On Wednesday me and Rob are beginning our 100 mile journey across the great state of Indiana with the goal of getting a meeting with the Dalai Lama. We came up with the idea a few months ago but only got serious about it in the last few weeks and only knew we were actually going to do in the last few days. The plan came about after a conversation we had about who the world’s most inspiring people are. The Dalai Lama was on our list but to be honest we didn’t now too much about him until we started reading his books and attending classes on meditation. It became clear very soon after that he was someone who we wanted to meet, let alone ask if he would like to be a part of our service.

So we knew that we wanted to meet the Dalai Lama but we didn’t quite know how. He was scheduled to be in DC on the 17th, then on to NYC and eventually he would be spending a few days in Bloomington, Indiana at the Tibetan Cultural Center. It was only after Rob came across a small town in Indiana named Hope that we began to formulate our plan. It turned out that Hope is 60 miles from Bloomington. The idea to walk was the natural progression. Why not? It always helps us to get out of DC for a few days and travel and we liked the way walking ties in with the Buddhist tradition of living in the moment. When we saw a few days later that there was actually a town called Buddha and that it would make our walk exactly 100 miles our decision was made. We would walk, camp and meet as many people as we could along the way.

I’m writing this from a hotel room just outside Hope. I drove out a day early to get things set up here while Rob finishes getting things together in DC. We are ready to take our first steps toward the Dalai Lama. Rob and I created Live Inspired with the mission of inspiring through action and it feels good to be fully living up to our mission. We are living inspired and certainly will be drawing upon that inspiration on the walk.

Some quick thoughts from the drive into Indiana: 1) At any given time Mandy Moore is singing that big girls don’t cry somewhere on the radio dial; 2) I met a guy who was hitchhiking from DC to Denver. He had a dog with him named Guthrie, which made me smile and inspired the title of this entry; 3) I’ve been called ‘hon’ at least once in every town I’ve been to which also makes me smile

Vlog: “Driving to Indiana”

Check out the entire Dalai Lama VideoLog at
www.youtube.com/iliveinspired

Wish us well.

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