Read Online A Step Away from Paradise: A Tibetan Lama's Extraordinary Journey to a Land of Immortality by Thomas Shor - Free Book Online

you that I was born in Pangi, where my father had his first monastery,’ Kunsang began. ‘Until this point, my father knew nothing of Beyul Demoshong. Yes, he was a terton, a revealer of hidden treasure. He could reach into a vision and bring back a magic dagger. He could be directed in a dream to a hidden scroll. But he was also a village lama, and as such was often asked to perform rituals in people’s houses. Sometimes I’d go with him. I was young, and I’d ride in front of my father on the same horse, hanging on to the horse’s mane as we negotiated narrow trails along vast stony slopes running with water from the melting snows above. Once I went with him to a house up the valley in the direction of Patanam. A few lamas from his monastery were with us. I loved going along to see new places and to be with my father. Many things happened in his presence that happened nowhere else. Being the son of a high lama, I was always treated with special deference. Even his lamas treated me with respect.
    ‘When we were heading home, some villagers from further up the valley were going the same way, so we travelled together. We stopped for lunch by the river and were then enjoying the warmth of the mid-summer day, when someone asked my father whether he remembered anything of his previous incarnations.
    ‘“In my last life,” Tulshuk Lingpa said, “My name was Kyaray Lama. My monastery was up the valley, and my end came early.
    ‘“An old man had fallen ill down this way, and every day I went to the man’s house and performed the rituals to restore his la , or vital essence. The family had many fields and animals and kept me coming for over a month. Every day I’d ride my horse down the valley to this house, and every evening I’d return, usually quite sleepy from both the exertion and because of what they gave me to drink before leaving. But my horse was faithful and knew the way. Though I dozed on her back, she always brought me back home to my monastery.
    ‘“Along my way the valley grew steep and narrow. Nobody lived there but an old woman in a house surrounded by a few meager fields. The trail crossed through her fields, and every day she grew more and more angry at my intrusion, shaking her fist at me as I passed and shouting abuses. There was no other way up the valley. It did not matter to her that I was wearing a lama’s robes.
    ‘“One day the old woman had had enough, and she decided to kill me. After I had passed up the valley to perform my pujas, she dug a huge pit right in the middle of the trail. She covered it with branches and dried grass and waited for me to come.
    ‘“What she didn’t know was that I had secret insight. I knew what she was going to do, and that I would die. Yet I chose to let her kill me. I knew that after I died she would be so repentant that she would become a hermit, devote herself to the dharma, and reach enlightenment. I chose to sacrifice myself to her enlightenment.
    ‘“Sure enough, there I came after nightfall. My sponsors had given me chang, and I was dozing atop my horse when suddenly the horse’s foot crashed through the grass-covered branches and we tumbled into the pit. Somehow the horse was able to get back on its feet and jump out of the pit unharmed. I was killed instantly. The old woman rolled a rock on top of me and filled in the pit so no one would ever know. Then she took the branches to her house, cut them up and burned them to stay warm that night.”’
    Kunsang got a nostalgic look on his face.
    ‘I still remember how it felt,’ he said, ‘sitting on a stone by that rushing river, the horses grazing in the background, surrounded by the other lamas, and to hear my father tell the fate of his previous incarnation. I was filled with wonder.
    ‘Since we were coming back from a sponsor’s house, we had many bottles with us; my father and the lamas were all quite drunk. One of the lamas asked him, “Master, could you still find the spot where this