Lhamo Dhondup was different from my other children right from the start. He was a somber child who liked to stay indoors by himself. He was always packing his clothes and his little belongings. When I asked what he was doing, he would reply that he was packing to go to Lhasa and would take all of us with him. When we went to visit friends or relatives, he never drank tea from any cup but mine. He never let anyone except me touch his blankets and he never placed them anywhere but next to mine. If he came across a quarrelsome person, he would pick up a stick and try to beat him. If ever one of our guests lit up a cigarette, he would flare into a rage. Our friends told us that for some unaccountable reason they were afraid of him, tender in years as he was. This was all when he was over a year old and could hardly talk.

One day he told us that he had come from heaven. I had a strange foreboding then, for a month before his birth I had had a dream in which two green snow lions and a brilliant blue dragon appeared, flying about in the air. They smiled at me and greeted me in the traditional Tibetan style: two hands raised to the forehead. Later I was told that the dragon was His Holiness, and the two snow lions were the Nechung oracle (the state oracle of Tibet), showing His Holiness the path to rebirth. After my dream I knew that my child would be some high lama, but never in my wildest dreams did I think that he would be the Dalai Lama.

After my dream I knew that my child would be some high lama, but never in my wildest dreams did I think that he would be the Dalai Lama.

When Lhamo Dhondup was a little more than two years old, the search party for the fourteenth Dalai Lama visited our home in Taktser. The party included Lobsang Tsewang, a tsedun (government official), Khetsang Rinpoche from Sera monastery (who was later tortured and killed by the chinese), and others. The first time they visited us was in the eleventh or twelfth month, and it was snowing heavily. There was about four feet of snow on the ground, and we were in the process of clearing it when they arrived. We did not recognize any of them and realized that they must be from Lhasa, but they did not tell us their mission.

They could speak the Tsongkha dialect fluently, for they had been in Tsongkha for three years searching for the Dalai Lama. They had been told that they would find His Holiness in the early morning in a place that was all white. The party stopped at our door and said they were on their way to Sanho but had mistaken the road. They asked me to let them have some rooms for the night. I gave them tea, some of my homemade bread, and dried meat. Early the next morning they insisted on paying me for my hospitality and for the food for their animals. They said good-bye very warmly. After they left, we knew that this was the search party for His Holiness, but it never entered our minds that there was a purpose in their visit to our home.

Three weeks later the party returned to our home. This time they said they were going to Tsongkha, and could we please show them the road. My husband guided them to it himself, and they left. After two weeks they came back a third time. This time Khetsang Rinpoche was carrying two staffs as he entered our veranda, where Lhamo Dhondup was playing. Rinpoche put both staffs in a corner. Our son went to the staffs, laid one aside, and picked up the other. He struck Rinpoche lightly on the back with it, said the staff was his and why had Khetsang Rinpoche taken it. The party members exchanged meaningful looks, but I could not understand a word of the Lhasa dialect they spoke.

He then selected a rosary from the table and a damaru, both of which, it turned out, had belonged to the thirteenth Dalai Lama.

I was in the kitchen later, drinking tea on the kang, when Khetsang Rinpoche joined me there. It was easy to converse with him because he could speak both Tsongkha and Chinese fluently. As we sat there, Lhamo Dhondup stuck his hand beneath Rinpoche's heavy fur robes and seemed to tug at one of the two brocade vests he was wearing. I scolded my son, telling him to stop pulling at our guest. He drew a rosary from under Rinpoche's vest and insisted it was his. Khetsang Rinpoche spoke gently to him, saying that he would give him a new one, that the one he was wearing was old. But Lhamo Dhondup was already putting on the rosary. I later learned that this rosary had been given to Khetsang Rinpoche by the thirteenth Dalai Lama.

That evening we were summoned by the party. They were seated on the kang in their room. In front of them were a bowl of candy, two rosaries, and two damarus (ritual hand drums). They offered our son the candy bowl, from which he selected one piece and gave it to me. He then went and sat with them. From a very young age Lhamo Dhondup always sat eye to eye with everyone, never at anyone's feet, and people told me that I was spoiling him. He then selected a rosary from the table and a damaru, both of which, it turned out, had belonged to the thirteenth Dalai Lama.

They said they were looking for the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who they were certain had been born somewhere in Tsongkha.

Our guests offered my husband and me a cup of tea and ceremonial scarves. They insisted that I take some money as their way of thanking me for my hospitality. When I refused, they told me to keep it as a sign of auspiciousness. They said they were looking for the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who they were certain had been born somewhere in Tsongkha. There were sixteen candidates, they said. In truth they had already decided upon my son. Lhamo Dhondup spent three hours with them that evening. They later told me that they had spoken to him in the Lhasa dialect and that he had replied without difficult, although he had never heard that dialect before.

Later Khetsang Rinpoche drew me aside and, addressing me as Mother, said that I might have to leave my home and go to Lhasa. I answered that I did not want to go, that I could not leave my home with no one to look after it. he replied that I should not say that because I would have to go when the time came. he said not to worry about my home, that if I left, i would live very comfortably and not have any difficulty. He was going to Tsongkha to see the local governor, Ma Pu-fang, to tell him that the Dalai Lama had been born in Tsongkha and that they were planning to take him to Lhasa.

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