So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet. Realizing that the Dalai Lama was in fact in Bloomington this week, I flew back across the Pacific and made my way over to the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center. \nI get in as a columnist, freelancing for a small paper back in the Himalayas. A columnist, you know, a writer, an author, a scribe. \nSo I tell the monks I’m a reporter. Unfortunately, they weren’t impressed. Stalling, thinking of something to say, I tell them my situation. I’m spiritually lost. I have burdens with no solutions and questions with no answers. \nAnd who do you think they give me? \nThe Dalai Lama himself. There he stood in front of me. A monk next to him asked me my name. Feeling insecure about “Matt” for the first time, I tell the monk I am “Dolly” – a name I felt would carry a little more clout in the Buddhist community. It also happens to be the nickname my friends affectionately use for me. \n“Dalai Lama, I need your help,” I said. “Every week, I have to predict the score for the IU football game; and every week it’s like telling Tony Soprano you don’t have his money. I need you. I’m a bigger mess than the Beijing Olympics. Things are getting so bad that I predicted IU to beat Michigan State and Penn State the past two weeks, even though I said before the season they would lose to them handily.” \nThe Dalai Lama looked me in the eye. Stoic. Unfazed. He remained silent. \n“I know you deal with bigger problems than this, but the Hoosiers are 0-for-5 in bowl-clinching games the last two seasons,” I said. “Kellen Lewis called it a ‘curse.’ I need answers!\n“Will the Hoosiers make a bowl game?”\nHe hauled off and whacked my question – a big answerer, the Dalai Lama. He vaults into a 10,000-word response to my seven-word question. He revealed the unknown intricacies of successful college football teams. He spoke of the speed and dynamics of Lewis, the effects of losing a leader like Terry Hoeppner and the possibility of James Hardy being a reincarnation of Plaxico Burress from his Michigan State days. \nI had heard great things about the Dalai Lama’s teachings before, but who knew of his sports knowledge? I was left speechless. Maybe it was the fact that the Dalai Lama knew who Burress was, or maybe it was the Tibetan food that the monks had just brought. Or maybe it was because I knew what the he was going to say next.\nSo we finish the interview, and he’s about to stiff me without answering the most important question of all. And I say to him, “Hey, hey, how about a little something, you know, for our readers? What is the score of the IU-Wisconsin game going to be?” \nAnd he said, “Oh, uh, I have never been one to predict the future. But when you die, on your deathbed, the team that wears cream and crimson will come full-circle and make a warm, sunny bowl game.”\nSo I’ve got that goin’ for me, which is nice.
Prediction: IU 17, Wisconsin 31
