T. lobsang rampa doctor from lhasa

CHAPTER FIVE:
The Other Side of Death

I looked down at his lined brown face, at the skin drawn tight like parchment over a framework, like the string drawn tight on a kite as it hummed in the wind. Old Tsong-tai was a gallant old gentleman. I looked down at this thin face, his noble head, and the sparse white hairs of his beard. Years before he had been a high-ranking official at the Palace of the Emperors in Peking. Then had come the revolution and the old man had been driven away in the terrible aftermath of war and of civil war. He had made his way to Chungking, and had set up as a market gardener, starting again from the bottom, scratching a bare existence from the hard soil. He had been an educated old man, one to whom it was a delight to talk. Now his voice was stilled forever. We had worked hard to save him.

The hard life which he had had, had proved too much for him. One day he had been working in his field, and he had dropped. For hours he had lain there, too ill to move, to ill to call for assistance. They had come for us eventually, when it was too late. We had taken the old man to the hospital and I had tended him, my friend. Now there was nothing more that I could do except see that he had burial of the type that he would want to have, and to see too that his aged wife was freed from want.

I lovingly closed his eyes, the eyes that would no longer gaze at me quizzically as I plied him with questions. I made sure that the bandage was tight around his jaws so that his mouth would not sag, the mouth that had given me so much encouragement, so much teaching in Chinese and Chinese history, for it had been my wont to call upon the old man of an evening, to take him little things, and to talk with him as one man to another. I drew the sheet over him and straightened up. The day was far advanced. It was long past the hour at which I should have left, for I had been on duty for more than seventeen hours, trying to help, trying to cure.

I made my way up the hill, past the shops so brightly lighted, for it was dark. I went on past the last of the houses. The sky was cloudy. Below in the harbor the water had been lashing up at the quay side and the ships were rocking and tossing at their moorings.

The wind moaned and sighed through the pine trees as I walked along the road toward the lamasery. For some reason I shivered. I was oppressed with a horrid dread. I could not get the thought of death out of my mind. Why should people have to die so painfully? The clouds overhead scurried swiftly by like people intent on their business, obscuring the face of the moon, blowing clear, allowing shafts of moonlight to illuminate the dark fir trees. Then the clouds would come together again and the light would be shut off, and all would be gloomy, and dark, and foreboding. I shivered.

As I walked along the road my footsteps echoed hollowly in the silence, echoed as if someone were following me close behind. I was ill at ease, again I shivered and drew my robe more tightly around me. “Must be sickening for something,” I said to myself. “I really feel most peculiar. Can't think what it can be.” Just then I came to the entrance of the little path through the trees, the little path which led up the hill to the lamasery. I turned right, away from the main road. For some moments I walked along until I came to a little clearing at the side of the path where a fallen tree had brought others crashing down. Now, one was flat upon the ground and the others lay at crazy angles. “I think I'll sit down for a moment. Don't know what's happened to me,” I said to myself. With that I turned into the clearing and looked for a clean place upon the trunk of a tree. I sat down and tucked my robes around my legs to protect me from the chill wind. It was eerie. All the small sounds of the night broke in upon me, queer shudders, squeaks, and rustles. Just then scurrying clouds overhead parted, and a brilliant beam of moonlight flooded into the clearing, illuminating all as if in the clearest day. It seemed strange to me, light, moonlight as bright as that, as bright as the brightest sunlight. I shivered, then jumped to my feet in alarm. A man was approaching through the trees at the other side of the clearing. I stared in utter incredulity. It was a Tibetan lama. A lama was coming toward me with blood pouring from his chest, staining his robes, his hands too were covered with blood, dripping red. He walked toward me, and I reeled back and almost tripped over the bole of a tree. I sank down and sat in terror. “Lobsang, Lobsang, are you afraid of ME?” a well-known voice exclaimed. I stood up, rubbed my eyes, and then rushed toward that figure. “Stop!” he said. “You cannot touch me. I have come to say goodbye to you, for this day I have finished my span upon the earth, and I am about to depart. Shall we sit and talk?” I turned, humbly, heart-broken, stunned, and resumed my seat upon the fallen tree. Overhead the clouds whirled by, the leaves of the trees rustled, a night bird flitted overhead intent only on food, upon prey, oblivious to us, and our business. Somewhere at the end of the trunk upon which we sat some small creature of the night rustled and squeaked as it turned over rotting vegetation in search of food. Here in this desolate clearing, wind-swept and bleak, I sat and talked with a ghost, the ghost of my Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup, who had returned from beyond Life to talk to me.

