As a member of the mainstream media for many years, I've learned just one thing: never to trust anything I read in the mainstream media - not because of any agenda or deliberate dissimulation, but simply because it's filtered and comes very often from someone whose judgment I might not trust in other circumstances.
Pico IyerNone of the things in life - like love or faith - was arrived at by thinking; indeed, one could almost define the things that mattered as the ones that came as suddenly as thunder.
Pico IyerAs soon as I'm on the road, I see, often palpably, that I know nothing at all, which is always a great liberation.
Pico IyerDalai Lama is transforming those criteria - and the whole way of conducting politics. He's conducting politics in a much deeper way than most politicians are able to. He's the only politician I know of who's a monk. The Pope, of course, is in a similar position, but the Pope isn't in the same way leading a country of many million people.
Pico IyerDalai Lama has not coming to show us his kindness, so that we can enjoy his charisma, he's coming with a specific message for the specific circumstances of the world today.
Pico IyerFor if every true love affair can feel like a journey to a foreign country, where you canโt quite speak the language, and you donโt know where youโre going, and youโre pulled ever deeper into the inviting darkness, every trip to a foreign country can be a love affair, where youโre left puzzling over who you are and whom youโve fallen in love with.
Pico Iyer