Tricycle | Awake in the World

Before Nicholas Vreeland became the first Western abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, he was many things: an assistant to the photographer Irving Penn; a Tibetan monk; a recipient of a geshe degree. He has longest been, however, a photographer. When Vreeland held his first camera, he was a lonely teen in boarding school. These days, he takes portraits of the Dalai Lama. As a photographer, Vreeland says, “I try to keep in mind the fact that there is no inherently existent harmonious quality to a photograph. Once you begin to explore that, then the taking of a photograph becomes part of the practice of exploring and becoming familiar with the whole notion of emptiness.”