Lama Sonam stopped me. “What is it you want so badly to get away from?”
That, too, was easy.
“Here,” I said, gesturing around me. “All this.”
He shook his head. He leaned forward. “Here,” he said, touching my chest with the palm of his hand. “What is in here that you wish to escape?”
Oh.
He was asking me to connect out there with in here. That weird pressure started to build again, closing my throat.
“Allow it, Tenzing.”
I could feel the possible power of that action hovering just a breath away, but I could also feel the fear of it gluing me in my tracks.
I found Lama Sonam’s eyes. “I can’t. I can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
Because you’re broken. Because you’ll never . . . “Because I can’t. I’ll fail. Just ask my father.”
His voice was gentle. “Success or failure is just a trick of the mind, Tenzing—the only thing that matters is to learn from both. Sometimes, even, failure is the better teacher. This I can tell you, though: No monk ever blamed his way to enlightenment. Blame is an addiction the mind clings to like any other.”
He let that sink in for a moment.
“But please, continue with the dream.” His eyes twinkled. “I am eager to hear how this Pema girl is a part of you.”
I said, “Pema is the part of me that . . .” I drew a blank. Then I saw her shy smile. “Pema is the part of me that is innocent.”
“And Dawa?”
“Dawa is the part of me that . . . that . . . that . . .” I searched. All I saw was her vaguely hostile look. But wait—the sense memory of the dream came back to me. Her troubled eyes. I opened my mouth and heard this come out: “Dawa is the part of me that’s angry on the outside . . .”
“And inside?”
“Inside?” To my horror, my eyes filled. “The part of me that’s lonely,” I whispered.
“Ah, so,” Lama Sonam said. He stood up.
“That’s enough for today. And just to keep your practice strong, I’m happy to tell you your assigned job for the next two days is to continue full time with . . .” His mouth twitched.
My heart sank. “Kitchen duty?”
“Kitchen duty,” he affirmed.
As I turned to leave, my eye fell on his stack of pechas.
“Lama Sonam? Have you heard anything about a super-secret pecha here at Dorje Yidam? One that’s all about the power of women?”
“From the great Tsongkhapa?”
“Yes.”
He laughed. “I’d have to have been living under a rock not to have heard of it. It’s famous around here, if not infamous. Why?”
“Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know what it says?”
A flash of sadness crossed his face. “Am I curious? Yes, Tenzing, I am curious about a great many things, but part of our practice is leaving some curiosities behind. I have learned to leave them alone.”
Lama Sonam studied my face.
“Some teachings are like electricity. Handled properly, they can bring light to thousands. Grasped hold of before one is fully grounded . . . ?” His eyes grew thoughtful. “Let’s just say the time and place has not yet been right for me to receive this teaching. Otherwise, it would have already happened.” His gaze sharpened. “Why?” he said again.
“No reason,” I said. I started out the door.
“Tenzing?”
I stopped.
“It’s not a race, you know. Enlightenment.”
“I know,” I said, but in my mind I was already devouring the secret text.
CHAPTER 6
It was gone. I mean, the title page was there but beneath there lay only a small stack of blank pages. At first, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I kept flipping the thick rectangles, focusing my attention on them with fierce concentration, hoping the sacred words would magically reappear beneath my hot gaze, like invisible ink.
I had come straight here from my session with Lama Sonam. The dormitory was empty—everyone was having tea in the assembly hall—and it was easy to retrieve the pecha from underneath Yeshe’s pallet in private. I had only wanted a quick glimpse, to brush the words with my fingertip, make sure they really existed.
Well, maybe decipher what I could.
Who took the rest of the text? Where was it?
What was I going to tell Lama Nawang?
Panic clawed upward and clutched my throat. I had to get Yeshe and Lobsang. Now. I rewrapped the pecha as best I could, shoved it under Yeshe’s pallet, and ran to find my friends.
