by Thomas Shor
Garpa
Garpa is neither a lama nor a monk. He has a wife and grown daughter who, together with his son-in-law, live with him in a house just outside the monastery grounds.
I asked Garpa how it felt, knowing that his stones would far outlast him.
‘How should it feel?’ he responded. ‘The beauty of the mani is not coming from me. The mani itself has the beauty in it. I only bring it out. This is what I do.’
I asked Garpa whether he has sponsors, people who pay for his work. ‘Occasionally,’ he said, ‘but it doesn’t matter whether I have a sponsor or not. My work is carving stone. This is my form of meditation, to get rid of all bad karma.
‘I’ve had two main sponsors in my life,’ he told me. ‘They were my root gurus, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Chatral Rinpoche. Chatral Rinpoche is still alive. He is ninety-four years old. Every year he goes to the mouth of the Ganga below Calcutta and releases thousands of fish bound for the market into the sea. I started carving stones in Tibet before I fled the Chinese invasion. When I first arrived at Tashiding, I wasn’t very good. Chatral Rinpoche saw my work and invited me to his monastery outside Darjeeling for six or seven months. He taught me how to carve stones correctly. Since then I’ve also carved stones at his monastery, at the Pemayangtse Monastery here in Sikkim, and in Nepal.’
Garpa told me that once the Dalai Lama came to Tashiding. He, too, was surprised to hear that all those mani stones were carved by one man, and asked to see the man who had carved them. Garpa was brought before the Dalai Lama and the Dalai Lama looked mirthfully into Garpa’s eyes and pulled his beard. He held Garpa’s face between his two hands and laughed. He told him to continue his good works, which Garpa intends to do, though he confided in me that in the end he intends to go to Bodh Gaya—the place of Buddhist pilgrimage where the Buddha reached enlightenment. ‘If I go to Bodh Gaya,’ Garpa said, picking up his chisel, ‘I don’t think I’ll come back. I will go there and meditate.’
When I asked Garpa about his time with Tulshuk Lingpa, he laughed.
‘My name is Garpa,’ he said. ‘In Tibetan, that rhymes with trapa, which means messenger. Tulshuk Lingpa gave some of his disciples new names like Géshipa, which is a crazy name meaning Four Hundred. Who ever heard of someone named Four Hundred? Because of my name, he gave me the title of the Messenger of the Hidden Land. I was young and strong. While Tulshuk Lingpa was living in Tashiding and he went to Yoksum or some other place, he’d always use me as his postman to relay messages. I became a tremendous runner. I could run all the way from Yoksum to Tashiding in a few hours. You wouldn’t know it now from looking at me but I developed great endurance.
‘When Tulshuk Lingpa fled Sikkim and went to Nepal—to Yamphodin and Tseram—he still had me act as messenger to relay messages to those left behind in Tashiding but now I had to cross a 16,000-foot pass. In total I made the return journey six times, plowing through snow up to my waist.’
It is impossible to say how long they stayed in Tseram. In fact details of times and dates were all incredibly difficult to pin down, and some proved impossible until the end. As far as I can guess, they were in Tseram a few months when one day Tulshuk Lingpa took out his melong, the convex brass mirror used in the trata melong, the mirror divination. He stuck the mirror into a plate of rice and performed a puja that put Yeshe into a trance.
Yeshe was nineteen at the time. Her older sister was the khandro, and had gone down to Yoksum in order to deliver a child by Tulshuk Lingpa some months before, a girl by the name of Pema Choekyi. Somewhere along the line, Yeshe also became his khandro.
When it came to the subject of Tulshuk Lingpa and his khandros it was difficult to get people to talk. Since it was almost as indiscreet for me to ask about his lovers as it was for those who knew to speak about them, I dared ask but only got knowing smiles and evasive suggestions in response. A few ventured as far as saying with an enigmatic smile that he was charismatic and extremely handsome. It is easy to imagine that someone who could inspire hundreds of people to forsake their worldly goods and the very world itself might very well have power over women. In the non-answers I received it became clear that Tulshuk Lingpa was both attractive to women and had his experiences with them, though you can be sure that as with everything else in his life, his experiences with women weren’t of the common variety. He was a great mystic, and the women in his life played a role something similar to that of Beatrice who guided Dante through Paradise in the Divine Comedy.
