The Wound of Human Life

What I mean to say:

 

A pair of leaves from high high up blown by a turbulent wind across an endless ocean, carried by wave on wave who knows where they will go. Will they meet up with each other? God knows, the results of past deeds chastise this human world.

 

A Faint Crooked Path

 

 

Her tangled, disheveled hair blown back by the wind; her eyes, like two puddles, with tears pouring out from them in an unending stream; her chin on her chest, she is so cowed it is as if her head is bowing to the suffering of life. She somehow staggers along slowly moving with an almost drunken gait. A cruel wind blows in a gust through a pile of yellowing leaves and with a dry rustle they straight away take flight. It is as if a herder is howling at her to move along the path. This staggering movement she makes, not sure where to go, it is as if this faint crooked path was made just for her. Where will it lead her? Isn’t it true that when the heart is overcome even those with eyes cannot see? Sometimes her uncertain steps hit against a hummock and her hands reach to the ground; sometimes it leads her into a ditch and she has to raise herself up from it on her hands and knees. When you see her move this way, unable to get up, you would say for sure that she is an eighty year old woman, she is blind, she is a drunken lady staggering along. But that would just be your mistaken description...Who is she? What has she done wrong? Where is she going? She, she, she.

Her eyes like overflowing springs look for the end of the faint crooked path and again she takes a few steps, and again she looks. But now the months and years in which she invested her hopes and desires are the footprints she has left on it and she wanders without a certain goal.

It was three years ago. It was then that the seed of love had first been planted in her heart. She remembers that she was there and so was he. They had gone to the movies with some student friends. It was a Saturday night and they had gone to see the movie The Proof of Love. They were talking on the way back about the intense love between a young man and a young woman, about the obstacles they faced. One student friend asked if it really was true that love would make someone sacrifice their life, and another replied, "No way, that is just something that the writer made up in the story." Another, slightly putting them down, said, "You guys don’t know what love is."

"When love is absolute there is no suffering at all it will not bear." It was Takla speaking.

"Yes, there really are a lot of obstacles. But I suppose that Chinese girl had a lot of bad karma to experience too." That was what Phamo said.

And then suddenly, "Stop." A bunch of shaven-headed young men in Chinese clothes was blocking the path. "Likchon, isn’t this the girl that got away from us yesterday? She’s a pretty one." A round-headed Chinese-speaking guy was talking and caught Phamo by the hair.

Just hearing the name Likchon sent all of the group except Takla running in different directions. He was famous throughout the region as an irreformable criminal who had been put in jail nine times and anybody who could look him in the eye was considered a hero in those parts.

"Ha ha! You really are a lucky girl to have bumped into me in this deserted place tonight," Likchon scolded her, getting a hold of her chin.

"Look friend," Takla said, speaking politely and gently in Chinese, "we are just students from the Minorities School. Let us go, please."

"Friend! How come I am your friend if I have never seen your face before? Let me give you some good advice, get out here," he said, opening a switch-blade. "I am not stopping you. But if you want to buy some trouble you do not have to pay for it."

"Please, don’t do that," pleaded Phamo, "Please let us go, we are students." Then in a single bound Takla got hold of Likchon’s hand and with all his strength twisted the knife out of it and threw it away. Two other thugs on the left and right pounded Takla with their fists and kicked him. Likchon picked up a rock and smashed it into Takla’s forehead, knocking him out completely. Luckily the sound of a small car with its siren going got closer so they let her go and scattered in different directions.

"Takla, Takla." Even as she shouted out his name she tripped and fell, stumbling against a hummock that saved her from the fear of the recollection. For a while she just squatted there, then looked up and down. As if emerging from the clear weather of the autumn season a black curtain of dense clouds covered the sky and a sharp wind snuck up on her and threw the dust of the path into her eyes and the cotton seeds carried here and there on the wind seemed to be rushing about like a reflection of her suffering heart meaninglessly scolding the earth and the sky.

She placed her two hands on the earth and rose up and her eyes that had for so long not known what it is to be dry saw off in the distance a small monastery. Putting one foot before the next, with heavy steps she staggered towards it.

