Why so serious?

Dalai Lama is revered as the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is a fabulous old egg. People of consequence tend to be a bit buttoned up, but he wears his eminence — wise learned monk, political firebrand, spiritual leader — like the lightest of cloaks. Everything he says comes with a gleeful “khi-khi-khi”, or a hearty guffaw. At almost 82, he jokes that after this life he might wind up downstairs rather than upstairs, khi-khi-khi! He takes the most infectious delight in everything. His ability to see the funny side of things is what makes him a truly enlightened chap, at least to my atheist