others. In a world increasingly divided by inequality, this wisdom offers a different lens through which to understand both leadership and prosperity.

The sacred in the everyday

Perhaps nowhere was the integration of practical wisdom more evident than in the road signs created by the Border Roads Organization (BRO), the Indian military unit responsible for maintaining mountain highways. Instead of standard safety warnings, these signs peppered thousands of kilometers of road offering nuggets of life philosophy, with a touch of humor: "If you are married, divorce speed." "Time is money but life is precious." “If you want to survive this altitude, you need to change your attitude.” "Roads are made for journeys, not destinations." (I can assure you, someone had a lot of fun writing these signs!)

These signs represent something that our culture often struggles with: the integration of depth wisdom into daily life. We tend to compartmentalize the sacred and the mundane, relegating spiritual insights to meditation retreats while conducting our daily affairs according to entirely different principles.

But the BRO signs suggest another possibility: that every moment offers an opportunity for awakening, that wisdom can be woven into the most practical concerns. For me it’s a reminder that the sacred and mundane are not separate realms but different expressions of the same reality. Every interaction becomes a chance for practice, every challenge an invitation to deepen our understanding.

Coming home

As I sit writing this back home in Lisbon integrating those sixteen days in India, I'm struck by how every external journey ultimately becomes an internal one. The mountain passes and monastery visits, the teachings from masters and the grace of strangers…all of these experiences point back to the fundamental question of how we want to live.

The Tibetans I met had left their homeland but found a home in practices, values, and community. The monks and nuns I encountered had given up conventional markers of success but discovered a different kind of wealth. The Ladakhis who shared their food and shelter held an abundance that had nothing to do with material accumulation.

These examples show me a different way of understanding human flourishing. We can choose to be a culture obsessed with optimization, productivity, and material success. And we can choose to be a culture that embodies values that can't be quantified: presence, generosity, compassion, and wisdom.

This doesn't mean rejecting the material world or adopting a philosophy of spiritual bypassing. Rather, it suggests the possibility of what Buddhist teacher Sulak Sivaraksa calls "right livelihood,” an approach to work and life that honors both practical needs and deeper values, integrating contemplative wisdom with engaged action in the world.

The invitation

Himalayan views in Ladakh

If you’ve read this far, I thank you for doing so.

The questions I'm left with, and that I offer to you, dear reader, are how we might bridge worlds more consciously.

How do we bring contemplative wisdom into contemporary challenges? How do we create organizations and communities that honor both efficiency and care and that value both innovation and tradition?

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, in his 90 years, has become a master of this kind of bridge-building. The year 2025 has been designated as the Year of Compassion as a tribute to his lifelong work in demonstrating that ancient wisdom and modern engagement are not opposites, but partners.

The path forward likely includes what the late Thich Nhat Hanh called “Engaged Buddhism,” practice that transforms personal mindfulness into compassionate social action. I believe this also means having the ability to sense emerging possibilities and align our actions with the deepest sources of wisdom available to us. It also means cultivating what Thich Nhat Hanh termed "interbeing,” which asks of us to not retreat from worldly concerns, but to listen deeply to what wants to emerge and respond from wisdom and compassion rather than react from old patterns of fear and separation.

Drawing from ecological wisdom, another path involves what writer Aldo Leopold coined as "thinking like a mountain": developing the capacity to perceive and act from the perspective of future generations and the living systems that sustain us. This approach aligns with the late Joanna Macy's methodology called "The Work That Reconnects," which is informed by deep ecology, systems thinking, and spiritual traditions to help us navigate what she calls the three dimensions of "the Great Turning": holding actions that slow destruction, creating new structures, and shifting consciousness. Macy asks us to expand our sense of self to what she terms the "ecological self," recognizing that we are not separate from the web of life but part of a larger living system that includes all beings and the Earth itself.

Otto Scharmer's Theory U offers a framework for what he calls "presencing.” This means learning to sense and actualize emerging possibilities by moving beyond downloading old patterns to connecting with our deepest source of knowing. This approach asks leaders and organizations to create spaces for collective reflection and emergence, where wisdom traditions can inform how we design institutions, make decisions, and respond to complexity.

The monsoon fog that greeted me in Dharamsala eventually lifted, revealing the stunning peaks I had come to see. But by then, I had learned that the real beauty was never hidden.

It was always present, waiting not for the right external conditions but for the right quality of attention.

The mountains were magnificent. And the lessons they taught me were even more so:
that everything we seek in the external world is already available within, requiring only the courage to look and the wisdom to see.

The bridge between worlds doesn't need to be built; it already exists.

We need only learn to cross it.

(Note: All photos by me unless otherwise noted)