Rose saw the Dalai Lama today . Seattle has been having a 4-day event with the Dalai Lama called the Seeds of Compassion. The response has been enormous. Every event is sold out, and everyone’s talking about it. Rose had one of the few classes able to attend. I told her she got to see one of the most important people in the world.

The Dalai Lama asked the students to prepare by learning about compassion. They read biographies of compassionate people and came up with times when they had been compassionate. I started saying, “If you let David have the ball first, that counts as compassionate and we can put it on your leaf.” We did the same things with mitzvah circles for Sunday School last year, so I was ready to use the system.

Rose was really, really excited about going.

She did not adore the actual event. And that makes sense. Even though it says it was for kids, everyone interviewed in the paper was a high school student. A bunch of speakers in a large auditorium is not exactly kindergarten appropriate. She couldn’t tell us anything the Dalai Lama said, but she was really impressed with how people bowed to him with their hands pressed together and then gave him a hug. I love how much the Dalai Lama smiles and makes jokes. He seems imminently huggable.

This event seemed like the whole city hugging.