A Step Away from Paradise: A Tibetan Lama's Extraordinary Journey to a Land of Immortality

by Thomas Shor

  ‘We sat on wooden benches across from the throne and the lamas told the crown prince our business, which was to announce the date of the miracle a few days hence.

  ‘The crown prince said he would come there himself.

  ‘As we got up to leave the crown prince ordered lunch for us, since we had come from so far.

  ‘While we were eating, I remember Yab Maila saying, “The crown prince said he will come but he won’t. He’ll send a few representatives. They say one thing; they do another.”

  ‘As we were leaving the palace compound we had to wait for the palace guards dressed in their plumed splendor to pass before us playing drums and trumpets. I felt as if I’d stepped into the pages of a fairy tale. I had never seen anything like it.

  ‘We went to the Green Hotel in the center of town where we would spend the night. The two tax collectors in the party, Yab Maila and Kunsang Mandal, had business with the finance minister. While there, they told him about Tulshuk Lingpa. The minister told them that if Tulshuk Lingpa did good work for the dharma, the government would be likely to give him a salary.

  ‘When they told the rest of us the story back at the Green Hotel, we all got a good laugh out of it. “What would Tulshuk Lingpa need with a salary?” the head lama of Tashiding said, laughing. “We’re going to Beyul!”

  ‘We were still laughing over the absurdity of Tulshuk Lingpa on a salary when there was a knock at the door. It was Gonde Drungyig, the head of the team that had come to Tashiding to investigate and had insisted my father perform a miracle. “I heard you came to the palace today to announce the day of the miracle,” he said. “I will be there.”’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Miracle

  ‘It is not down in any map; true places never are.’ —Herman Melville

  The day of the miracle arrived. Even before the sun rose, people started converging on Sinon with the excitement of knowing that this would be a day they would always remember. Maybe the miracle would be the opening of the crack itself; maybe today the gate would open to a land beyond cares, an event that even their great-grandparents were awaiting. Lamas were known to fly. Maybe he would create a castle larger than the king’s from the billowing clouds and disappear into it. Rumor had it that not only the crown prince but also the king was coming. Even in a land shrouded in mystery to the rest of the world, a land of lamas and demons and gods where the mountains hid unknown valleys, it wasn’t often that a wonder-working lama performed a miracle. Today the famous terton would perform his supernatural feat especially for the king.

  Rigzin Dokhampa was there on the morning of the miracle. Sitting in his office at the Institute of Tibetology outside Gangtok, he recalled for me what happened. He and his brother Sangye Tenzing were from Tashiding and they were in their teens at the time. They were disciples of Tulshuk Lingpa, studying thangka painting with him. Rigzin told me that shortly before the announced time of eight in the morning neither the king nor the crown prince had arrived. Even their representative was absent.

  The small grassy field below the monastery was teeming and into it walked Tulshuk Lingpa, followed by his daughter Kamala holding a huge tray of sweets. Just as they were coming down into the field, Kamala stumbled on a root and the tray of sweets scattered.

  ‘The omen is very important for us,’ Rigzin told me, ‘wherever we go, whatever we do, we have to see the omen. That was a very bad omen, coming right when it did, when her father was about to perform a miracle. If Kamala hadn’t dropped that tray Tulshuk Lingpa would have been able to take out ter that day, and there would have been a seven-year period of peace. But she dropped it so he couldn’t, and that seven-year period didn’t occur.’

  Moments after Kamala stumbled and scattered the tray Tulshuk Lingpa grabbed on to the shoulder of a lama on his right, and it took two lamas just to hold him up for he suddenly became deathly ill. Hardly able to breathe, he broke out into a cold sweat and his head was spinning. It could have been a heart attack.

  This sudden turn of events needed an equally spontaneous response to turn it around. This is where Atse came in. Atse, whose real name is Sonam Kunga, was one of the lamas of Tashiding. He had a peculiar reputation that was easily summed up in a single word: Cracked. For the unique logic that made him who he was had tremendous gaps in it, and it was easy to imagine his shaved head cracked right down the middle. He was fond of barley beer and by midday was usually incoherent. As a lama Atse was a disaster.