He sat beside me as he had sat beside me so many times before away in Lhasa. He sat not touching me, perhaps three yards' distance from me. “Before you left Lhasa, Lobsang, you asked me to tell you when my span upon earth had finished. My span has now finished. Here I am.” I looked at him, the man I knew above all others. I looked at him and I could hardly believe—even with all my experience of such things—that this man was no longer of the flesh, but a spirit, that his silver cord had been severed, and the golden bowl shattered. He looked to me to be solid, entire, as I had known him. He was dressed in his robes, in his brick red cassock with the golden cloak. He looked tired as if he had traveled far and painfully. I could see well that for a long time past he had neglected his own welfare in the service of others. “How wan he looks,” I thought. Then he partly turned, in a habit that I so well remembered, and as he did so I saw a dagger in his back. He shrugged slightly and settled himself, and faced me. I froze with horror as I saw that the point of the dagger was protruding from his chest, and the blood had poured from the wound, had run down and saturated the golden robe. Before it had been as a blur to me, I had not taken in the details, I had just seen a lama with blood on his chest, blood on his hands, but now I was gazing more closely. The hands I saw were blood-stained where he had clutched himself as the dagger came through his chest. I shivered and my blood ran cold within me. He saw my gaze, he saw the horror in my face, and he said, “I came like this deliberately, Lobsang, so that you could see what happened. Now that you have seen me thus, see me as I am.” The blood-stained form vanished in a flash, a flash of golden light, and then it was replaced by a vision of surpassing beauty and purity. It was a Being who had advanced far upon the path of evolution. One who had attained Buddhahood.

Then as clear as the sound of a temple bell, his voice came to me, not perhaps to my physical ears but to my inner consciousness. A voice of beauty, resonant, full of power, full of life, Greater Life. “My time is short, Lobsang, I must soon be on my way, for there are those who await me. But you, my friend, my companion in so many adventures, I had to visit you first, to cheer you, to reassure you, and to say ‘Farewell’ for a time. Lobsang, we have talked so long together in the past on these matters. Again I say to you, your way will be hard, and dangerous, and long, but you will succeed in spite of all, in spite of the opposition and the jealousy of the men of the West.”

For a long time we talked, talked of things too intimate to discuss. I was warm and comfortable, the clearing was filled with a golden glow, brighter than the brightest sunlight, and the warmth was the warmth of a summer noon. I was filled with true Love. Then, suddenly, my Guide, my beloved Lama Mingyar Dondup, rose to his feet, but his feet were not in contact with the earth. He stretched out his hands above my head and gave me his blessing, and he said, “I shall be watching over you, Lobsang, to help you as much as I can, but the way is hard, the blows will be many and even before this day has ended you will receive yet another blow. Bear up, Lobsang, bear up as you have borne up in the past. My blessing be upon you.” I raised my eyes, and before my gaze he faded and was gone, the golden light died and was no more and the shadows of night rushed in and the wind was cold. Overhead the clouds raced by in angry turmoil. Small creatures of the night chattered and rustled. There was a squeak of terror from some victim of a larger creature as it breathed its last.

For a moment I stood as if stunned. Then I flung myself to the ground beside the tree trunk, and clawed at the moss, and for a time I was not a man in spite of all my training, in spite of all I knew. Then I seemed to hear within me that dear voice once again. “Be of good cheer, my Lobsang, be of good cheer for this is not the end, for all that for which we strive is worthwhile and shall be. This is not the end.” So I rose shakily to my feet, and I composed my thoughts, and I brushed off my robe, and wiped my hands from the mud on the ground.

Slowly I continued my journey up the path, up the hill, to the lamasery. “Death,” I thought, “I have been to the other side of death myself, but I returned. My Guide has gone beyond recall, beyond my reach. Gone, and I am alone, alone.” So, with such thoughts in my mind I reached the lamasery. At the entrance were a number of monks who had just returned by other paths. Blindly I brushed by them, and made my way along into the darkness of the temple where the sacred images gazed at me and seemed to have understanding and compassion on their carven faces. I looked upon the Tablets of the Ancestors, the red banners with the golden ideographs, upon the ever-burning incense with its fragrant swirl of smoke hanging like a somnolent cloud between the floor and the high ceiling far overhead. I made my way to a distant corner, to a truly sacred spot, and I heard again, “Be of good cheer, Lobsang, be of good cheer, for this is not the end and that for which we strive is worthwhile and shall be. Be of good cheer.” I sank down in the lotus position, and I dwelt upon the past and upon the present. How long I stayed thus I do not know. My world was toppling around me. Hardships were pressing upon me. My beloved Guide had gone from this world, but he had told me, “This is not the end, it is all worthwhile.” Around me monks went about their business dusting, preparing, lighting fresh incense, chanting, but none came to disturb my grief as I sat alone.

