"If you don't mind, will you give me 10 minutes and I shall finish this lesson with Rinpoche," she said a little reticently "Then we can talk." And so I settled in to witness afascinating 10 minutes of a real classroom in monastic action. This was a no-nonsense teacher, determined to hold her student's attention. Firm, but strangely reverent. The student, willing and attentive, but like any other boy of 12 or 13 distracted by the visitor.

Class over, Tenzin proceeded to do the introductions. "That's Lama Osel Rinpoche." The young Rinpoche said his hellos as the indulgent teacher encouraged me to talk to the `Rinpoche' rather than herself. He, I learnt later, was the reincarnation of Lama Zopa Rinpoche's teacher Lama Yeshe. Lama Zopa, the spiritual director of over 100 centres for the preservation of the Mahayana tradition worldwide, is among the most important harbingers of Tibetan Buddhism in the West today -- next perhaps to the Dalai Lama. Tenzin met Lama Zopa on one of his visits to Australia. That was the decisive moment for her. She was ordained in 1991.

"I wasn't looking for anything particularly. But I knew I did not want to fritter away my energy on routine matters.And I was happy to stumble on a way of understanding the world, myself and others which made sense." At a time when dreams rise from closed lids to stand up on the horizon, 23-year-old Leena was transformed into Tenzin Konchog. What happened to her dreams, I wanted to know.

"I had some. But I came upon something which had more meaning to it than all my dreams." Short and simple... no cliches, no grand quotes, none of the right noises. Good girl, but this wasn't going to be much of copy, I thought! Tenzin was frugal with her words. But her immense warmth more than made up for it. "You must come to Pokhara. You will love the hills that stand there and the little monastery right in the middle. My mother is going to be there too and you will like meeting her," she offered generously when we parted. I nodded my head and exchanged e-mail addresses with this exquisite woman of 32 in ochre robes and a shaved head.

Days went by. Each time I would open my diary and come upon 100357.3110@compuserve.com, a delicatejawline breaking into a languid smile would flash in the mind's eye. And each time I would plan to write to her. Sadly, it remained just that -- a plan. When my teacher at Tushita told me about Tenzin, I was stunned. Who could say in April when I first met her that she was slipping away so swiftly? That Lama Osel would miss his teacher when confronted by the hypotenuse of life?

That I would never get my chance to visit the 32-year-old director of the Enlightenment Project for Purification and Merit in Pokhara, Nepal? The news blunted once again the certitude with which one takes life -- brief in the vast memory of time. In being so far away, she was suddenly so near. In her going away, Tenzin had touched me as she never had in those few moments we were together.

"See you next life, Rinpoche," was her last call to her guru, Lama Zopa. See you then, Tenzin. You've given me my copy this time but a long interview with you remains to be done.