"I came here with the thought that you would be here," said Phamo. She was approaching slowly, dressed in her finest, softest outfit, and she came up to Takla where he was sitting with his back to the trunk of a sandalwood tree, as if drunk, or as if his mind had been caught in a trap of a reverie. "What are you thinking about? Are you drunk?" She spoke to him again and sat down beside him.

"O! I came here and have been waiting for you. This evening I am a bit drunk. I should indeed be drunk from that special glass of beer you poured for me." He spoke while looking intently at her face. "But you got me drunk long long ago if truth be told. For three years I have been drunk on you. But I have only let you see the littlest bit of my intoxication and I have not been able to speak even slightly the words loosened by a drunken tongue. I want to vomit up on your hands the sweet beer that is swirling around this evening in my drunken heart."

"I could not only drink up all you could vomit, I could lick up all you swirling stomach could shit."

They both burst out in the laughter of abandonment.

 

"I love you with all my heart, my darling," they said in unison, interlinking their hands and embracing each other tightly.

"The think I love most of all in the garden is this fragrant smelling sandalwood tree, and Phamo, much more than that I am drawn to you, because of my utter love for you from the start, more than anything else in my whole life."

"Yes, this tree gives you shade and you feel the pleasant coolness, and you smell its fragrant smell. But how could it ever feel love for you? If this tree were able to bear witness, it would definitely attest to the fact that my secret love that I have offered to you exceeds its fragrance. My attachment to you is firmer even that its root." She gently stroked the big scar on his forehead. "You did so much for me, I still have to tell you how sorry I am, deep in my heart, for what happened to you because..."

"It was my karma." Takla interrupted her to prevent the tears welling in her eyes from spilling over. "My karma that left a sign to witness how much you mean to me. It is a beautiful picture that appeared to represent my love for you. There is no ugliness in my scar at all, it is a beautiful adornment of my face. It could be that even still this picture of mine is what is attracts you to me, so for that reason too I prize it." He spoke from his heart like that to place a huge boulder into the river of her tears to dam up its flow, but it had the opposite effect, and like a huge, powerful flood wave it released the pools in her eyes.

"Truly, every time I see you frace I think how very much I owe you. So if I mean anything to you know that I have already long made my commitment to myself that I am yours and yours alone. I will never look at anybody else’s face." The moment these words had left her slightly trembling lips his lips joined with hers in a kiss.

That Takla was pretending he was a little drunk we know. But her? What had intoxicated her? Was it the sweet words of love in his heart; was it the intoxicating liquor she found on his lips? Whatever it was it made the autumn moon turn away in embarrassment, this red lotus flower of beauty there on his lap.

 

She suddenly found herself lying face down, and was lost for a moment in surprise. She had slipped again into a ditch. She crawled out and stood up, throwing back her head, looking around, and gazed far off in the distance to where the crooked path beneath her feet led. In fact before her lay a grassland with horses, cattle, and sheep, dotted here and there with teh black yak-hair tents of the nomads, but in her mind’s eye, blurred and unsteady, she saw something quite different—she saw hereself and Takla when they were little looking after the calves together, eating the shoots of the kyuru-lepmo grass and pikcing lukradung flowers. He made necklaces and earrings for her out of them and put them on her. Sometimes they woulud mark out little compounds with pebble walls and invite each other as guests into each other’s home, or take each other in, in turn as bride and groom and pretend to sleep together. And then she remembered, like yesterday, even clearer than events like those just after they had left university. He had come to meet here there were they had grown up and they had gone on a stroll near the bank of the Tsechu river. [47] It was a few months back, they had laughed and played in the water.

"The place I like most of all is this high grassland where we were born. I am trying to work it so that next year I can come to work in the District Minorities School." Takla took off his clothes and spoke while looking at the inviting but dangerous summer flow of the river.

"Yes, I really miss you too. Without you I do not even find this plae we grew up in together so pleasant." Phamo watched him dive into the river.

"Come on in, I’ll teach you how to swim," he said as he swam in a big eddy, almost a whirlpool that had formed in the bend of the river where they had been walking.