The night wore on. Monks made preparation for a service. The Chinese monks in their black robes with their shaven heads with the incense marks burned into their skulls, looked like ghosts in the light of the flickering butter lamps. The priest of the temple in his five-faced Buddha crown came chanting by as the temple bugles were sounded and the silver bells were rung. I slowly rose to my feet and made my reluctant way to the Abbot. With him I discussed what had happened, and asked to be excused from the midnight service, saying that I was too sick at heart, too unwilling to show my grief to the world of the lamasery. He said, “No, my brother. You have cause to rejoice. You have passed beyond death and returned, and this day you have heard from your Guide, and you have seen the living proof of his Buddhahood. My brother you should not feel sorrow, for the parting is but temporary. Take the midnight service, my brother, and rejoice that you have seen that which is denied to so many.”

“Training is all very well,” I thought. “I know as well as any that death on earth is birth into the Greater life. I know that there is no death, that this is but the World of Illusion, and that the real life is yet to come, when we leave this nightmare stage, this earth, which is but a school to which we come to learn our lessons. Death? There is no such thing. Why then am I so disheartened?” The answer came to me almost before I asked myself the question. I am despondent because I am selfish, because I have lost that which I love, because that which I love is now beyond my reach. I am selfish indeed, for he who has gone has gone to glorious life, while I am still ensnared in the toils of the earth, left to suffer on, to strive on, to do that task for which I came in the same way as a student at a school has to strive on until he has passed his final examinations. Then with new qualifications he can set forth unto the world to learn all over again. I am selfish, I said, for I would keep my beloved Guide here upon this terrible earth for my own selfish gain.

Death? There is nothing to be afraid of in death. It is life of which we should be afraid, life which enables us to make so many mistakes.

There is no need to fear death. There is no need to fear the passing from this life to the Greater Life. There is no need to fear hell, for there is no such place, there is no such thing as a Day of Judgment. Man judges himself, and there is no sterner judge than man of his own infirmities, his own weakness, when he passes beyond life on earth and when the scales of false values drop from his eyes and when he can see Truth. So all you who fear death know this from one who has been beyond death, and has returned. There is naught to fear. There is no Day of Judgment except that which you make yourself. There is no hell. Everyone, no matter who they are, nor what they have done, is given a chance. No one is ever destroyed. No one is ever too bad to be given another chance. We fear the death of others because it deprives us of their well loved company, because we are selfish, and we fear our own death because it is a journey into the Unknown, and that which we do not understand, that which we do not know, that we fear. But—there is no death, there is only birth into a Greater Life. In the early days of all religions that was the teaching; there is no death, there is only birth into the Greater Life. Through generation after generation of priests the true teaching has been altered, corrupted, until they threaten with fear, with brimstone and sulfur, and tales of hell. They do all this to boost up their own power, to say, “We are the priests, we have the keys of heaven. Obey us or you will go to hell.” But I have been to the other side of death and have returned, as have many lamas. We know the truth. We know that always there is hope. No matter what one has done, no matter how guilty one may feel, one must strive on for there is always hope.

The Abbot of the lamasery had told me, “Take the midnight service, my brother, and tell of that which you have seen this day.” I dreaded it. It was indeed an ordeal for me. I felt sick at heart. The terrible oppression sat upon me, and I returned to a secluded corner of the temple to my meditation. So that terrible evening wore on, with the minutes feeling like hours, with the hours like days, and I thought I should never live through it. The monks came and went. There was activity around me in the body of the temple, but I was alone with my thoughts, thinking of the past, dreading the future.

