If you meet the Buddha on the road ...

It happened in summer of 2005, and ended as suddenly as it began in spring of 2006. A young man, a teenager, went into the forest to sit under a papal tree, the very kind of tree the Buddha had sat under when he sought enlightenment. He sat there in silence, neither eating nor drinking, not speaking, fully committed to his meditation, as the Buddha had been so long ago. As he sat, he became a phenomenon. He did not move, he did not eat or drink, he did not speak. Some people knew him: he was Ram Bomjon, known in his role of spiritual seeker as Palden Dorje. He was fifteen years old.