"I’m scared. A student drowned here before, remember? Don’t be so foolhardy, come back."

"I’m a tiger when I am on dry land and an otter when I dive in the water. If an otter dies in the water it is his karma. Come on in, come on, I will wash you."

"No, I feel shy." She was paddling her feet, dangling them in the water from the edge of the bank.

"Yeah, yeah, really. Didn’t we lose three years to the stupidity of shyness? From now on if you pretend you are shy I am not going to like it." Takla covered the distance between them with swift strokes, got a hold of her foot and with one pull dragged her into the flow.

"Ow, I’m freezing, I...I..."

"Let go, let go, get a hold of my hand."

"I’ve had it, I’m going to die."

"Ow, you’ve got me by the crotch. You’re going to pull my balls off. Come up, come up!" He got her by the arm and got her floating above the surface. "Ow, my crotch." She had grabbed hold of his testicles out of fear with one hand to raise herself to the surface and now she was punching him on his forehead with her fist.

"Punch away! Punch my balls! Punch all you want. Pick up a rock and hit me. In retaliation I am going to wash your breasts." He got her blouse and bra off and threw them on to the bank.

"No, no, please, don’t, I feel embarrassed."

"These two featherless water ducks are my toys and I get to play with them." As he was stroking and kissing her breasts while washing them they saw someone on horseback galloping towards them. Like an otter Takla dived deep into the circling water and disappeared, while she, out of embarrassment lowered herself up to the neck and squatted for a time in a shallow.

"He’s gone. Come up...Takla, Takla," her voice began to get frantic.

 

"Ha ha, Ha ha!" A laugh escaped from her mouth, and she flung her little pack into the sky, watching it go up. It came back and landed on her face. She fell on her back and the feeling immediately was gone. After lying there for a while drops of rain began to drop onto her face. The Lady of the sky, I think she thought she had fainted and was sprinking water on her face to bring her to. Her face covered with the water of the rain drops and tears became blacker even than a rain cloud. Oh why is it, when we are sad and remember happy times that it serves to pile on and became a sorrow even on top of the sorrow we already bear? The Three Precious Jewels know for a fact that this is the force of karma lording it over this world.

"Why is it that we hope for happiness and end up on this painful scary path?" She blurted this out in a voice somewhere between a laugh and a cry of pain and got up, put her little pack on her shoulder, lowered her chin to her breast and became as she was before. A little monastery began to come clearer and clearer in the light of her eyes, darkened in the cave of hair that fell down over the front of her face. Then again she remembered clearly a few days after they had finished school, how they had both got together in that monastery.

"Today it is a sign that things are exactly how they should be, that we have got together here. We both believe in Buddhism so isn’t it a good think if today here, in front of Tara, we pledge our undying love for each other?" Phama, lifting up her radiant face, white with reddened checks, said that with a trusting confidence gazing up with open eyes into the fact of the taller, stronger Takla.

"You can never erase what is written in the heart, but whether you want to write it out and stamp it like the Chinese or swear an oath like us Tibetans, whatever you pledge, for your trust, my tongue can bear to say it. [50] Not only that, but if we make a pure prayer to this goddess who gives children to those who want children and wealth to those who want to be rich we will be able to do what we hope for." He gave that answer in a clear loud voice, gazing into her doe-like eyes, brushing away as he spoke some strands of her dark shiny hair that had fallen down over her eyebrows and covered a part of her cheek.

Phamo, the roundness of her face filled with a smile faced the statue of the goddess Tara radiant with loving kindness. "Tara, most kind Goddess, please listen to us out of your loving compassion. This pure, god-like love that I have already given to the soul of Takla, I will never let it die for as long as I live. I pledge that for as long as I live I will never be separated ftrom it. And if he has to die I pray that we die together, at the same time. But if I do not have the good fortune for that to happen, then here in front of you I will cut off my long braids and give them to you and definitely live out my days as a nun. Please hear me Blessed One, please witness what I say, kind Goddess. Please bless us both that we can do all we hope for in accord with the Dharma, and stop any problems that may prove obstacles to this." Her eyes shone with a radiance given by the whole of her being that she had put into her fervent prayer, a shining radiance that again merged with the light of Tara’s eyes.