I spent quite a bit of time with Yeshe, and she herself told me what many others had—that she was also his khandro, though she had been married three years earlier at the age of sixteen. I suspect the fact that she was his khandro meant she and Tulshuk Lingpa were lovers, though I am not sure. Tantric secrets might be easier to unravel. What she couldn’t hide was her deep and abiding love for him. After over forty years, she still saw him in her dreams. She’d see him performing a puja and blessing her.
Yeshe described to me that day in Tseram when Tulshuk Lingpa performed the trata melong, the mirror divination, and had her look into the mirror. She saw three beings reflected in the mirror, and they were hovering off the ground. One was completely white, and two were completely red. They were slowly floating towards her.
Tulshuk Lingpa said the white one was the sadag, the spirit owners of the land, and the two red ones were the shipdak, the guardian deities of the land. That they were floating towards her meant that they were coming from Beyul to greet them. This was an extremely good omen, for without the cooperation of the local deities and the spirits who guarded Beyul it would be impossible to get anywhere near the gate. The beyul were Padmasambhava’s most well-guarded secrets, which would be given up only when circumstances necessitated their opening and only to those pure of heart, intention and motivation. Without the cooperation of the deities and without the necessary purity of heart, clouds would descend, snow would fall and winds would rise up and blow you off the mountain. Support of the deities was never simply given, no matter how predisposed they were to you. They had to be constantly appeased and won over by performing numerous pujas.
When Yeshe saw the deities greeting them, Tulshuk Lingpa decided it was finally time to move higher in order to open the Western Gate to Beyul Demoshong.
‘The time has come. The time has come. The time has come,’ he said.
He chose twenty of his closest disciples to make the opening. They were chosen for their purity of heart, the depth of their practice and the sincerity with which they had given up all ties with the world.
As they were preparing to leave, those who were to stay in Tseram awaiting word that the gate had been opened gave lavish advice to those travelling with Tulshuk Lingpa.
‘Just remember that nothing is impossible,’ they counseled. ‘As you go to open the Gate, the spirits will feel that you are intruding. They will call forth storms and bring down rain, hail and snow. At that time you must keep your minds pure and don’t allow yourselves to be infected by doubt. No matter what Tulshuk Lingpa says don’t contradict him. Even if he says, “Bring me the moon,” don’t tell him it is impossible. Try. Keep your minds pure.’
Map 3. Southwest slopes of Mount Kanchenjunga
from Round Kanchangjunga by
Douglas W. Freshfield, 1903
CHAPTER TWENTY
Opening the Gate
‘Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true’
—Yip Harburg
So it was, amid tremendous excitement, that Tulshuk Lingpa and twenty of his closest disciples ascended the steep slopes above Tseram in order to find and open the Western Gate to Beyul Demoshong. They took with them bedding, food and pechas. Of the twenty, all were men except for three young women—the khandro, her sister Yeshe and another woman who has since died. The khandro had strapped to her back her and Tulshuk Lingpa’s eight-month-old daughter Pema Choekyi. This was in
the early spring of 1963. Of the twenty, many have died in the intervening decades. Others—like Mipham, who has been in deep retreat for years in a cave in Bhutan—could not be traced. I was able to speak with eight of those who went above Tseram and piece together what happened.
Years before, Tulshuk Lingpa had been given directions to Beyul by Khandro Yeshe Tsogyal in a vision; so he knew the way. Yet the directions he was given, which he wrote down in his neyik or guidebook—titled The Great Secret Talk of the Dakinis Showing the Way to Demoshong—demonstrates that the landscape in which the gate was to be found was not purely physical. While it describes the way to a particular place, the landmarks are clearly visionary as well as cryptic. This terma is after all a treasure map to a hidden paradise full of unimaginable treasures, both physical and spiritual. It reveals secrets while concealing them.
