Jack Kerouac called from a phone booth while his friends Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky anxiously paced outside. "Hello, I'd like to meet with Dr. Suzuki . . . Right NOW!" The scholar's secretary told him to be there in a half hour. Elated, the three friends skipped down First Avenue to hail a cab.

In my 20's I was part of a second wave of Buddhist transmission to America. I knew two generations of artists with Buddhist inclinations, and in interviews with them, all roads led back to the Japanese scholar, Dr. D.T. Suzuki. Who was this unassuming person who had helped change the direction of American culture? 

In China, I am a wealthy westerner. I am poor in Dubai and London, but I can be middle class or rich elsewhere, depending where my plane lands. What does this say about personal worth?

The Chinese army may control the streets of Llasa, but the spiritual longing of the Tibetan people will continue to be expressed. Tibetan artists – whose work is relatively unknown in the West – lead the way, drawing on their long history of Buddhism.