Pico Iyer has been engaged in conversation with the Dalai Lama (a friend of his father´s) for the last three decades - a continuing exploration of his message and its effectiveness. Now, in this insightful, impassioned book, Iyer captures the paradoxes of the Dalai Lama´s position: though he has brought the ideas of Tibet to world attention, Tibet itself is being remade as a Chinese province; though he was born in one of the most remote, least developed places on earth, he has become a champion of globalism and technology. He is a religious leader who warns against being needlessly distracted by religion; a Tibetan head of state who suggests that exile from Tibet can be an opportunity; an incarnation of a Tibetan god who stresses his everyday humanity.Moving from Dharamsala, India - the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile - to Lhasa, Tibet, to venues in the West where the Dalai Lama´s pragmatism, rigour, and scholarship are sometimes lost on an audience yearning for mystical visions, The Open Road illuminates the hidden life, the transforming ideas, and the daily challenges of a global icon.