"How I am going to cut off my hair and become a nun I do not know! Ha Ha! That commitment you have been able to make means there is nothing left for me to say. No, I am joking." Takla took the palms of her hands and pressed them against the scar on his forehead. "This scar I have on my forehead can stand for the love that binds me to you. Even if this scar were to disappear, still the pattern of it would remain etched indelibly in the very bones of my being. Tara, please hear me. Even if life is not for love, still without love human life has no essence to it. So I pledge that will never let it stop separate for as long as death does not us part. We will enjoy our happiness together, and bear our sorrow together. And if because of karma any trouble happens, then I will defintely cut the sleeves from my shirt and in front of Avalokitesvara become a monk. Here this commitment of mine, Tara. Please bless us so that we don not face obstacles to our hopes and aims and that they may easily be accomplished."

The radiance of the light of his eyes merged together with the light of her eyes and as they looked up together to the face of the Goddess it was as if it was ready to eclipse even the surpassing brilliance of Tara’s own eyes.

 

She prostrated herself, but it was a prostration she made when she stumbled and tripped against the stone steps up into the monastery. Before her she could not see nothing but the statue of Tara. She slowly fell to her knees and knelt before her. In her hands she was holding two dried out braids, matted and dirty, her eyes, again overflowing springs, and with her head slowly sinking down, her lips trembling it was as if she was saying, "Here I am Tara; I have come, and here are the braids of hair. I will stay here now until I die."

 

How did it happen that she had to come to the monastery? Read on...

 

An Honorable Defeat / A Defeat Without Shame

 

Phamo was hard at work as usual as a teaching in the District Minorities School. She had no idea where the time went each day, most of which she spent together with the students. As the shadows slowly began to drain the warmth from the hills her thoughts turned far away to Lhasa. "There are still two weeks, there are still two weeks to go," she said, talking to herself while looking at a picture of Takla. "Please, Three Precious Jewels, do not let anything happen, please make it all work out as we hope." This was her prayer as she went to sleep, different from her usual one.

After a week she got a letter.

To the fingertips of my beloved heart-throb, my darling Phamo. I hope this finds you still turning your eyebrows in the direction where I am when you think about me, and that you are still giving drops of precious nourishment from your breasts to the students who are in your charge, that your smile of joy and happiness still graces your faces undimed. We are all, I and your mother and father well and are today getting near to the end of our pilgrimage. Dear Phamo, as you requested me, I have made many prayers and religious offerings. I have bought a little gift for you. I take it with me wherever I go to make an offering before a holy object. And what I have bought you? Soon I will be back... So do not worry. It is less than a month now until our marriage, is it not? Soon we will both accomplish what we want to do.

Let me tell you a bit about what we are hearing and seeing here in Lhasa. All the mountains and valleys look of a whitish, grey color, like the skin of an elephant. The few smiling green spots that have not been ruined are in the vicinity of Lhasa. The carving and wall painting that we have heard so much about in stories are known more by not being there than by being there any more, by their absence than their presence. The statement that there are great new buildings that have come up recently is not a lie, but only just. There are quite a lot of monasteries and temples all over the place that have been rebuilt, or are being repaired through the pious donations offered by the people. They call what is left of the original remaining main statue in the Jokang the Wounded Jo. As for the other monasteries, according to my father, there are swarms of beggars. It is amazing, he has given away more than 250 yuan already, from giving each beggar ten maotse [a tenth of a yuan]. And there are more Chinese spies and soldiers than them. That place of the peaceful gods is encircled by fierce armies of demons. The number of permanent Chinese is more than the piles of shit all around Lhasa that the nomads who have come from all the regions on pilgrimage leave behind. Even though the smell of incense hangs over the temples the smell of shit all over the place, in and out of town, threatens it. If there was some sort of great big communal toilet here...