I stood at the back entrance of the assembly hall until I spotted them, finishing up their afternoon meal. I stared, willing Yeshe to look up from his bowl. He shifted his body uneasily and finally scanned the room until his eyes found mine, drawn as if by a magnet to my intense mental need. He cocked his head. I made a slicing motion across my neck and then beckoned with my eyes and hand, urging him to come to me. He understood immediately. He touched Lobsang’s arm and nodded my way. Within moments, we were huddled just outside the building together.
“It’s gone,” I said. “The teaching is gone.”
Yeshe and Lobsang exchanged a startled look and then turned to me, their eyes wide.
“How do you know?” Lobsang finally asked.
“I . . .” I looked down. “I wanted to look at it again,” I admitted. I told them what I’d done, and what I’d discovered.
“Maybe it’s a sign,” Yeshe said. “Maybe we should just return what we have to the library.”
“Are you crazy?” I cried out. “First of all, somebody out there has a very powerful teaching, one that shouldn’t be just . . . just floating around. Second of all, Lama Nawang needs it—in two days, remember, it has to be in two days—to place on his personal shrine, and do who-knows-what else so he can achieve Buddhahood. And finally, finally . . .” my voice cracked. “I need to know what’s in it so I know what to do around girls!”
Yeshe and Lobsang were looking at me like I was the crazy one.
My body slumped as a wave of despair rolled over me. “Forget it. What a disaster. Just like everything else in my life.” My voice grew embarrassingly thick. “Do whatever you want with it. I don’t even care anymore. I’d better go tell Lama Nawang.”
I started to walk away.
“We could write our own.” Yeshe’s voice was tentative.
I turned. “Come again?”
“We could write our own. You said there were blank pages left inside, and you know how good I am at inscribing old Tibetan characters. Anyway, we’ve memorized hundreds of these talks—we could compose one in our sleep!”
Lobsang chimed in, “You know, he’s right. Between the three of us, surely we can figure out some things to say about the feminine.”
I looked at them, my voice still sounding miserable. “What I know about girls could fit in a thimble.”
“That’s not true and you know it,” Lobsang’s voice was firm.
Yeshe piped up, “Anyway, we’re talking about the keys to personal Buddhahood. Why wouldn’t what we know about men also be true for women? Masculine, feminine, our spirits are all the same inside our bodies, right?”
I felt a glimmer of hope. This was a crazy idea, but it just might work.
“We do have the covers and the title page,” I said, thinking out loud. “And we could make it really short.” I grasped at another frail straw. “Maybe Lama Nawang isn’t even planning on actually reading it.”
“My job is to keep transcribing pechas for the ceremony,” Yeshe said. “I’ll have all the tools I need. We can do this.”
My two best friends extended their hands toward me. After a moment, I added mine, in a three-way clasp. We were all in.
I looked at them, and my heart swelled. Did anyone have two better friends than me?
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll write it tonight.”
“And I’ll transcribe it tomorrow.” Yeshe nodded.
“An
d then I’ll wrap it, good as new,” Lobsang added. “Or old.”
We laughed, just as the gong inside let us know it was time for our walking meditation. I quickly filled Yeshe and Lobsang in about my meeting with my father.
“So no one has noticed it’s missing from the library,” Lobsang said.
“No one important, at least,” I said.
Yeshe nudged me. “It’s amazing. We may have got away with the perfect crime.”
“There’s that.” My voice was grudging. I wanted the pecha back, but I also wanted to make sure nobody else got the better of me. Why help an enemy also commit a perfect crime? And who was my enemy, anyway? Was it whoever took the pages, or was it some part of me I was secretly doing battle with?
My lesson with Lama Sonam had gotten me so mixed up I couldn’t tell what was inside and what was out. How are you supposed to fight a bad guy that has hiding places in your own head? Just thinking about it made my brain hurt, so I grabbed onto the obvious: My enemy was whoever took the missing pages. That meant our plan called for a second plan—I would use the walking meditation to act like Sherlock Holmes and build a list of suspects who might have swiped my property.
Your stolen property, Tenzing. By you.
Fine. I still needed to get it back.