  In a rare moment of lucidity some years earlier, Atse had memorized the text of the Shabden Soldep, the ritual one chants when a high lama becomes ill.

  It was eight in the morning.

  Atse wasn’t yet drunk.

  He had been walking around with this text in his head for years.

  This was his moment.

  Atse

  Atse stepped out of the crowd, stood next to where they had laid Tulshuk Lingpa on the ground, and in a voice at once sonorous and sure of itself he began chanting to bring Tulshuk Lingpa back from the brink of whatever abyss he was falling into. So much concentrated feeling was in his voice, such inner authority, that silence fell on the crowd. It was a solemn moment, with only the sound of his voice and the wind rustling the high grass. By the time he was through, everyone was concentrating so intently on Atse that they didn’t notice Tulshuk Lingpa had gotten back on his feet, his recovery having been as sudden and unexpected as the onset of his mysterious illness.

  Over forty years later this chant was still swimming around in Atse’s brain. When I visited Tashiding with Tulshuk Lingpa’s grandson Wangchuk, we were awakened at six one morning by a loud rapping at our door. It was Garpa, another former disciple of Tulshuk Lingpa, holding Atse firmly by the shirt collar. He shoved Atse into the room, told me to get my tape recorder and then commanded Atse to sing. Though Wangchuk and I were both still half asleep, there was Atse standing in the center of our room, chanting in a deep voice as only a lama can, the entire text of the Shabden Soldep ritual. We had seen Atse the previous days, and he was always so drunk he could hardly stand. Garpa had picked this moment because it was the only time of the day Atse was reasonably sober. The moment Atse had completed the chant, Garpa grabbed him again by the shirt collar and led him out of the room before he could open his mouth again and put his foot in it.

  At the moment Atse had finished his chanting all those years ago on the grassy field below the Sinon Gompa, Gonde Drungyig—the official of the Ecclesiastical Department who had first informed Tulshuk Lingpa that he had to perform a miracle—arrived on the scene.

  The miracle could begin.

  Tulshuk Lingpa led the representative, his main sponsors, closest disciples and family down a short path to where large smooth stone shelves jutted out over the empty space of the valley. There wasn’t enough room for everyone there so people crowded the slope above, back to the small field where they’d started. The lamas started burning clouds of sang.

  ‘From today onwards,’ Tulshuk Lingpa said, ‘there is no one, not even a king, who can either stop us or help us. We can appeal only to the dharmapala and mahapala, the guardian spirits of Beyul and the keepers of the gate. From today it starts.’

  He took out the pecha he had received as ter above Dzongri, the text he’d received from the dakinis especially to appease the guardian spirits of Beyul and to entice them to open the way. He unwrapped it and held it in his hands. As he began chanting the text, Mipham, Namdrol, Géshipa and the other senior lamas looked at each other. They understood the significance of his reading this text. Each, in his own way, was ready for a tear in the fabric of reality.

  Since no one knew what form the renting of reality would take and what miracle was about to occur, some were looking intently at Tulshuk Lingpa. Others were watching the sky, awaiting a sign. Yet others were looking towards Mount Kanchenjunga, because that is where they were to find the secret hidden country. One man told me he was looking down the steep slope to the Tashiding Monastery because it was the holiest p
lace.

  When Tulshuk Lingpa finished the text, he was standing in a dramatic pose with his right foot in front of the left. When he lifted his forward foot, there—where no one was expecting the miracle to occur—imbedded in the stone, was the imprint of his foot.

  Tulshuk Lingpa’s Footprint,

  Sinon Gompa, West Sikkim

  Rigzin recalled for me that he was there and personally saw the rock flowing like water. ‘The rock was boiling and red in color,’ he told me. ‘My brother saw it also; everybody who was there saw this.’ Others described to me smoke rising from the rock, and the collective gasp that went through the crowd at the sight of their lama leaving his footprint in stone.

