Maybe he thinks we're funny. Maybe we are. We love Buddhism but misrepresent it, spinning our wheels on the slippery patches -- is it a religion or a philosophy? Is there a difference? Our skepticism gets in the way. The story of the Dalai Lama's selection as No. 14, for example, derails the average secular American: Seemingly arbitrary signs -- cloud formations, crows on a roof, patterns on a lake -- led to his discovery, and yet his discovery clearly was not arbitrary. We question what we know, and we get no closer to enlightenment. When the Dalai Lama politely advises American Buddhists to remain in the United States rather than move to Tibet or India, he's speaking to the Western Buddhist's tendency to misunderstand; if you're chasing understanding all over the world, he suggests, you're not getting it.

Even if the Dalai Lama is laughing at us, we don't mind -- we can't help loving him. Although "we" may not encompass all Americans, it's a diverse group that includes liberals, moderates, conservatives, young people, old people, mainstream media and the cultural elite. And while members of the left aren't always willing to take up a cause so far from home, despite what their bumper stickers might proclaim, the Dalai Lama has been able to reach them. And here lies one of the most fascinating aspects of his brilliance: At a historical moment when support for his cause is more crucial than ever, he has the ability and discretion to use his famous charm precisely as he needs to. And he is adored for it.

Why? The pool of potentially adorable people is larger than ever -- there were more than 150 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize this year alone -- certainly large enough to obscure the impact of a single monk. Perhaps we love him because he has let himself embody the symbols that the West wants to see: We associate him with struggle, iconoclasm, underdogism and mellowness. Sure, life is suffering, but suffering's fashionable, and it makes for great rock concerts.

If the Dalai Lama works it -- if he manipulates us, or himself, for the purpose of earning support -- who can blame him? For 40 years, he has kept one eye on China's trampling of Tibet and the other on the West's consistent refusal to intervene on any substantive level. (The CIA did train a few Tibetan guerrillas from 1959 to 1971 in the Colorado Rockies, but in 1972 President Nixon shook hands with Mao, and the secret program ended abruptly.)

So the Buddhist monk does what he can, channeling his magnetism and warmth into canny P.R. savvy. Anybody can be pious, wise and good-natured, after all; but to have the free world say it's so takes a kind of marketing brilliance. The Dalai Lama is Gandhi meets P.T. Barnum, minus the elephants. He keeps his wisdom close to the ground, a move the average secular humanist can appreciate. ("The more we care for the happiness of others," he says, "the greater our own sense of well-being becomes.") The Beastie Boys love him, Richard Gere loves him, Steven Seagal loves him, and all of these people have gone to great lengths to show it. The more support the Dalai Lama receives, the more contagious his cause becomes.

He has conquered a certain vocal and visible segment in the West more thoroughly than China could ever hope to. He is loved by the people here who know him, and loved even more by those who don't. He enjoys the fame of a world leader and the adoration of a cult hero. (Even his late mother, Diki Tsering, has a place here -- her posthumous autobiography, "Dalai Lama, My Son," is doing well by Amazon's standards.) What's more, the Dalai Lama makes it look effortless. He doesn't kiss babies or mug for cameras at steel mills. Instead, the reverence tracks him down, always managing to find a surprised and amused look on his face. For the Western liberal with a penchant for the exotic, the Dalai Lama has it all.

Maybe this is what he's laughing at. All he has to do is show up and we go into paroxysms of praise. And then the praise becomes gift giving, and by the end of the day he has received a dozen new white scarves (what visitors traditionally bring him) and a fat check with a Beverly Hills, Calif., ZIP code in the corner.

It's not all charm. When it comes to earning respect, the Dalai Lama is also in the fortunate position of being in an astoundingly unfortunate position. China's invasion of Tibet ultimately left little in the way of ambivalence: The slaughter of tens of thousands of unarmed civilians, the occupation of a sovereign nation and the destruction of perhaps 6,000 temples (the significance of this last crime may be unappreciated by some; in Tibet's nomadic tradition, temples were fundamental to society) just about make the Dalai Lama's case for him. Indeed, he knows well where much of his popularity comes from: "All the credit," he says, "goes to the Chinese."

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