"But the risk of the Dalai Lama's ever growing celebrity is that it distorts what he really represents, namely an ancient cultural tradition that is not always appealing to the Western world. In short, the Dalai Lama - or a simplified version of him - has been appropriated by the American people over the last decade. A chain e-mail message recently circulated with his "millennium mantra," offering advice such as "Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon" and "Once a year, go someplace you've never been before." This e-mail message was in fact a hoax, but it nevertheless was widely circulated. During his United States tour in 2000, after being briefly mistaken for a Muslim by Larry King on CNN, the Dalai Lama had to endure being introduced to a crowd in Los Angeles by Sharon Stone. Barefoot and draped in a feather boa, she described him as "the hardest working man in spirituality" and as "Mr. Please, Please, Please Let Me Back Into China!" That he came from Tibet was momentarily lost."

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