Excerpted from "Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Spiritual Journey" (c) Jan Willis 2001, with kind permission of Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Putnam, Inc.

One morning after spending the night at [my friends] Rand and Rob's, I sat perched upon the grassy knoll just above the little house that served as Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa's abode. Lama Yeshe pushed open his door, toothbrush in hand and towel draped across his arm, heading for the bathroom on the other side of the house. For a brief moment he paused, looked up at me piercingly, and before continuing his journey, said, "Living with pride and humility in equal proportion is very difficult, isn't it? Very difficult!"

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In that moment, it seemed to me, he had put his finger on one of the deepest issues confronting not only me but all African Americans. There is a great existential difficulty in attempting to count oneself a human being equal with all others after having suffered through the experience of centuries of slavery. Our very humanity was challenged and degraded at every turn and yet, through it all, we have maintained the desire to stand tall, with dignity and love of self. Only two decades before Lama Yeshe's remark, throughout the civil-rights marches in the southern United States, African Americans had carried signs that poignantly proclaimed, "I am a man!" and "I am somebody."

It is the trauma of slavery that haunts African Americans in the deepest recesses of our souls. This is the chief issue for us, the issue that must be dealt with head-on--not denied, not forgotten, not suppressed. Indeed, its suppression and denial only hurt us more deeply by causing us to accept a limiting, disparaging, and at times even repugnant view of ourselves. We as a people cannot move forward until we have grappled in a serious way with all the negative effects of this trauma. With just a glance that morning, Lama Yeshe had captured my heart's dilemma: How to stand dignified, yet humbly, in the world?

I was soon to discover that Tibetan tantric Buddhism offers tools to help with this dilemma, for it provides methods that show both how to get at those deep inner wounds and how to heal them. One method, for example, employs the meditative notion of divine pride. According to this theory, we are all inherently pure, or divine, at our cores. Our task is to realize this truth.

There is, of course, a very fine line between confidence and arrogance. Belief in one's own innate purity and power can easily be confused with an all-too-human pridefulness. The consequence of understanding this crucial distinction, and of thereby going astray, is the creation of more suffering rather than the elimination of it. Hence the great need for a true and authentic guide on this most important journey of discovery. This fact was brought home to me personally and powerfully in the ensuing weeks.

One day as we were finishing up a session with him, Lama Yeshe surprised me by saying, "I think you should go and study with my teacher, Geshe Rabten. He is a great teacher and especially skilled in teaching about Buddhist wisdom." I felt both proud, that he recognized my academic intellectual side, and a bit rejected, since he made it clear that Randy and Rob were to stay with him in Kopan. I told myself that this arrangement would be better. I would finally get to be with the wisdom-being, the master teacher I wanted and deserved. Surely, pride goeth before the fall.

I would finally get to be with the wisdom-being, the master teacher I wanted and deserved. Surely, pride goeth before the fall.

I made my way to Geshe Rabten's place in Dharamsala [India, the capital-in-exile of the Dalai Lama]. He was actually in retreat, living in an old mud-caked hut out in the woods. I waited outside the hut while [his attendant] Gonsar introduced me. When he motioned me inside, I touched my hands together in anjali and began to bow to Geshe Rabten. But suddenly, Geshe Rabten abruptly cut me off, delivering a long and seemingly angry tirade in Tibetan. Clearly I had done something wrong. After a while, Gonsar Rinpoche translated: "Geshe-la wants to know why you arrived late," he said.

"I beg your pardon?" I began, but a longer outburst from Geshe Rabten followed. I couldn't understand how he knew that I could have arrived sooner. Lama Yeshe gave me a letter of introduction, and since I was carrying that letter, how could Geshe Rabten know that I had stopped off [to see a friend on the way]?

He didn't want to hear any excuses. He asked nothing about my background or personal history and didn't care who I was or where I had come from. He was my teacher, I had been sent by one of his disciples and he would teach me. That was all. I was told to take a seat. He began right away, that very day. After getting over the shock of that first meeting, I felt like I was in paradise.

[Six weeks later, a]s I returned to the compound at Kopan, [Nepal], near dusk late one evening, I glimpsed Lama Yeshe in the distance coming down the stairs on his way to his room. He seemed to see me, too. But rather than the warm smile he always gave, he turned his head sharply away and continued his steps. He seemed to make a point of ignoring me. Returning after so long, I felt immediately rejected again. After all, I was coming back from studying with his guru. I walked toward Lama's room and noticed Randy and Rob's shoes outside his door. Apparently, he had begun giving them extra lessons. Again, I was the outsider.

Lama Yeshe knew that my seeming arrogance was only the flip side of my low self-esteem, and that low self-esteem was my deepest and oldest wound.

I tapped gently on the door and slowly entered. Lama Yeshe was quietly talking with them. Then, suddenly, he looked up at me with what seemed a completely different look in his eyes, almost like anger. Before any of us knew what was happening, Lama Yeshe pointed his finger at me and began yelling in Tibetan. The string of words that issued from his mouth sounded exactly like those Geshe Rabten had used at our first meeting. Lama Yeshe had never spoken to any of us like this before. Randy and Rob, like me, were completely stunned.

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Then, in a flash of insight, I knew what Lama was doing. It was a teaching directed solely at me, and it was perfect. Lama Yeshe knew a great deal about me. He knew that I had been judging between him and some other type of teacher. He knew that I prized wisdom over compassion, not seeing that both qualities were essential requisites in any true teacher. He knew that my seeming arrogance was only the flip side of my low self-esteem, and that low self-esteem was my deepest and oldest wound. He also knew that I was intelligent and determined. He had sent me on that journey to Geshe Rabten so that I would come to see all these things about myself; and so that once they were clearly recognized and claimed, he and I could begin to work on the delicate balancing act needed to heal them. I realized then how difficult it must have been for this kind teacher to feign anger toward me, or toward any living creature for that matter.

I fell forward on the tiny floor, bowing to Lama Yeshe, and sobbing full-force. I asked his forgiveness. He had seen into my heart and soul. It struck me that such wisdom and compassion are truly inconceivable. And I knew--from that moment--that I could trust Lama Yeshe to be my teacher and my guide.