I was given a copy of this guidebook by the lamas of Tashiding only because I was with Wangchuk, Tulshuk Lingpa’s grandson. I could have it only after I made the solemn promise that I would not let others see it, publish it in its entirety or publish excerpts that would in any way divulge its secrets. This I have done in the following excerpts:
Within the fort of the snow mountain there are four treasures packed with tremendous wealth that will fulfill your wishes. There is a pond of nectar, and within that pond are eight nagas [serpent gods] protecting a treasure of unimaginable jewels. There is an unthinkable paradise of the owner of the hidden treasures, as well as a paradise of the protector in charge of the whole world. There are countless natural formations, great hidden treasures of dharma and wealth and some small hidden treasures as well.
At the foot of the snow mountain like a lion, which is full of rocks encircled by rainbows, there is a treasure of innumerable jewels. Within the rock mountain in C there is a treasure of wish-fulfilling gems. In the long cave called L there is another treasure of wish-fulfilling gems. In the East, below Kanchenjunga, are treasures of the three different salts. In the mountain called L there are treasures of life and religion. In the central mountain called T there is a great treasure of immortality. In the northwest, in a great cave at Y, there is a copper horse that will conquer all three worlds. And there is a dagger there that will conquer all illusions. In the holy place of the auspicious dakini there is a granary of corn.
After describing a dizzying and kaleidoscopic array of treasures and secret places, ‘paradises of nagas and gods and dakas and dakinis’, which are to be found ‘on the mountain, in the valley, on the rocks, in trees, as well as in the springs’, it says, ‘These are the secret places of Padmasambhava, linked like a net.’ Lest you think great secrets have been revealed, it then goes on to say, enigmatically, ‘These are the well-known secret places.’
About the gates of Beyul, it says,
In that place there are four main doors, four secret doors, the four cardinal directions and the four corners, which are all held tightly. The eastern great gate is blocked by three natural obstructions: narrow ways, mountain doors and curtains. The three conditions of the southern door are rocky hills, great rivers and innumerable ravines. The western and northern gates are entirely packed with natural barriers. Therefore this beyul is superior to other places.
Some of the directions in the book seem almost practical, as if their true meaning were only slightly veiled. ‘The country between the light and dark is blocked by dense snow and three different curtains, one after the other. From the four corners, if you could catch drops of water, then that secret door will not be blocked by the curtains.’ This seems to refer to curtains of ice such as you find blocking high mountain ravines and which in the warm season, when you can ‘catch drops of water’, melt and allow passage.
The guidebook, upon which they relied above Tseram as they neared the western gate, also has many instructions for rituals to be performed to appease the local deities and the deities of Beyul. To enter Beyul is not only a matter of getting yourself to the right place. The timing has to be right. The guidebook says, ‘When the world is devoid of happiness, the door of the ascetic valley will open. If one delays, troublesome things will occur and the great and small valleys will be shaken by a red wind of fire, and poisonous hailstorms will drop.’
In the guidebook it says that to open the gate you have to perform rituals and burn incense to the ‘deity owner of the treasures. Rituals should be offered to the important hills.’ So it was when Tulshuk Lingpa and his twenty disciples left Tseram that day in the early spring of 1963. Again, as he had when they left the nomad above Dzongri, Tulshuk Lingpa announced that from that point forward they would have no contact with the outside world. The only contact would be with the spirit owners of the land and the guardian deities of Beyul.
The directions he had received in the vision years earlier and ‘brought down into script’ in the guidebook were specific enough for Tulshuk Lingpa to know he had to search for the gate above Tseram but the conscious mind is not a powerful enough tool to locate such a gate. So he performed the trata melong, the mirror divination, and had Yeshe look into the burnished brass. She saw the way ahead of them turning into a green valley of flowers with huge old trees and innumerable waterfalls.
The first night they slept in the area that in Tibetan is known as the vatsam, the area above vegetation and below the snow.
