What Happens in Veda: Why the Dalai Lama Just Hit the Jackpot in Las Vegas

We all know the classic setup. The Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop and asks the guy behind the counter to make him one with everything. It is a spiritual classic, right up there with the one about the monk who refuses to leave his cave because he has already reached the final level of Tetris. But recently, the rumor mill has been churning with a question that sounds like the start of a very expensive hangover: why did the Dalai Lama go to Las Vegas?

Now, usually, when a world leader heads to Sin City, it is for a high stakes summit or a very discreet meeting involving a briefcase full of non sequential bills. But for His Holiness, the motivations are likely a bit more metaphysical. Imagine the scene at the MGM Grand. You are sitting at a blackjack table, three martinis deep, trying to remember if you should hit on a sixteen, when suddenly a man in saffron robes sits down next to you and starts radiating profound inner peace. Suddenly, your gambling addiction feels less like a financial crisis and more like a temporary attachment to the illusion of material wealth.

Sources close to the temple, which is to say, my cousin who once bought a prayer flag at a music festival, suggest he was actually there to investigate the concept of Nirvana at the buffet. If you have ever stood before a forty foot long chocolate fountain at three in the morning, you know that the line between spiritual ecstasy and physical regret is incredibly thin. Perhaps the Dalai Lama just wanted to see if he could remain mindful while an Elvis impersonator sang Suspicious Minds in his general direction. That is the ultimate test of enlightenment: keeping your cool when a man in a sequined jumpsuit offers you a commemorative shot glass.

There is also the possibility that he was there for the magic shows. If anyone can appreciate the irony of a man making a tiger disappear, it is someone who believes the entire universe is a flickering projection of the mind. I can see him now, sitting in the front row for Penn and Teller, nodding sagely and whispering to his attendants that the card was actually in the gentleman's pocket the whole time because time and space are merely convenient constructs for the ego.

Ultimately, the joke is on us. We assume he went there for the glitz, but maybe he just wanted to prove that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, mostly because the concept of a permanent self is a fallacy anyway. He probably walked up to a slot machine, pulled the lever, and when it came up empty, he just smiled and said that the jackpot was already inside him. Which is a great way to handle losing fifty bucks, though the pit boss might still ask you to leave if you start levitating over the craps table.