O never mind, I’ll tell you all about it when we get back. And if this is the sad state of affairs when it comes to the outer things that I have found after just a few days, I do not have to tell you about the incredible destruction and ruin of the interiors, of the statues and so on that have been secretly looted, it is indescribable. All over the place you see posters stuck up calling for Tibetan independence. You can tell from it that the bravery of the people and their love for their ethnic homeland has not waned. So that’s the happy part of my letter. Keep well. See you soon. Your’s Takla, 1989."

When she had finished reading this letter Phamo was slighly upset and thought, "He was really involved in secretly writing, distributing, and plastering posters calling for Tibetan independence even when he was in school. He should not be doing that when he is in Lhasa. So many people have been arrested and died in Lhasa. If he...She keep on thinking and obsessing as she extended to him this reply.

"Dear Heart Friend. I am waiting here for you counting off the days and nights with my fingers. When I got your letter I felt a mixture of happiness and sadness. I hoped that you would not get involved in such underground activities, and now I cannot get it out of my mind. As you know Lhasa is a nest of informers and the front of the battle. If anything were to happen to you it would be a wound that would find a way in to break my heart. Even if you do not care about yourself, consider me and your parents. I have only one hope, that you will bring yourself and your parents back home. If we can make some difference by our contribution to fostering the study of our minority culture it will be a real help to independence. There is no need to get involved in violent struggle and confrontation, it is useless. Please, put back this little red heart of mine that has gone out to you, put it back inside me where it belongs."

Even after she sent this letter she could not set her mind to rest. During the day she worried and during the night her sleep was not peaceful. She heard a crowd shouting, "Tibetans are the masters of Tibet! Tibet is an independent country! Chinese invaders get out!" and ran to a door. At the head of a crowd was a young man with a scar on his forehead who had on a sandwich board sign with "Free Tibet" written on one side and "World Peace" on the other. He had raised both hands up with clenched fists in a gesture of defiance and as he came closer and closer to her a cry escaped her, "Takla." There was a terrifying rattling sound of bullets, scattering the crowd like pebbles thrown in the water and then Takla disappeared.

Phamo got up shouting out loud Takla’s name. She looked this way and that but saw nothing but the darkness of the dead of night. "Oh Tara, you know what this terrible dream means. Please look after us." Still she could hear the incessant "tick-tock" of the clock near her pillow as the hands moved around inexorably, and she put her had on her chest to steady her thumping heart.

Such vivid dreams, all sorts of them put all sorts of ideas into her head and began to disturb her mind. She went every morning to make the black tea offering at the nearby local chapel to the Goddess. She even made the long trip to the Tara temple in the monastery many times.

About two weeks after that the story blown about by the wind was that there had been demonstrations in Lhasa and that people on pilgrimage had been banned from the city.. How could she feel happy? A month passed. An unwelcome piece of news began to circulate that a bridge had snapped and the vehicle carrying a group of Amdowas on pilgrimage had gone over. It was like a piercing pain in her heart. She did not hear any good news so she felt enraged at her very ears, she almost clawed at them. Everyday that Takla’s friend Tinlay, the postman, arrived she would run to meet him and read each letter to see who it was addressed to. She would turn her weary eyes to look at his face, and each time she looked he would shake his head with great sadness. She was starting to get near the breaking point.

The autumn months passsed. The waste paper on the Chinese roads was blown here and there by the biting wind, like the peaceful demonstrators harried and chased here and there by Chinese soldiers. The stray dogs turned their faces to the sky and howled, like the homeless beggars in Lhasa lifting up their begging bowls and beseeching passersby. Some people said this was just freak weather, others that something bad was going to happen.

"Phamo, Phamo," Tinlay suddenly shouted to her from outside the classroom, "there is a letter for you." She stopped teaching and ran outside the door.

"Where is it from?"

"It’s from Lhasa."

"Who is it?" She opened the letter, her hands shaking. After a moment the paper began to shake, as if blown by a wind and fell to the ground and at the same time her head began to swim and she collapsed.

"Phamo, Phamo!" Tinlay lifted her up. The children were glued to the window looking. "Teacher Phamo, Teacher Phamo," they all shouted and rushed outside. They surrounded her on the left on the right trying to revive her.

