Along the tour, Professor Lin Yun gives advice. Gail is not to let the light bulbs burn out in her closets, which have no source of natural light. In the bedroom, she and her husband need a strategically placed mirror so they can see who passes their door. Soon after the tour, Gail begins ushering those who are not house guests toward the door.
The next day, Gail is outfitted in an olive pantsuit, looking tired but blissed out. A blemish is beginning to erupt on her otherwise pristine nose -- her only sign of stress, and one she cheerfully ignores. Sogyal Rinpoche speaks again in the morning on wisdom and compassion, even leading a brief meditation. The day goes smoothly, with Dean Ornish scrupulously avoiding the dreaded word "vegetarian" and spiritual psychologist Jacqueline Small listing her prescriptions for responsible spiritual behavior. When Kriel gets to the part of her tantra talk about developing a state of infinite ecstasy with one's beloved, Gail sidles up to Jenard and gives him an infinitely cute little kiss.
When the symposium is over, Gail seems even more deliriously happy than ever. She poses for photograph after photograph with the speakers, including Professor Lin Yun's coterie of chattering Chinese women. When she spots a bevy of friends from Aspen, she yelps, "Group hug!" and the women, plus Jenard, oblige her by locking arms and huddling in a momentary circle, butts outward. The women congratulate Jenard on being such an exemplary specimen of the male gender, and he smiles beatifically. Gail concurs. "You are such a good man," she says.
Seemingly minutes after disappearing to change for dinner, Gail is back at the Houstonian, dressed in a dazzling white satin jacket. Her hair is swooped to one side, and her dark-rimmed glasses have disappeared. "Oh, hon-ee!" She takes a participant's hand. "You got it! I can tell you got it! Your eyes are sparkling."
Gail squeezes the newcomer's face, announcing, "She's one of us!"
"I thought we were all One already," the participant protests.
"That's right!" Gail says, pleased. "You know the expression 'You are your bruthah's keeper?" she says, with a Jersey accent you could hitch a truck to. "Well, you are your bruthah!"
Everyone, looking swankier than ever, takes a seat. Waiters hand out party favors: copies of the novelty book Love, Loss and What I Wore from Tootsies.
After dinner, Richard Gere takes the podium. When he first grew interested in Tibet, he says, his comrades "were just a bunch of hippies like me," he says. Now, he travels around speaking to gatherings of "people of substance." He asks if he is in "Republican territory," and the crowd clamors in assent, so Gere talks about how he's learned to work with Republicans and discovered that the freedom of Tibet is not a partisan issue.
After Gere tells of the Dalai Lama's first viewing of Martin Scorsese's movie Kundun ("They got the glasses wrong," His Holiness said) and of the plight of Tibetan refugees who flee over the mountains, Sogyal Rinpoche and Swami Satchadadananda join him on the podium. People ask questions, mostly about what they can do to help Tibet.
Then at the back table, a young man named Oscar Sierra stands up. The token ghetto-kid-turned-yoga-instructor, Oscar was brought to the symposium from south-central Los Angeles by movie producer Lynda Guber to address the crowd at the symposium. Oscar is the product of an inner-city school where children learn meditation as well as math, and bringing Buddha to the underprivileged is a cause dear to Gail's heart. Along with her friend Barbara Hines, wife of developer Gerald Hines, she is planning to open a Buddhist-influenced boarding school for homeless children, The Dawn School. In preparation, Gail finished off a doctorate in education in 1995.
Oscar has already proven himself fairly gutsy, striding up and down the center aisle during his speech the day before. Now he hems and haws a little, and apologizes if his suggestion is inappropriate, but he's wondering if everyone might like to do a little exercise that he does with his yoga classes, that is to say, would everyone stand in a circle and hold hands?
People in the room blanch. Singing "wah hey guru" over and over was one thing, but look at each other? Touch each other? Helena Kriel smiles mischievously -- she likes this idea. Gere leaves the podium and confers nervously with Rinpoche, then comes back and thanks Oscar for his comment. Sogyal Rinpoche will try to do something like that at the end of the evening, Gere says, to the room's collective relief. Off the hook.
At the end of Gere's talk, all thoughts of a circle are expressly forgotten. Everyone stands and applauds. People start to gather their things, but Gail wants Professor Lin Yun to end with a blessing, so everyone sort of stops where they are, politely waiting.
Then Gail gasps. She's remembered. She leans into the mike."The circle!" she says. "We can't forget Oscar's circle!"
Everyone gulps. Clearly, a woman who can order her husband to participate in a group hug cannot be ignored by a gaggle of mere civic leaders. And so they shuffle into a kind of a finicky rectangle, with an island of stragglers who, finding themselves marooned in the middle, gingerly take hands and stand there while Professor Lin Yun blesses the house. It's not quite a circle. But at least they're trying.
E-mail Shaila Dewan at shaila.dewan@houstonpress.com.