But it was not to be. I was not to take the midnight service after all. As my Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup had warned me earlier in the evening another blow was yet to fall before the day was ended, a terrible blow. I was meditating in my quiet corner, thinking of the past and of the future. At about 11 o'clock of that night when all was quiet around me, I saw a figure approaching. It was an old, old lama, one of the élite of the temple of Lhasa, an old living Buddha who had not much longer to live on this earth. He approached from the deeper shadows where the flickering butter lamps did not penetrate. He approached, and about him was a bluish glow. Around his head the glow was yellow. He approached me with his hands outstretched, palm up, and said, “My son, my son, I have grave tidings for you. The Inmost One, the 13th Dalai Lama, the last of his line, is shortly to pass from this world.” The old man, the lama who visited me, told me that the end of a cycle was approaching, and that the Dalai Lama was to leave. He told me that I should make full haste and return to Lhasa so that I could see him before it was too late. He told me that, then he said, “You must make all haste. Use whatever means you can to return. It is imperative that you leave this night.” He looked at me, and I rose to my feet. As I did so he faded, he merged back into the shadows and was no more. His spirit had returned to his body which even then was at the Jo Kang in Lhasa.

Events were happening too quickly for me. Tragedy after tragedy, event after event. I felt dazed. My training had been a hard one indeed. I had been taught about life and about death, and about showing no emotion, yet what can one do when one's beloved friends are dying in quick succession? Is one to remain stony hearted, frozen faced, and aloof, or is one to have warm feelings? I loved these men. Old Tsong-tai, my Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup, and the 13th Dalai Lama, now in one day within the space of a few hours I had been told one after the other was dying. Two already were dead, and the third . . . how long before he too went? A few days. I must make haste, I thought, and I turned and made my way from the inner temple into the main body of the lamasery. I went along the stone corridors towards the cell of the Abbot. As I was almost at the turning for his room I heard a sudden commotion and a thud. I hastened my footsteps.

Another lama, Jersi, also from Tibet, not from Lhasa but from Chambo, had had a telepathic message too, by a different lama. He, too, had been urged to leave Chungking and to return with me as my attendant. He was a man who had studied motor vehicles and similar forms of transit. He had been rather too quick; immediately his messenger had departed he had jumped to his feet and raced down the stone corridor towards the Abbot's cell. He had not negotiated the corner but had slipped upon some butter which had been spilled from a lamp by a careless monk. He had slipped and fallen heavily. He broke a leg and an arm, and as I turned the corner I saw him lying there, gasping, with a shaft of bone protruding.

The Abbot came out of his cell at the noise. Together we knelt beside our fallen brother. The Abbot held his shoulder while I pulled on his wrist to set the broken bone. Then I called for splints and bandages, and soon Jersi was splinted and bandaged—arm and a leg. The leg was rather a different matter because it was a compound fracture and we had to take him to his cell and apply traction. Then I left him in the care of another.

The Abbot and I went to his cell where I told him of the message I had received. I described to him the vision, and he, too, had had a similar impression. So it was agreed that I should leave the lamasery then, at that instant. The Abbot quickly sent for a messenger who went out at a run to get a horse, and to gallop full speed into Chungking on a mission. I stopped only to take food and to have food packed for me. I took spare blankets, and spare robe, then I made my way on foot down the path, past the clearing where earlier that evening I had had such a memorable experience, where I had seen for the last time my Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup. I walked on, feeling a sharp pang of emotion, fighting to control my feelings, fighting to maintain the imperturbable mien of a lama. So I came to the end of the path where it joined the road. I stood and waited.

Behind me, I thought, in the temple the deep bronze gongs would be calling the monks to service. The tinkle of silver bells will punctuate the responses and the flutes and the trumpets will be sounding. Soon upon the night air came the throb of a powerful motor and over the distant hill came the bright silver beams of headlamps. A racing car tore toward me and stopped with a squeal of tires on the road. A man jumped out. “Your car, Honourable Lobsang Rampa. Shall I turn it first?” “No,” I replied. “Go down the hill toward the left.” I jumped in beside the driver. The monk who had been summoned by the Abbot had rushed off to Chungking to obtain a driver and powerful car. This was indeed a powerful vehicle, an immense black American monster. I sat beside the driver and we sped through the night on the road to Chengtu, two hundred miles from Chungking. Ahead of us great pools of light raced from headlamps, showing up the unevenness of the road, illuminating the trees by the side, and making grotesque shadows as if daring us to catch them, as if urging us on faster and faster. The driver, Ejen, was a good driver, well trained, capable and safe. Faster and faster we went with the road a mere blur. I sat back, and thought and thought.

I had in my mind the thought of my beloved Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup, and the way he had trained me, all that he had done for me. He had been more to me than my own parents. I had in my mind also the thought of my beloved ruler, the 13th Dalai Lama, the last of His line, for the old prophecy said that the 13th Dalai Lama would pass and with His passing would come a new order to Tibet. In 1950 the Chinese Communists began their invasion of Tibet, but before this the Communist Third Column had been in Lhasa. I thought of all this which I knew was going to happen, I knew this in 1933, I knew it before 1933 because it all followed exactly according to the prophecy.

