As a 5-year-old, Erdne Ombadykow began to display signs of eccentric behavior. While his many brothers and sisters were busy watching cartoons on TV or playing in the streets of their rough Philadelphia neighborhood, Erdne would bug his mother to take him to a nearby Buddhist temple. At the temple, the moonfaced little boy would mimic the chanting monks. Erdne’s parents were Buddhists — they were immigrants from Kalmykia, a Mongolian enclave inside Russia — but not particularly religious, and they were baffled by their son’s devotion. In 1979, when Erdne was 7, the Dalai Lama visited the temple, and the little boy crawled straight into his lap. To read the full article, click here: All-American Lama – How an 11th Century Mystic was Reborn in Philadelphia