Spring has finally come to the crowded streets of New York City.  I bicycle along, struggling with an overloaded backpack, and stop at a red light next to a man with a wide, warm Tibetan face.  He holds a necklace of prayer beads.  Looking intently at me, he smiles and asks "Have you been to Tibet?"  Somehow he picks me out of the masses of people shuffling by in their own New York worlds, sensing something in me a year to the day after Thupten Ngodup's funeral.

We shake hands, and he grabs my hand and lovingly rubs it on his cheek.  A spiritual love shoots like electricity from his hand to mine.  He says he is a Tibetan monk.

Memories of India and Nepal flood my mind and drown out the chaos of New York City.  In the stillness, clarity remains.