Looking down from Kungachoeling Monastery through fluttering prayer flags to the blindingly green rice paddies of the Paro River Valley below, one feels utterly escaped from the surly bonds of Earth. Not far from me, a solemn monk lights incense before the Buddha. In the silence of this remote and lovely refuge--one of the Royal Kingdom of Bhutan's hundreds of functioning Tibetan Buddhist shrines--computer chips, frequent flyer miles, the World Trade Organization, and IPOs seem part of another world. Especially here on the Indian subcontinent, awash in corruption, ethnic struggle, illiteracy, pollution, poverty, and the clash of civilizations, Bhutan's pacifism, paternalism, and egalitarianism stand apart. It is hardly surprising that people here often speak of "the outside world" as if it were another celestial body.

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