The next day they climbed into the snow, and by late afternoon they reached a huge cave surrounded by snow in which they all could fit. There they made camp. From this cave the land dropped off and then rose again on the other side of a little valley, the snowy slope rising to a little notch in a ridge—a pass—across which Tulshuk Lingpa declared was Beyul Demoshong. They were finally within sight of the gate!
The next day, in the morning, Tulshuk Lingpa took twelve of the twenty disciples who were in the cave and led them to the slope rising to the pass. Just as they started their ascent, a cloud came low with a whirl of wind that blew snow from the slope and made the air thick with it. Blinded by the snow and pierced by the wind, they retreated, reaching the cave as a storm came low on the mountain. The storm kept them pinned in the cave for the next two days, during which time they were in the utmost state of concentration upon their pujas and spiritual practices. They needed to purify themselves to the point where the weather would clear and allow them to ascend the snowy slope to the pass leading into Beyul.
On the third day, they awoke to the sun shining into the mouth of their cave. Again, Tulshuk Lingpa headed out to make the ascent. This time he took with him six of those he had left behind on his first attempt. It would be the collective karma of all those attempting the opening that would determine the success or failure of the enterprise. But this time they didn’t even make it to the bottom of the slope below the cave when a cloud came in and made further progress impossible.
Thus it went for nineteen days. Some days the weather would look fine when they set out for the slope opposite but never could they even start the ascent before the weather changed. Obviously the guardian spirits were not ready to allow their passage. Some days they didn’t even try. Storms raged on the mountain for days at a time, piling snow outside the cave in huge drifts that dwarfed them. On those days, they remained in the cave performing pujas and reciting mantras.
On the twentieth day, they woke up to brilliant sunshine. Again they set out for the steep snow slope leading to the pass, now even thicker with snow than before.
Namdrol stopped Tulshuk Lingpa. Something had been bothering him.
‘Master,’ he said, ‘I am from Lahaul. I’ve spent my whole life trekking in deep snow. You are from Tibet. You’ve spent winters down in Pangao, where the snow doesn’t build up. What do you really know of deep snow, steep slopes and their dangers? To get to the pass, it is too dangerous to just go straight up. It would be safer to go that way, to the right, where the slope is gentler and the rocks are bare. When we reach the top of the ridge, we can cross to the same place you want to reach. But your way is just too dangerous. It is springtime; the
underlying snow is old and crusted in ice. The new snow on it could slip.’
With this, Tulshuk Lingpa became furious. It was prophesied back in Kham that the one to open Beyul would have eyes like a tiger; now he had the disposition as well.
‘Who’s the lingpa here,’ he boomed, his breath condensing into clouds of steam in the frozen air. ‘If you’re a lingpa, if you know the way, then why are you following me? Why aren’t you in Beyul already?’
The slope Tulshuk Lingpa wanted to ascend was impossibly steep but when they were leaving Tseram hadn’t the others warned them not to contradict him, no matter how illogical he became? Now they had the full fury of Tulshuk Lingpa upon them. To contradict him or to bring in logical thinking or prudence at the very moment he was finding and preparing to pass through a crack in the logic that keeps the world in a seamless web is the greatest sin a disciple can make.
A moment of doubt can crush a lifetime of faith.
As William Blake said, ‘If the Sun & Moon should doubt/They’d immediately Go out.’
It is rare that conditions are right for the opening of a beyul, rarer still that a lingpa takes incarnation at that time. Conditions must be perfect. You need the help and guidance of any number of spirit gatekeepers and mountain deities, who control the weather and the subtle forces that allow the lingpa to discern the way. Those with the lingpa must be as one being in their single-pointed and clear-hearted intention to give up everything. They have to let go of all material possessions, home, family and the very notion of logic that would prevent them from leaping into a realm beyond the constraints of logic that hold them to this world. They must all jump, as a single being, into another dimension. And if at that vital moment—when all those conditions have come together into a single point in time at the prophesied place where a possibility exists for a crack to form—if just as they are to achieve this wondrous step, a doubt arises and is voiced the whole enterprise can be lost.
