“The Dalai Lama is the biggest living Buddha for all Tibetans, and he is the only master in our heart,” one of them tells me.
“He is like the sun to us,” another adds. “All the Tibetan people think the same.”
“When China tells foreign governments not to meet him, should they listen?” I ask.
“They should meet him,” the monks insist.
And then that fear again, palpable and real.
“If the government knows [we’re talking to you] they’ll arrest us. It happened before.”
“Some of us tried to contact reporters overseas online and talk about the Chinese government’s control over Tibet. As soon as the government finds out, they’ll make the arrest.”
After just a few short minutes, they melt away.
There’s so much more I’d like to ask them but, fleeting as it is, it is at least real testimony, real voices from one of the most closed and controlled places on the planet.
And it is proof that 50 years in exile have done nothing to diminish the Dalai Lama’s popularity and authority here.
It is that popularity perhaps that lies at the heart of China’s continual preoccupation with a man who has spent over five decades in exile, and why it tries so hard to limit his influence on the global stage.
The more foreign governments comply, critics say, the more the human rights abuses here slip from international view – and the more isolated Tibet’s fearful monks become.