All other feelings were swept aside by a swell of excitement. In the words of my new hero Holmes, “The game was afoot.”
The courtyard was a mass of milling lamas. I paused, struck by an idea.
“Guys, we’ve got almost all the students in one place right now,” I said. “Let’s make gom on them, one at a time. You know, like they tell us to do with distractions when we’re meditating.”
Lama Sonam loved to remind me about gom, one of the many Tibetan meditation techniques. “Don’t try to push things away,” he’d say. “Just let your benign interest linger on whatever arises.”
Lobsang’s voice was doubtful. “You think that will work?”
“It’s worth a try,” I said. “Let’s just practice gom on each boy and see what happens.”
The practical monks of my lineage had figured out a long time ago that walking was a good thing to do after eating. Of course, being monks, they couldn’t just say, “Go take a nice stroll,” so they incorporated rigorous training into the walking. As a result, some of us chanted under our breath, others read texts, and some practiced contemplation, all while slowly pacing back and forth, awkwardly lifting alternate legs high, moving them forward, and landing them again, like a bunch of storks.
One good thing, though—this was one of the rare times when we didn’t have a senior lama standing over us. While we were outside strolling, they were inside lingering over a second and even third cup of tea—those senior monks really knew how to live it up.
I started my stork-walk, keeping my expression dutifully contemplative. Meanwhile, I rested my attention on each boy for ten seconds or so, just feeling whatever I felt before moving on. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for, but I thought maybe I would know it when I felt it.
Mostly I got nothing, although I caught a sharp blip of anxiety off of Yeshe of all people. It made sense though. We were still in the thick of this thing. I was anxious, too. We were about to take a huge risk. So much was at stake.
My attention skipped from lama to lama like a flat stone across water, until it came to rest on a familiar, handsome face. Across the courtyard, Lama Nawang’s eyes penetrated mine like a shock. The rush of energy up and down my spine was instant, and intense.
He smiled. I smiled back, and his face blazed with light, before turning to walk in the other direction. He and I had an uncanny connection.
I realized my receptors were suddenly much more finely tuned. As I scanned the rest of the lamas, I zeroed in on my dormmate, Lama Tanzen. I didn’t really know the guy, even though we shared sleeping quarters. He was our newest arrival, originally from the mountainous region of Tibet. He’d joined a Lhasa monastery a few years ago, only to escape here soon after. Unlike me, he was a stickler for rules. Other than that, the few times I’d really talked to him, he’d blabbed on and on about his wonderful horse growing up. I guess his horse was his best friend. I’ve never been on a horse in my life, and my transportation fantasies are mostly about motorcycles and sports cars. I’ve never been on one of those, either, but I know my time is coming.
Lama Tanzen’s back was to me across the courtyard, but the moment I focused on him he whipped his head around and shot me a scowl. Then, just as quickly, he turned away and kept walking.
I thought about him. How he was new here and nobody really knew him. How he’d splashed me with tea yesterday. How his bed was right next to Yeshe’s.
I drew next to Yeshe and Lobsang to compare notes. Yeshe said he hadn’t found anybody suspicious. No surprise there. He was warmhearted and always reluctant to judge others. Lobsang said he’d felt something intense from Lama Nawang, and I told him, “Me, too.” That Lama Nawang specialized in intense. But we knew he wasn’t the guilty party.
I whispered my suspicions about Lama Tanzen.
“I don’t think so,” Yeshe protested. “He seems okay to me,” but I detached myself from our little trio and made my way across the courtyard to fall into step next to Tanzen. He cut his eyes to mine and then looked straight ahead, pretending to ignore me. I matched the pace of his walk. The tension grew palpable between us—a swelling balloon of unspoken words and feelings contained within deliberate steps and breath. Time was running out. I decided to pop the balloon.
“Are you thinking about your precious little horsie, little boy?” I said.
Tanzen wheeled to me. “I know what you’re doing, Tenzing Norbu,” he blurted, “and if you keep on doing it I will tell your father.”
A hot ball of anger erupted in my belly. I opened my mouth, but before a word escaped he reached over and gave my shoulder a little shove.
