This is an image of the “real” Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, who was “discovered” by the current Dalai Lama, to be the head of the 900-year-old Karma Kagyu Lineage. After the Dalai Lama passes on, the Karmapa will be the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, perhaps the last, as China has succeeded in suppressing the Tibetan community and there may be no longer a true reincarnation of the Dalai Lama to be found by this Karmapa—in many ways, he is the end of the line of the Tibetan leadership, barring some miracle.

But His Holiness is a kind of a miracle. He was able to escape to his temporary home at Gyuto Monastery in India after being discovered in Tibet, in a trunk of a car—this is an image just after his successful escape, the scar on his cheek he got while hiding in the vehicle. He is also a poet, and a terrific artist, in addition to recording chants with super contemporary Radiohead-like instrumental backdrops that are truly moving and unusual.

I was able to see him live back in NYC when he visited there some years ago with my friend Lisa Kirk, who had gotten me into Buddhism. We used to go to meetings above the McDonald’s in an apartment on 2nd Avenue in the East Village, led by an appointed Dali Lama monk, a gentle man in saffron robes, who worked in a copy shop by day to get by (I will always remember and be grateful for the color xerox packet he made for me, which I also made at least one painting of the Chenrezig Buddha). I really got into it for a while, doing the chants at home, and in my mind walking through the streets of NYC on my way to teach and more. I still do some of the mantras today and believe in them as they work. I did feel after a while, however, that it was someone else’s religion, feeling it was too remote of a culture that while I totally respected, I didn’t feel I could do the depth of time to fully immerse myself in with respect to feel right (my dad made me give back my Webolos’ pin after I missed too many meetings after the Cub Scouts because I couldn’t go to all the meetings). Buddhism though seems a bit like semiotics, which I studied back at Brown, where everything exists but just in the way you perceive it, you become critical of your consciousness. In semiotics, this could be cerebral and about language. But it also points to politics, and gender identity constructs given a capitalistic, phallocentric language, and so on. With Buddhism, there seems a spiritual component that comes along with realizing your objectivity in the universe—that you are one of many, and the interconnectedness of all things comes into play and therefore a mind/body experience of self-awareness, the knowing but also the unknowing of things.

I love Buddhism, it has taught me a lot, and I’m still a fan and a casual, in thoughtful, self-critical ways, a fellow traveler. It got me through much, and I still try to be mindful today in my thoughts and actions, teaching with compassion and empathy literally in my role as professor at USC, but hopefully also in my life and art.