A Step Away from Paradise: A Tibetan Lama's Extraordinary Journey to a Land of Immortality (50 page)

Yab Maila
— The eldest son of the Yabla family of Yoksum, Sikkim, who were major sponsors of Tulshuk Lingpa. He was a tax collector for the king, and very influential.

Yeshe
— The sister of Tulshuk Lingpa’s
khandro
, Chimi Wangmo, and herself a
khandro
to Tulshuk Lingpa. Yeshe had
tamik
, the special intuitive ability to see images in the burnished brass ritual mirror known as a
melong
.

Places

This annotated list of places mentioned in the book is by no means comprehensive. Rather, it lists those places a reader unfamiliar with India and Tibet, particularly the obscure places in which so much of the story takes place and which recur throughout the book, might find difficult to remember.

Bhutan
— A Himalayan Buddhist kingdom situated in the eastern Himalayas south of Tibet, and bordered on the west, south and east by India.

Darjeeling
— A town of a hundred to a hundred-and-fifty-thousand people in the Himalayan foothills of the Indian state of West Bengal. At an elevation of about 7000 feet (2200 metres), it was established as a hill station by the colonial British in 1835 and quickly became a center of tea production. Situated just south of Sikkim and Tibet, it has a sizeable Tibetan Buddhist population.

Domang Gompa
— A monastery in the Golok region of eastern Tibet where Tulshuk Lingpa was trained and to which his father Kyechok Lingpa was attached. It was also the monastery of Dorje Dechen Lingpa, also known as the Domang Tulku, who both coronated and gave Tulshuk Lingpa his name and who tried to open the way to Beyul Demoshong in the 1920s.

Dzongri
— At 13,200 feet (4000 metres), this small nomad settlement is on the main trekking route from Yoksum, in Sikkim, to the massif of Mount Kanchenjunga.

Gangtok
— Literally: hilltop. The capital of Sikkim at about 4750 feet (1450 metres). With a population of approximately 30,000 people, the culture of Gangtok is heavily influenced by Tibet, which lies just to its north.

Golok
— The region of eastern Tibet where Tulshuk Lingpa grew up and was trained.

Himachal Pradesh
— The Indian state in the western Himalayas just south of Kashmir where Tulshuk Lingpa lived for many years before travelling to Sikkim to open Beyul Demoshong.

Jorbungalow
— A small town about 8 miles (12 kilometers) from Darjeeling where Tulshuk Lingpa visited his spiritual teacher Chatral Rinpoche.

Koksar
— The first village in the high mountains of Lahaul after crossing the Rohtang Pass. At 11,000 feet (3300 metres), Koksar is where Tulshuk Lingpa’s
khandro
, or consort, and her sister Yeshe were from. It is situated on the banks of the Chandra River.

Kullu
— The capital town of the Kullu district in the Kullu Valley (see below) of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh in the western Himalayas.

Kullu Valley
— A roughly north- to south-lying valley in the western Himalayas through which the Beas River flows and has its source. Located in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, this is where Tulshuk Lingpa lived in the winters in a cave outside the village of Pangao.

Ladakh
— A region of high mountains in the western Himalaya. With over half its population Tibetan Buddhist, it is part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and lies just north of Himachal Pradesh.

Lahaul
— [Pronounced ‘Lahool’] A high-altitude region in the Himalayas from roughly 10,000–17,000 feet (3000-5100 metres) in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It is accessed from the Kullu Valley by crossing the 13,000-foot (4000 meter) Rohtang Pass.

Manali
— A town in the Kullu Valley, now quite popular with tourists.

Mount Kanchenjunga
— The third-highest mountain in the world at 28,169 feet (8586 metres). It straddles the Nepal–Sikkim border. Long regarded as sacred by people who have lived in its vicinity beginning with the indigenous Lepchas, it was on the slopes of this mountain that Tulshuk Lingpa went to find the hidden valley of immortality, Beyul Demoshong.

Pangao
— The village in the Kullu Valley where Tulshuk Lingpa and his family lived during winters for the years preceding his going to Sikkim to open Beyul Demoshong.

Pangi
— The village in the further reaches of Chamba where Tulshuk Lingpa had his first monastery.

Rohtang Pass
— Literally: Plain of Corpses. The approximately 13,000 ¬foot (4000 meter) pass at the head of the Beas River that connects the Kullu Valley with Lahaul and Spiti in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.

Simoling
— Also known as Telling. The village in Lahaul where Tulshuk Lingpa cured the inhabitants of leprosy then lived for many years and had his own monastery.

Sikkim
— Formerly an independent Himalayan kingdom and British protectorate, Sikkim became the twenty-second state of India in 1975. It is bordered by Nepal to the west, Tibet to the north and northeast, Bhutan to the southeast, and the Darjeeling Hills of India’s state of West Bengal to the south. Its western border with Nepal is dominated by the third-highest peak on the planet, Mount Kanchenjunga.

Sinon
— A village in West Sikkim with an historic monastery, a few kilometers from Tashiding. This village, connected to the ancient history of Sikkim, is where Tulshuk Lingpa moved when things got difficult for him in Tashiding. He performed a miracle here on the outcropping of rock just below the monastery.

Tashiding
— A village in West Sikkim; also the name of the monastery perched on a hilltop outside the village. The name is Tibetan and means Auspicious Center. Believed to have been blessed by Padmasambhava, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism, the monastery is considered the spiritual center of Sikkim. It was here that it was prophesied the lama who would open Beyul Demoshong would announce himself, and it was here Tulshuk Lingpa came when preparing to open that hidden land.