  There is a strong tradition within Tibetan Buddhism, especially in the oldest branch, the Nyingma, of great lamas proving their miraculous powers by leaving their footprints in stone. Padmasambhava’s preserved footprints are found wherever tradition says he visited and they are still, after twelve centuries, places of pilgrimage. The great lamas of the past have even left imprints in stone of their hands, elbows and heads. Yet leaving an imprint in stone was a deed of the legendary heroes of the past, and none could recall a lama having performed this deed in anyone’s living memory. As an old lady told me, even the Dalai Lama—the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people—had never performed such a miracle.

  Tibetan Buddhism is not the only faith that has a tradition of their holy men leaving footprints in rock. There are two alone on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. One is in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-most holy site. It is believed by the faithful to be that of Mohamed. The other, in the Christian Chapel of the Ascension, is purportedly that of Jesus’ right foot and was left just before he left this world forever and ascended to Heaven. The Christians believe the Al-Aqsa Mosque footprint was left not by Mohamed but by Jesus. They believe the Muslims broke the rock where Jesus ascended to heaven and that it is actually Jesus’ matching left footprint, a controversy we certainly won’t enter into here.

  As word of the miracle spread up the hill to the small field and the monastery a light rain began to fall, a special and auspicious type of rain with widely spaced individual drops—large and filled with sunlight—known in Tibetan as a Rain of Flowers.

  The crowd parted to allow Tulshuk Lingpa and his lamas to climb back up to the monastery through clouds of incense, the very air resounding with the sound of horns and conch shells. With pressed palms, they bowed and prostrated themselves before this miracle-working lama. Then the hundreds who had gathered in Sinon that day filed by the footprint and paid homage to it.

  I have spoken with many people who were present that day for Tulshuk Lingpa’s miracle. While some say the rock began to seethe and bubble and a purple smoke arose, others simply say they were just looking at the sky and suddenly it was there. Most agree the footprint deepened with time, and moisture came out of it. People bent down to put their forehead to it and many tried to take up the moisture with a corner of their clothing. Some wanted to lick the footprint but they were stopped by others who thought that would defile it.

  About two hours later Tulshuk Lingpa was with his family inside his wood-slat hut at the monastery having a bite to eat after the morning’s exertion when there was a loud and aggressive knock at the door. Kunsang opened it to the highest law official of the kingdom: the police commissioner who, with pistol holstered and ready, was backed by ten uniformed policemen with rifles. They burst into the room and started ransacking their things.

  ‘Where is this miracle you have been promising the king?’ the police commissioner demanded. ‘I must see you perform it.’

  Yab Maila pushed through the armed police guarding the door. ‘You have missed the miracle; it’s already occurred,’ he averred. ‘It was announced for 8 a.m. It is now after 10. Where were you?’

  ‘I was galloping my horse up the hill from Legship. We are far from the capital and it took longer than I thought. If you are to do a miracle for the king, you must at least wait until the official representative of the king arrives!’

  ‘We waited,’ Yab Maila said, ‘and he came. We didn’t start until Gonde Drungyig arrived. You, sir, I’ve never met.’

  ‘Gonde Drungyig wasn’t deputed by the king to view the miracle. I was.’

  Just then Gonde Drungyig pushed into the room.

  ‘It is true,’ he said. ‘Last time I was sent by the king. But today I came as a private citizen, out of my own interest.’

  The police commissioner cleared the things from a low table on to the floor with a sweep of his arm. Out of his jacket he produced a large map of the Kingdom of Sikkim, which he unfolded and laid on the table.

  ‘If you have it in mind to take His Majesty’s subjects to the hidden valley of Shangri-La, I demand you show me on the map exactly where on the slopes of Mount Kanchenjunga this hidden valley is. In the name of the king I demand that you show me!’

  ‘If Beyul were on the map, it wouldn’t be Beyul,’ Tulshuk Lingpa calmly said. ‘You won’t find it on any map. Beyul exists, but off the map.’

  This infuriated the police commissioner.

  ‘What do you mean you won’t find it on a map?’ he insisted. ‘Is it too small to put on the map?’

  ‘No,’ Tulshuk Lingpa said, calmly. ‘Rather it is too large. Your map of Sikkim couldn’t contain it, for the Great Hidden Valley in Sikkim is three times as large as the outer Kingdom of Sikkim. Besides, if it were on the map, everyone would go. What would be the use? No one would need a terton to open it.’

