Buddhists and Mormons! (just saving the record)

This article was printed up I *think* in the News & Observer a long time ago. Having a hard time finding it, so I'm going to post it now for record's sake. I saw geshe gelek as his weekly sessions on my FAV BOOK, the bodhicaryatara. He's hilarious, great laugh... so this article's extra fun.

Buddhists, Mormons, and grace
By G.D. GEARINO, Staff Writer
Mar 29, 2005

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall the day the Mormon missionaries
knocked on the Tibetan Buddhist monk's door.

It happened recently on a cold morning in a Raleigh neighborhood near
N.C. State University. The monk, Geshe Gelek Chodak -- commonly known
by the honorific Geshe-la -- is a boarder in the house where the
missionaries knocked. No one else was at home, so he opened the door
and invited them in. It was a natural thing for him to do. Geshe-la is
a polite fellow, and it didn't seem right to make the two young men
stand in the cold.

Besides, he says, "it looked like they were trying to give me some
information."

Talk about understatement.

Geshe-la, who entered a Buddhist monastery in India at age 7, had never
met a Mormon. He'd never even heard of them, in fact, and therefore
didn't know that many young adult Mormons spend a couple of years
preaching to gentiles. Furthermore, the whole business of proselytizing
is strange to him. Buddhist monks generally don't go door to door
seeking converts.

In other words, Geshe-la didn't understand that he was big game.

"One guy talks almost 25 minutes direct," he says. "Then the other guy
starts to talk. Takes almost 50 minutes, something like that."

It's important to interject something here: Geshe-la wasn't unhappy
about this visit. It didn't bother him that two strangers had settled
into his living room and -- ignoring the flowing robes and close-cropped
hair that all but shouted "Buddhist monk!" -- proceeded to entice him to
join their team. Just the opposite. He was gratified to meet other
people of faith.

"My desire was to learn how those two young men became so spiritual, so
devoted to their spiritual path," Geshe-la says.

But his questions apparently left the pair with the wrong impression.
Missionaries of all stripes endure a steady diet of brush-offs and cold
shoulders, so it's easy to see how they might misinterpret the rare
occasion when someone is not only polite but even seems interested. I
can imagine the missionaries high-fiving each other as they departed
from the house. A hot prospect! Whoo-hoo!

The two men left behind a copy of the Book of Mormon and a study guide.
They said they would come back with a church elder.

A couple of weeks later, they returned. As it happened, Geshe-la was not
at home, so their knock was answered by Geshe-la's visiting friend --
another Tibetan Buddhist. (Further imagined reaction: "Awright! We're
gettin' a two-fer!") This time, however, the lady of the house was
available to make sure the missionaries understood that Geshe-la was not
a potential convert.

"I asked them if they realized that he's a monk and has trained since he
was 7," says Stephanie Smith, Geshe-la's landlady.

To their credit, the missionaries abandoned their efforts on the
spot. They matched Geshe-la's courtesy with an equal measure of their
own. They declared him to be "very cool," thanked Smith for explaining
things -- and then went home.

Ever the considerate soul, Geshe-la holds out the possibility that a
switch to the Mormons may eventually occur.

"But not in this life," he says. "Maybe next life."