So we raced on through the night two hundred miles to Chengtu. At Chengtu we got more petrol, we stretched our legs for ten minutes, and had food. Then on we went again, the wild drive through the night, through the darkness from Chengtu to Ya-an, a hundred miles further on, and there, as dawn was breaking, as the first streaks of light were shining in the sky, the road ended, the car could go no further. I went to a lamasery where by telepathy, the message had been received that I was on my way. A horse was ready, a high-spirited horse, one that kicked and reared, but in this emergency I had no time to pander to a horse. I got on, and stayed on, and the horse did my bidding as if it knew of the urgency of our mission. The groom released the bridle and off we shot, up the road, onwards on the way to Tibet. The car would return to Chungking, the driver having the pleasure of a soft speedy ride, while I had to sit in the high wooden saddle and ride on and on, changing horses after the end of a good run, changing always to high-spirited animals which had plenty of power because I was in a hurry.

There is no need to tell of the trials of that journey, the bitter hardships of one solitary horseman. No need to tell of the crossing of the Yangtse river, and on to the Upper Salween. I raced on and on. It was grueling work riding like this, but I made it in time. I turned through a pass in the mountains, and once again gazed upon the golden roofs of the Potala. I gazed upon the domes which hid the earthly remains of other bodies of the Dalai Lama, and I thought how soon would there be another dome concealing another body.

I rode on, and crossed again the Happy River. It was not happy for me this time. I crossed it and went along and I was in time. The hard, rushed journey had not been in vain. I was there for all the ceremonials and I took a very active part in them. There was, for me, a further unpleasant incident. A foreigner was there who wanted all consideration for himself. He thought that we were just natives, and that he was lord of all he surveyed. He wanted to be in the front of everything, noticed by all, and because I would not further his selfish aim—he tried to bribe a friend and me with wrist watches!—he has regarded me as an enemy ever since, and has indeed gone out of his way—has gone to extreme lengths—to injure me and mine. However, that has nothing to do with it, except that it shows how right were my Tutors when they warned me of jealousy.

They were very sad days indeed for us, and I do not propose to write about the ceremonial nor about the disposal of the Dalai Lama. It will suffice to say that his body was preserved according to our ancient method, and placed in a sitting position, facing the South as demanded by tradition. Time after time the head would turn toward the East. Many consider this to be a pointer from beyond death, saying that we must look toward the East. Well, the Chinese invaders came from the East to disrupt Tibet. That turning to the East was indeed a sign, a warning. If only we could have heeded it!

I went again to the home of my parents. Old Tzu had died. Many of the people that I had known were changed. All was strange there. It was not a home to me. I was just a caller, a stranger, a high lama, a high dignitary of the temple who had returned temporarily from China. I was kept waiting to see my parents. At last I was conducted to them. Talk was forced, the atmosphere was strained. I was no longer a son of the house, but a stranger. But not quite a stranger in the sense that is usually meant, for my father conducted me to his private room, and there he took from its safe stronghold our Record, and carefully unwrapped it from its golden covering. Without a word I signed my name, the last entry. I signed my name, my rank, and my new qualifications as a qualified doctor and surgeon. Then the Book was solemnly re-wrapped and replaced in its hiding place beneath the floor. Together we returned to the room in which my mother and my sister sat. I made my farewells and turned away. In the courtyard the grooms were holding my horse. I mounted and passed through the great gates for the last time. It was with a heavy heart that I turned into the Lingkhor Road and made my way to Menzekang, which is the main Tibetan hospital. I had worked here and now I was paying a courtesy call to the huge old monk who was in charge, Chinrobnobo; I knew him well, a nice old man. He had taught me a lot after I had left Iron Hill Medical School. He took me into his room and asked me about Chinese medicine. I said, “They claim in China that they were the first to use acupuncture and moxibustion, but I know better. I have seen in the old records how these two remedies were brought from Tibet to be used in China years and years ago.” He was most interested when I told him that the Chinese, and Western powers too, were investigating why these two remedies worked, because work they assuredly did. Acupuncture is a special method of inserting extremely fine needles into various parts of the body. They are so fine that no pain is felt. These needles are inserted and they stimulate various healing reactions. They use radium needles, and claim wonderful cures for it, but we of the East have used acupuncture for centuries with equal success. We have also used moxibustion. This is a method of preparing various herbs in a tube and igniting one end so that it glows red. This glowing end is brought near to a diseased skin and tissue, and in heating that area the virtue of the herbs passes direct to the tissues with curative effect. These two methods have been proved again and again, but how precisely they work has not been determined.

