The air fills again with the chanting of monks. I look at the stage, cluttered with golden sunflowers. Although I can't make out the singers, I see their wrinkled faces and shaved heads broadcast on the giant TVs. The pitch of the humming grows higher and higher, reverberates through the air, until the sound is broken by the deep bass voice of a short, squat monk.

"Oy, oy, oy," he chants. The others slowly join him. "Oy, oy, oyyyy."

This must be meant for all the Jewish mothers in the crowd. Or maybe not. Still, the vast majority of people here weren't raised as Buddhists but have found something in the Dalai Lama's teachings that their original religions lacked.

Gary, a middle-aged high school English teacher from Long Island sitting nearby, traveled two and a half hours to be here. "I grew up Roman Catholic," he says. "Buddhism just makes more sense to me. I saw the Dalai Lama in 1999, and his voice has such a timbre of love. I wouldn't miss this for anything."

The New York City parks and recreation commissioner, Adrian Benepe, gets onstage for a few polite, reserved comments.

Suddenly, you can feel the tension building in the air. The anticipation. The knowledge that He, the One we're all waiting for, is about to speak. Hearts beat, brows grow moist with sweat.

Then he appears.

"It's now my pleasure," the park commissioner says, "to introduce ... Richard Gere!"

The crowd explodes. Rachel frantically calls her sister on her cellphone.

"It's Richard Gere!"

Sara, the sorry sap, is still outside. She's missed it. I feel bad for her.

Then Richard Gere -- Richard Gere! -- introduces His Holiness -- "one of the great beings to perhaps ever walk this planet." The Dalai Lama appears on the stage to a standing ovation.

He smiles, chuckles embarrassedly. His face is filled with kindness, his whole being exudes patience. He waves for everyone to sit down. Everyone sits down. Well, almost everyone.

"Can you sit down?" a few people call to the remaining standers. They stay standing. His Holiness starts to speak.

"Down in front, please?" Nothing. "Down in front!" What did you say? "Sit down!"

Yes, love and patience, love and patience. But really, can you blame them? After all, they came here to see the Dalai-fuckin'-Lama.

"We are all the same," the D.L. begins. "There are no different colors, no different faiths. We are all just human beings."

For all my cynicism, listening to the D.L. is an amazing experience. Not so much because of what he says -- honestly, the same basic messages of love and brotherhood I heard from Catholic priests on Sunday mornings throughout my childhood -- but of how he says it. His figure isn't imposing; his voice doesn't bellow or boom. Rather, he seems very at ease with himself and with the fact that so many people are listening to him. He chuckles easily and often, takes his time as he talks, as if he's just telling a pleasant afternoon story.

Yet the entire crowd, thousands upon thousands, is entranced by his every word. People take notes. When he laughs, a breathy, staccato chortle, everyone laughs with him. Aside from that, almost every person here is silent, listening. Not a cellphone rings. In New York, this is truly a miracle.

There are, of course, exceptions to the solemnity.

Sky-writing planes fly across the clear blue sky, leaving puffy advertisements in their wake. Hey, anywhere there's a crowd, there's a chance to sell, right?

Some people, latecomers or early leavers, seem to never sit down, perpetually winding their way across the fields without listening to a word the D.L. says. He decries the excessive materialism of American society, our overwhelming concern with the physical being. And occasionally, although the D.L. speaks mostly in English, he's forced to use a translator, leading to a few funny miscommunications. The best occurs when the Dalai Lama tries to describe the intimacy of motherhood, specifically how the baby is always drawn to his mother's ... what's the word?

"Breast," the interpreter says.

"What?" says the D.L.

"Breast!"

"Huh?"

"Breast, breast, BREAST!"

My favorite moment, though, comes when the D.L. gives his advice on how to find deeper meaning in life.

"Some people," he says, "[are] seeking pleasure from animals. But still animals do not provide us with full satisfaction."

I can only assume the D.L.'s talking about pets, but I have to wonder what's going through Richard Gere's, uh, mind right now.

When the talk ends, the Dalai Lama leaves to another standing ovation. This time, no shouts for people to sit down. Lots of people leave -- one budding Buddhist wearing pink velour pants with the word "JUICY" inscribed on her ass is surprisingly among the first to go -- but a lot more stay. The result is an eclectic bunch: Tibetans eating lunch mixed with hippies trying to soak up the last remaining positive vibes.

Gary the teacher is elated.

"I think he touched everyone in the audience," he says. "He really spoke from the heart."

"Did you feel the energy?" Gary's tall, thin friend asks me. "Lots of good energy," he says, shaking his head and grinning.

I stroll a little myself, gazing in amazement at the effect this afternoon has had on people, whether they really know anything about the Dalai Lama or not.

"This is one of those things you do once, and it changes you for the rest of your life," says Kelsey, a 16-year-old girl from New York City who came with four of her girlfriends. For these girls seeing the Dalai Lama was a way to connect with other people. They had read the articles criticizing the commercialization of the D.L. and his message, but while they disagreed with some of his beliefs -- he condemns homosexuality, for example -- they felt that embracing the moment was more important. "It's a community thing," says Kelsey's friend Lisa. "He's very much on everyone's level. One of the problems I usually have with religion is it's so serious -- there's no sense of humor. But he laughed so much -- he didn't take himself seriously."

A few feet away, a ring of hackey-sackers hackey their sack from one foot to another. They're just as diverse, just as human, as the beginning of the D.L.'s speech hoped. One Asian, one Latino, one Caucasian. A pale goateed punk walks up and asks politely, "Mind if I join?" Soon he's hackin' it up with the rest of them, just as a posse of bald Tibetan monks walks by, one of them chatting amiably on his cellphone.

Nearby, two police officers with thick New York accents have a conversation with two young neo-hippies, a girl wearing a paisley skirt, a hemp chord around her neck, and a silver hoop in her left eyebrow, and a pasty, slack-jawed boy, as thin as a bong, a rainbow Bob Marley-esque hat perched on his head. Aha, I think, the forces of establishment and anarchy finally collide. But instead they all smile with each other, laugh at some kind of inside joke.

What is this? The lions lying down with the lambs? The end of New York? The end of the world? Is the Dalai Lama the messiah?

On the bus ride home I sit across from a gaunt white woman, lovingly carrying a picture of His Holiness. Her thumb and forefinger work a small ring of prayer beads; in her other hand she holds a flower the color of burnt umber. She wears a fiery red robe, and her short hair hints of a recently shaved scalp. Her blue eyes bespeak a cool, detached wisdom.

Suddenly, the bus driver brakes hard. We jerk to a halt. A few of the standing passengers nearly fall. They grumble and yell. The car in front of us stopped short unexpectedly. The bus driver lays on the horn, long, hard, thick. Angry.

"Stupid idiot," he growls.

This is the New York I know and love.

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