During the commotion the head-teacher Zhang, a Chinese who knew a little Tibetan picked up the letter from the ground and read it. Then he stared at Phamo and gave her a nasty look and in a loud, clear voice read out the contents of the letter for all to hear.

"To Dear Teacher Phamo, who truly deserves our sympathy:

I am sure you have been worrying about us a great deal, but I am afraid I have nothing happy to convey to you. My dear girl, is it not true that if you have a lot of luck you also have a lot of problems? Here a lot of people shouting for Tibetan independence mounted a demonstration that was put down mercilessly by the Chinese army. Many were killed, wounded, and arrested and there has been a total clampdown and declaration of martial law so for days we have been left without the freedom to go anywhere at all. What we have been hearing is that Takla was one of the leaders in this activity. For many days I have been investigating and I know for a fact6 that he is not amongst those arrested or wounded. Nobody has identified those who were shot and killed. They say they were immediately cremated. But since some say that amongst them was a strong young man with a scar on his forehead there is no option but to accept that it is him. My dear girl, since there is nothing else we can do about it do not get depressed. If you cry, not only will it not help you, as they say, it can kill you, so in place of your tears it is better if you can do something good. Since he died in Lhasa and he died for the Tibetan people even me, old as I am, feel there is no lack of honor and I feel no shame. Furthermore amongst our ancetors there were many on the paternal side like lions and on the maternal side like tigers. If I myself am still alive it is not because the Chinese did not try to kill me. I have nine scars from bullets and bayonets. And even if my physical scars are old, the wounds on my mind are fresh. Phamo, when I think like this I am able to get some mental relief. You too should think lofty thoughts about your people and not cry. Since I am making offering here in Lhasa for the sake of my son I am going to be here for a bit yet, so I am sending you this letter. Please do not show it to anyone.

Dorje Damdul, father."

By the time he had finished reading the letter Phamo had revived and had got back some of her spirit.

"Is it true? Is Takla really dead? Tell me, people, tell me!" As she asked that she ran up to each person looking into their face, but nobody could think of anything to say or find anything appropriate that would calm her mind so everyone looked at the face of the head-teaching Zhang and for a moment few silent.

"Phamo," he said, showing the letter in his hand to her, "Takla was actively involved in criminal activity. If he is dead it is a person who was harming the state who is dead. Think about your future. If you cry long over a criminal it is the same as following the road that criminals take." The fierce wind of Zhang’s scolding stirred up waves of anger on the ocean of her suffering heart. Her body began to remble, her brow became full of the wrinkles of rage and pointing her finger directly at Zhang’s face she said, "What crime did he commit? Shut your dog’s mouth! You are the criminal. You invaders came here to eat our shit? Give me back my letter. Huh!" Cursing and berating him she suddenly in a bound snatched the letter from his hand, ripped it up into pieces and threw it back like snow into his face.

"You Chinese man, you, may you die an evil death. You barbarian invaders have killed my Takla and devoured him. You have devoured Tibet." As if she was possessed by the spirit of Takla she raised her clenched fists and shouting in a loud voice went out from the main door of the school into the main street of the town amoungst the people. "We want freedom! We want human rights! Chinese invaders get out of Tibet! Takla wait for me, I am coming to you, following the trail of your blood." She was gesticulating widely with her hands, kicking about her with her feet, beating herself with her fists and tearing out her hair, the dance of the mad-woman, stirring up and inciting the people who stood there lined up on either side of the road.

"Defeat the red communist Chinese! May the Dalai Lama live 10,000 years! We Tibetans want freedom. I want my Takla!" She was yelling out whatever cam to her mind, and the hubbub of the market street was if for a moment drowned out by her cries and all for a moment stopped. Some of the people felt scared, some were emboldened, but most felt pity and were moved to anger and so on by the sad spectacle that collected the tears of many thousands of eyes as a donation.