I looked again into the great storehouse in which were kept the many, many herbs, more than six thousand different types. Most of them unknown to China, unknown to the rest of the world. Tatura, for instance, which is the root of a tree, was a most powerful anaesthetic, and it could keep a person completely anaesthetized for twelve hours at a stretch, and, in the hands of a good practitioner, there would be no undesirable after effects whatever. I looked around, and I could find nothing with which to find fault in spite of all the modern advances of China and America. The old Tibetan cures still were satisfactory.

That night I slept in my old place, and as in the days when I was a pupil I attended the services. It all carried me back. What memories there were in every one of those stones! In the morning when it was light I climbed to the highest part of Iron Mountain, and gazed out over the Potala, over the Serpent Park, over Lhasa, and into the snow-clad mountains surrounding. I gazed long and then I went back into the Medical School and said my farewells and took my bag of tsampa. Then with my blanket rolled and my spare robe in front of me I remounted my horse and made my way down the hill.

The sun hid behind a black cloud as I reached the bottom of the path and passed by the village of Shö. Pilgrims were everywhere, pilgrims from all parts of Tibet, and from beyond, come to pay their respects at the Potala. Horoscope vendors were there crying their wares, and those who had magic potions and charms were doing a brisk trade. The recent ceremonials had brought merchants, traders, hawkers and beggars of all description to the Sacred Road. Nearby a yak train was coming in through the Western Gate, laden with goods for the markets of Lhasa. I stopped to watch, thinking that I might never again see this so familiar sight, and feeling sick at heart at the thought of leaving. There was a rustle behind me. “Your blessing, Honourable Medical Lama,” said a voice, and I turned to see one of the Body Breakers, one of the men who had done so much to help me when, by order of the 13th Dalai Lama, he whose body I had just seen, I had studied with. When I had been able to get past the age-old tradition that bodies might not be dissected, I, because of my special task, had been given every facility to dissect bodies, and here was one of those men who had done so much to help me. I gave him my blessing, glad indeed that someone from the past recognised me. “Your teaching was wonderful,” I said. “You taught me more than the Medical School of Chungking.” He looked pleased, and put out his tongue to me in the manner of the serf. He backed away from me in the traditional manner, and mingled with the throng at the Gate.

For a few moments more I stood beside my horse, looking at the Potala, at the Iron Mountain, and then I went on my way, crossing the Kyi River, and passing many pleasant parks. The ground here was flat and green with the green of well-watered grass, a paradise twelve thousand eight hundred feet above sea level, ringed by mountains rising yet another six thousand feet, liberally speckled with lamaseries both large and small, and with isolated hermitages perched precariously on inaccessible rock spurs. Gradually the slope of the road increased, climbing to meet the mountain passes. My horse was fresh, well cared for and well fed. He wanted to hurry, I wanted to linger. Monks and merchants rode by, some of them looking at me curiously because I had departed from tradition and I was riding alone for greater speed. My father would never have ridden without an immense retinue as befitted his station, but I was of the modern age. So strangers looked at me curiously, but others whom I had known called a friendly greeting. At last my horse and I breasted the rise, and we came level with the great chorten of stones which was the last place from which Lhasa could be seen. I dismounted and tethered my horse, then sat on a convenient rock as I looked long into the valley.

The sky was a deep blue, the deep blue that is only seen at such altitudes. Snow-white clouds drifted lazily overhead. A raven flopped down beside me and pecked inquiringly at my robe. As an afterthought I added a stone as custom demanded to the huge pile beside me, the pile which had been built up by the work of centuries of pilgrims, for this was the spot from whence pilgrims obtained their first and last view of the Holy City.

Before me was the Potala, with its walls sloping inwards from the base. The windows, too, sloped from the bottom to the top, adding to the effect. It looked like a building carved by Gods from the living rock. My Chakpori stood even higher than the Potala, without dominating it. Further I saw the golden roofs of the Jo Kang, the thirteen-hundred-year-old temple, surrounded by the administrative buildings. I saw the main road straight through, the willow grove, the swamps, the Snake Temple, and the beautiful patch which was the Norbu Linga, and the Lama's Gardens along by the Kyi Chu. But the golden roofs of the Potala were ablaze with light, catching the brilliant sunlight, and throwing it back with gold red rays, with every colour of the spectrum. Here, beneath these cupolas rested the remains of the Bodies of the Dalai Lama. The monument containing the remains of the 13th was the highest of the lot, some seventy feet—three stories high—and covered with a ton of purest gold. And inside that shrine were precious ornaments, jewels, gold and silver, a fortune rested there beside the empty shell of its previous owner. And now Tibet was without a Dalai Lama, the last one had left, and the one yet to come, according to prophecy, would be one who would serve alien masters, one who would be in thrall of the Communists.