  The police commissioner was practically fuming.

  ‘You say you performed a miracle? Show it to me.’

  Tulshuk Lingpa led the police commissioner with his ten-strong escort armed with rifles down to the stone outcropping of rock to see the footprint. The police commissioner bent down and examined the footprint as if it were a crime scene. He scratched it with his fingernail. ‘You have made this by hand. You have carved it,’ he declared. ‘Besides, since I wasn’t here when this occurred, how do I know the footprint wasn’t already here when you put your foot on it? Bring me some of the old people of this village. I demand to know if this footprint was here before.’

  Some of the villagers were right there, and some of them were quite old, ‘We have been here since our birth,’ they told him, ‘and we have never seen this before. This was a miracle. There was no footprint before.’

  The police commissioner had with him a little case with the tools of his trade. He opened it now and took out a tape measure. He measured the footprint, and it was quite small. Then he demanded to measure the lama’s foot. There was a murmur of dissent but Tulshuk Lingpa assented. He measured the lama’s foot, which was considerably larger than the footprint.

  ‘Unless you perform a miracle again right now and in front of my eyes and put your other foot in stone right next to this one, I will declare you a fraud and have to take you in. You think you are going somewhere from where you will never return? That might just be the case. I’ll take you to Gangtok—where there is a nice little cell waiting for you.’

  Yab Maila protested. ‘Tulshuk Lingpa performed the miracle in front of Gonde Drungyig,’ he said, ‘one of His Majesty’s officials. What right do you have to take him away?’

  ‘You performed this before an official who was here in an unofficial capacity. While he might have been sent to perform a preliminary investigation, I was sent by the government to witness the miracle, not he. Now you must perform a miracle for me.’

  The villagers got angry. ‘We thought he was the representative of the palace,’ they called out. ‘He came early in the morning. You were so late. We thought he was the official representative so we proceeded. Performing a miracle is no joke. It cannot be repeated!’

  The police commissioner was not in the least sympathetic. He was not even Sikkimese. He was Punjabi, from way down on the Indian plains a thousand miles away.

  As Rigzin Dokhampa told me, ‘What do Punjabis know about footprint
s in stone? The Indian police officer didn’t understand that when you put your foot in stone, you don’t leave the imprint of the tips of the toes or the back of the heel. The footprint is naturally smaller than the foot that made it. When the police commissioner measured it, he got it wrong. He said Tulshuk Lingpa was a fake; he didn’t know.’

  The police commissioner announced that he was taking Tulshuk Lingpa to Gangtok. He grabbed hold of Tulshuk Lingpa’s arm to drag him to where they had tied their horses but he sorely misjudged the situation.

  The man that the crowd had waited generations for, the one who had just performed a miracle to demonstrate his power to the king and who held the key to the promised land of immortality in his hand, was not so easily to be led off to jail by a Punjabi representative of the king, commissioner of police or not.

  A melee ensued in which Tulshuk Lingpa and the commissioner of police formed the inner circle. They were surrounded by the ten deputies with their rifles ready but useless against this unruly mob of robed lamas, old ladies shaking their fists, children and barking dogs.

  The police commissioner had no choice but to give in. ‘I’ll leave,’ he told the crowd, ‘but I will recommend to the king that Tulshuk Lingpa be ordered to Gangtok to perform a miracle at the palace—and that if he fails, he should be thrown in jail.’

  One of the lamas shouted out, ‘Even if he performs a miracle for the king and all his ministers, you’ll still throw him in jail!’

  ‘That’s not true,’ he retorted. ‘If Tulshuk Lingpa performs a miracle, I will personally carry him on my shoulders and parade him around the palace grounds to the accompaniment of trumpets and drums!’

  He pointed his finger at Yab Maila and Kunsang Lama, the head of the monastery. ‘You two came last time to announce the time for the miracle. You’ll come again and tell us when the next miracle will be performed but this time in Gangtok. You will come and announce it personally to me, the police commissioner.’