Tseram
— The nomad encampment at 12,300 feet (3770 meters) on the slopes of Mount Kanchenjunga in Nepal where the journey to Beyul Demoshong began.

Tso Pema
— The Tibetan name for a sacred lake in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It is known locally as Lake Rewalsar.

Yoksum
— The first capital of Sikkim and the last village before the trail rises to Mount Kanchenjunga. At 5800 feet (1780 metres), the name comes from the Lepcha language. It means the Three Great Ones in commemoration of the three Tibetan lamas who met there in order to found the Buddhist kingdom of Sikkim in 1642.

Acknowledgements

I’ve always felt gratitude for this story falling into my lap, and for those who gave generously of their time, knowledge and experience. Without the willingness, kindness, generosity of time—and often tea, meals, accommodation, transportation and patience—of innumerable people spread across the Himalayas this book simply would not be.

Without the help of Tulshuk Lingpa’s family, especially his son Kunsang Bhutia and grandson Wangchuk Bhutia, I would have felt like Theseus in the Minotaur’s labyrinth without the thread. Kunsang’s enthusiasm, wit, humour and friendship are all lodged as deeply in my heart as his spirit and stories are lodged in the very fabric of this book. To Wangchuk, my interpreter, travelling companion and fellow explorer of ‘Grandpa’s’ story, my most sincere thanks for your time and passion.

If a fire could feel grateful for the spark that gave it life, then thanks should go to Tinley Gyatso of Gangtok for recognizing how my imagination would be fired by this story and to his mother-in-law Dorje Wangmo who, through her spellbinding story so full of crevasses and determination, was the first to take me along on that long-ago journey to the Hidden Land.

To the lamas of the Tashiding Monastery and the others of that remarkable community I offer my most sincere thanks for their support in writing this book. Special thanks go to Géshipa, the closest I’m ever likely to get to knowing a living wizard. The purity of his vision of the Hidden Land gave me my closest glimpse. I thank Garpa for the innumerable times he offered me a tiny stool at his side behind the Tashiding Monastery where I could watch his chisel coax Tibetan letters from stone and hear what it was like to be the Messenger of the Hidden Land. The late Atang Lama of Sinon will be remembered as the one who brought to life the perspective of a teenager from Tashiding when the prophesied lama came.

To the late Rigzin Dokhampa I owe much of the accuracy in this book in terms of the Tibetan dharma and its peculiarities as found in Sikkim. With one foot in the traditional world and another in scholarship, he was an ever-patient bridge between worlds, elucidating points alluded to by others with the accuracy of a researcher and the heart of a true practitioner. While the world will produce many scholars, the very world Rigzin Dokhampa grew up in and so artfully melded into his scholarly life has all but vanished. With his passing, something irreplaceable has been lost.

I offer my thanks to all the others of Sikkim and Darjeeling who gave clues and guidance and told me their stories during my years of research between 2001 and 2008.

When I arrived in the Kullu Valley in 2006 to research Tulshuk Lingpa’s early years in India and to meet his oldest disciples, Kunsang had called ahead and I was met there by Tulshuk Lingpa’s grandson Gyurme Chand and by Wangyal Bodh, who hired a vehicle to take me to many of the people from Kullu and Lahaul connected with this story. I thank Gyurme’s mother Pema Choekyi, Tulshuk Lingpa’s daughter in Lahaul, for showing me the few precious things she had inherited from her father, and who, together with her husband Amar Chand, gave Barbara and me our base in Lahaul. Their hospitality still warms.

I am grateful to the monks at the monastery in Pangao for beating the ground before us with sticks to scare away cobras as they brought me down the treacherous slope to Tulshuk Lingpa’s cave. And to Jinda Wangchuk’s family in Pangao, thank you for giving Barbara and me a place to stay and for the old photos of Raju.

To Khandro Chimi Wangmo I offer thanks for taking her stuffed snow leopard down so she could pose with it. Chokshi of Simoling gave me his story, and the other monks and head lama of Tulshuk Lingpa’s monastery in Lahaul offered me their hospitality, for which I am grateful. Yeshe’s story of the love and the pain she has endured over the years moved me greatly, and I thank her for her openness in expressing the beauty she harbors deep in her heart.

As the head of Tulshuk Lingpa’s monastery in Lahaul for over forty years, Lama Tashi’s deep understanding of Tulshuk Lingpa’s history, which he shared with a voice at once authoritative and deeply human, shed a unique light on the story.

To Raju, Tulshuk Lingpa’s reincarnation, I offer thanks not only for the book’s last words but also for the frankness of his story. May this book not become an obstacle for you.

I’ve had the good fortune of having a number of very good readers and editors who have had an important hand in shaping this book. I want to thank Mark Canner in Cambridge, MA, for his thorough read and penetrating insight, Geoffrey Samuel in Cardiff for his precision, and Didi Contractor in Sidhbari, Dharamsala, for the sharpness of her critique. Tashi Tsering of the Amnye Machen Institute in Dharamsala provided corrections that only a Tibetan scholar of his caliber could have given, and for that I am grateful, as I am to Alex McKay for important historical fact checking. I want to thank Raymond Lowe in Vermont and Anna Hopewell in London for their feedback, which helped shape the first draft. Any mistakes that remain are entirely my own.