To the sides of the valley clung the immense lamaseries of Drepung, Sera, and Ganden. Half hidden in a clump of trees gleamed the white and gold of Nechung, the Oracle of Lhasa, the Oracle of Tibet. Drepung indeed looked like a rice heap, a white pile sprawled down the mountain side. Sera, known as the Wild Rose Fence, and Ganden the Joyous; I looked upon them and thought of the times I had spent within their walls, within their walled townships. I looked, too, at the vast number of smaller lamaseries, perched everywhere, up the mountain sides, in groves of trees; and I looked too at the hermitages dotted in places most difficult of access, and my thoughts went out to the men within, immured, perhaps, for life in darkness with no light at all, with food but once a day, in darkness, never to come out again in the physical, but by their special training able to move in the astral, able to see the sights of the world as a disembodied spirit. My gaze wandered; the Happy River meandered along through cuts and marshlands, hiding behind the skirts of trees, and reappearing in the open stretches. I looked and I saw the house of my parents, the large estate which had never been home to me. I saw pilgrims thronging the roads, making their circuits. Then from some distant lamasery I heard on the mild breeze the sound of the temple gongs, and the scream of the trumpets, and felt a lump rising in my throat and a stinging sensation in the bridge of my nose. It was too much for me. I turned and remounted my horse, and rode on, into the unknown.

I went on with the country becoming wilder, and wilder. I passed from pleasant parklands and sandy soil, and small homesteads, to rocky eminences, and wild gorges through which water rushed continuously filling the air with sound, drenching me to the skin with the spray. I rode on, staying the nights as before at lamaseries. This time I was a doubly welcome guest for I was able to give first hand information about the recent sad ceremonials at Lhasa, for I was one of the men there, one of the officials. We all agreed that it was the end of an era, a sad time would come upon our land. I was provided with ample food and fresh horses, and after days of travel I again arrived at Ya-an, where, to my joy, the big car was waiting with Jersi, the driver. Reports had filtered through that I was on my way, and the old Abbot at Chungking had thoughtfully sent it for me. I was glad indeed because I was saddle-sore, and travel-stained, and weary. It was a pleasure indeed to see that gleaming great vehicle, the product of another science, a product which would bear me along swiftly, doing in hours what I would normally take days to accomplish. So I got in the car, thankful that the Abbot of the lamasery in Chungking was my friend and had so much thought for my comfort and my pleasure after the long arduous journey from my home in Lhasa. Soon we were speeding along the road to Chengtu. There we stayed the night. There was no point in hurrying and getting back to Chungking in the small hours, so we stayed the night, and in the morning we looked around the place and did some local shopping. Then off we went again along the road to Chungking.

The red-faced boy was still at his plough, clad only in blue shorts. The plough drawn by the ungainly water buffalo. They wallowed through the mud trying to turn it over so that rice could be planted. We sped on faster, the birds overhead calling to one another, and making sudden swoops and darts as if for the sheer joy of living. Soon we were approaching the outskirts of Chungking. We were approaching along the road lined with the silver eucalyptus trees, with the limes, and the green pine trees. Soon we came to a little road at which I alighted and made my way on foot up the path to the lamasery. As I once again passed that clearing with the fallen tree and the trees lying at crazy angles I thought how memorable the events since I sat upon the bole and talked with my Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup. I stopped awhile in meditation, then I picked up my parcels once again and made my way on into the lamasery.