I was halfway through a step, my left foot high off the ground. I went down hard, grabbing at air. I landed on my hip. Pain shot down my leg. When I tried to stand up, I couldn’t get the limb to actually work. I collapsed with a grunt. Yeshe and Lobsang rushed over and hauled me up. It took a few awkward hops before my left leg remembered how to move. My hip throbbed, but the pins and needles of some nerve buzzing back to life overshadowed the pain.
Lama Tanzen was staring at me, his hand over his mouth. When I caught his eye, he quickly looked away, but I recognized the expression on his face. Shame.
Lama Gamden bustled over. His bristling eyebrows were especially sprouty when he was annoyed, like now.
“What’s this?” he growled, pointing to the three of us.
The other lamas caught their collective breath. How much was I going to spill?
“I fell,” I said. The tension in the group seemed to leak away. Lama Gamden peered around suspiciously. Even his eyebrows seemed distrustful. I jumped in again. “My hip hurts.”
“Go see Lama Tashi,” he ordered. He clapped his hands, aiming his voice at the eavesdropping lamas. “Back to walking!”
As I limped away, I felt a surge of satisfaction. Lama Tanzen may have made me fall, but it was worth it. I had found my enemy, and soon I would surely find the missing pages.
CHAPTER 7
I wanted to check under Tanzen’s bed, but my hip was starting to really burn. I hobbled past the main building to Lama Tashi’s separate quarters, a spacious bungalow with an extra front room for his healing work, located not too far from Lama Nawang’s tiny home. The front door was slightly ajar, so I pushed inside. Lama Tashi, his eyes closed, was kneeling, kneading Lama Jamyang’s ancient shoulders as he sat on a low stool, also with closed eyes. Lama Jamyang groaned under Lama Tashi’s touch. He must have shaped one too many butter sculptures this morning. I had to smile. With his hooked nose and his bony head kind of sunken into his wrinkled neck, Lama Jamyang resembled an old tortoise.
I said, “Lama Gamden told me to see you, Lama Tashi.”
Without opening his
eyes, Lama Tashi said, “I’m almost finished. You hurt your left hip. Walk easily up and down the path until I call you.”
I backed outside. I’d heard our resident healer had been initiated into a fairly powerful form of tantric healing, but nobody told me he was a body-reader. I was a little nervous. My body had things to hide.
Soon Lama Jamyang’s bent form scuttled out the door and past me. I threw him a hurried bow.
“Come in, Lama Tenzing.”
Lama Tashi was washing his hands. They were unusually big for his short, compact shape. He tapped a few drops of liquid from a small bottle made of brown glass and worked them into his wide, flat palms. I caught a whiff of wintergreen.
“How did you know I hurt my left hip?” I said.
He smiled. “Is that what you’d really like to know?”
Not again. Apparently, this was my day for wrong questions. My answer was curt. “No, what I really want to know is how to make my hip stop hurting.”
“The answer is the same for both,” he smiled. He opened his arms. “It’s a mystery!” He chuckled, which made me even more irritated.
He rolled out a little mat. “Let’s have a look. Lie down on your right side, please.”
I lay down as directed. He knelt beside me and hovered his hand just above my left hip. He closed his eyes.
He opened them again and sat back on his haunches.
“How did you hurt yourself?”
I sat up as well.
“I fell,” I said.
“Lama Tenzing, how did this injury occur?”
“Ummm,” I said. “Lama Tanzen pushed me and I fell?”
“Ah. And what provoked him?”
I remained silent.
He smiled, shaking his head. “Tenzing, listen carefully. You have an opportunity to make a big leap right now. We can believe things just happen—we stub our toe, or catch a fever, or somebody pushes us and we tumble. But the wise lama asks, ‘Why did I get hurt at this particular time?’ or ‘Why am I getting sick right now?’ Whoever asks these questions is often rewarded with intriguing insights.”
Despite my lingering irritation, I was curious. “Like what?”
The Broken Rules of Ten Page 6
