Free To Pray

The Dalai Lama on Sunday broke the isolation of his three-month retreat at Dharmsala, India, and gave a New Year’s blessing to the 14-year-old religious leader who recently escaped from Chinese-controlled Tibet. Only 160 foreign tourists and 40 Tibetans were in the courtyard in miserable weather for the Lunar New Year observations when a car sped past carrying the 17th Karmapa, the 14-year-old Urgyen Trinley Dorje, above, who wore a white silk scarf around his neck - a sign of the Dalai Lama’s blessing. Used as a puppet by the Chinese government, the Karmapa eluded his Chinese guards at his monastery in Tibet in December, made his way across the Himalayas and arrived unannounced on Jan. 5 at the Dalai Lama’s home. “The most important teaching of Tibetan Buddhism is compassion, but to truly practice this, one has to be free,” the Karmapa told an audience Friday.