In the morning I went to Chungking and the heat was like a living thing, sweltering, stifling. Even the rickshaw-pullers and the passengers who rode with them were looking wilted and jaded, in the intolerable heat. I, from the fresh air in Tibet, felt more than half dead, but I as a lama had to keep erect as an example to others. In the Street of the Seven Stars I came across friend Huang busy shopping, and I greeted him as the friend he was. “Huang,” I said, “what are all these people doing here?” “Why, Lobsang,” he answered, “people are coming from Shanghai. The trouble there with the Japanese is causing traders to shut up their shops and to come here to Chungking. I understand that some of the Universities are seriously thinking of it as well, and by the way,” he went on, “I have a message for you. General (now Marshal) Feng Yu-hsiang wants to see you. He asked me to give you the message. Go and see him as soon as you return.” “All right,” I said, “how about you coming up with me?” He said that he would. We did our leisurely shopping, it was far too hot to hurry, and then we went back to the lamasery. An hour or two later we made our way up to the temple near where the General had his home, and there I saw him. He told me much about the Japanese and the trouble they were making in Shanghai. He told me how the International Settlement there had recruited a police force of thugs and crooks who were not really trying to restore order. He said, “War is coming Rampa, war is coming. We need all the doctors we can, and doctors who are also pilots. We must have them.” He offered me a commission in the Chinese army, and gave me to understand that I could fly as much as I should like.

The General was an immense man, well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a huge head. He had been in many campaigns, and now he had thought, until the Japanese difficulty, that his days as a soldier were over. He was a poet, too, and he lived near the Temple for Viewing the Moon. I liked him, he was a man with whom I could get on, a clever man. Apparently, so he told me, one incident in particular had been sponsored by the Japanese to give them a pretext for invading China. Some Japanese monk had been killed by accident, and the Japanese authorities demanded that the mayor of Shanghai should prohibit the boycott of Japanese goods, disband the Association for National Deliverance, arrest the leaders of the boycott, and guarantee compensation for the killing of that monk. The Mayor, to preserve the peace and thinking of the overwhelming force of the Japanese, accepted the ultimatum on the 28th January, 1932. But at 10:30 that night, after the Mayor had actually accepted the ultimatum, the Japanese marines began occupying a number of streets in the International Settlement, and so paving the way for the next world war. This was all news to me. I knew nothing at all about it because I had been travelling elsewhere.

As we were talking a monk came, dressed in a grey-black gown, to tell us that the Supreme Abbot T'ai Shu was here, and we had to see him as well. I had to tell him about events in Tibet, about the last ceremonies of my beloved 13th Dalai Lama. He in turn told me of the grave fears which he and others had for the safety of China. “Not that we fear the final outcome,” he said, “but the destruction, the death, and the suffering which will come first.”

So they pressed me again to accept a commission in the Chinese forces, to place my training at their disposal. And then came the blow. “You must go to Shanghai,” said the General. “Your services are very much needed there, and I suggest that your friend, Po Ku, goes with you. I have made preparations already, it is but for you, and he, to accept.” “Shanghai?” I said. “That's a terrible place to be in. I really do not think much of it. However, I know that I must go, and so I will accept.”

We talked on and on, and the evening shadows gradually crept in upon us, and the day turned to dusk, so that eventually we had to part. I rose to my feet, and made my way out into the courtyard, where the solitary palm was looking faded, and wilted in the heat, with its leaves hanging down, and turning brown. Huang was sitting patiently waiting for me, sitting immobile, wondering why the interview was so long. He, too, rose to his feet. Silently we made our way down the path, past the rushing gorge, and over the little stone bridge, down toward our own lamasery.

There was a large rock before the entrance to our path and we climbed upon it, where we could look out over the rivers. There was much activity nowadays. Little steamers were chugging along. Flames of smoke rising from their funnels being caught by the wind, were being blown off into a black banner. Yes, there were more steamers now than ever before I left for Tibet. Refugees were coming in more every day, more traffic, people who could see into the future, and see what the invasion of China would really mean. There was more congestion in a city already congested.

As we looked up into the night sky we could see the great storm clouds piling up, and we knew that later in the night there would be a thunder-storm rolling down from the mountains, swamping the place with torrential rain and deafening us with the echo and rumbles. Was this, we thought, a symbol of the troubles to come upon China? It certainly seemed so, the air was tense, electric. I think we both sighed in unison to think of the future of this land of which we were both so fond. But the night was upon us. The first heavy drops of the rainstorm were coming down and wetting us. We turned together, and made our way into the temple to where the Abbot was waiting for us, agog to be told all that had happened. I was glad indeed to see him, and to discuss matters, and to receive his praise for the course which I had agreed to undertake.

Far into the night we talked, and talked, deafened at times by the roaring thunder, and by the rushing of the rain upon the temple roof. Eventually we made our way to our beds upon the floor, and went to sleep. With the coming of the morning, after the first service, we made our preparations to set off again on the start of yet another phase of life, an even more unpleasant stage.