At that point some monks and nuns in the crowd began to follow her shouting, "May the Dalai Lama live one hundred ages! May all his aims be completed. We want peace and freedom!" As they started to yell out, "May the Dalai Lama live 10, 000 thousand years! May all his aims be quickly completed!" there was the sound of sirens and police cars appeared. [60] Security officials dressed in battle gear waded in scattering them like a wolf on a flock of sheep. They caught hold of Phamo and some monks and nuns in the crowd and pinning them and then beat and kicked them as they dragged them off.

 

 

My dear readers how much empathy are you going to feel for her suffering heart at this point? I myself, my hands shaking, am taking a rest from writing for a moment. But if you want to see Takla alive again please read on to the next part.

 

 

Meeting with the Spirit of Love

 

The fierce cold winds of winter that freeze solid streams and rivers leaving some little movement beneath the ice cannot compare with the demonic hoard of Chinese who emprison and torment those left to make a peaceful demonstration for independence. Rather the land covered in the white clothes of mourning left by the snow illustrates the saddened minds of Tibetans empathizing with the heroic men and women who are patriots.

"Om, homage to Tara, the Noble One, swift and noble liberator..." There was a single nun reciting the prayer of the twenty praises of Tara with precision, clarity, and in a beautiful voice, prostrating herself full length again and again as she does so in front of the statue of Tara early in the morning, other than her were only a few birds. "...these are the twenty-one praises of Tara." As she finished the recitation of the prayer we do not know how many times she had done the recitation in the single period of her devotion, but she marked off each set of prostrations with one bead of her rosary and at this break she got up having counted off a full rosary of 108 beads. "Please Tara, bless him that he has been reborn in a pure land." Her prayer was only faintly audible amongst the few words she said and while the beads of persperation were still on her face she went out from the temple door and looked off into the distance. As she looked she caught sight of a black shape moving an thought, "Who is coming to make a religious visit in this snowy weather? " Talking to herself like that she went back to her room.

"Knock knock!" As she was boiling teac the sound came from the door, and wondering who it could be she opened it. "My god, Tinlay! What are you doing here so early."

Out of breath, cutting her off he said, "You have got a letter. I think probably..."

"What! A letter? Who is it from? How come it is so important?" She too did not let him finish. While asking him that, with trepidation she looked at the letter he took out from his bag.

"There is some English writing on the envelop that I don’t know how to read. I think it must be from India. Maybe..."

"Oh! Maybe...no..."

"It could be. I hid it thinking it might be him and brought it right away to give to you. Come on, quickly, open it. It looks like there is a picture." He spoke impatiently and so with trembling hands, saying, "Tara be with us!" first a color photo came out of the opened envelop. It was a strong-looking fellow with a scar on his forehead. The words, "Ah Takla, you, you..." caught in her throat and around the edges of her eyes a spring of tears began to well up. "Tinlay, is this for real?" she asked looking into his face. "Am I dreaming?"

"No, it’s for real. My guess was right," said Tinlay through tears of joy. "Go on, quickly, read what he says."

Holding the picture of Takla to her breast the tears in her eyes obscuring the letters on the page so that for a moment they did not appear clearly to her, they looked as if they had been magically formed.

"To my beloved Phamo, the single inspiration of my life, whose eyes will be like a beautiful blue lotus flower sprinkled with the drops of morning dew. It is your heart friend, your beloved Takla. I am now in India, in the south, and I am using my tears of love as ink to write to you.

My darling, oh! how long this row of days and nights of separation has gone on because of our unthinkable karma. Not only that, but it has not even been possible to exchange letters with each other. What a burden we have been left with, have we not, so heavy, so hard to bear.

My darling, I can imagine how your concern and my parent’s family’s concern for me must have been huge, your broken hearts and the way hope dimmed in your eyes.

My darling, how you must have gathered up your little remaining strength and waited for me. And in my dreams I could gauge how you are. But there was nothing I could do. Darling, I missed you all so much, so much it was hard to watch the days and nights pass by, food lost its taste, and my sleep was never restful. If I were to give this sadness a form it would be equal to the size of our Mount Magyal Pomra and would equal in length even the long Machu and Drichu rivers that wind through our land.

My darling, how could I ever banish you from my heart? But even against my own wishes, as it were, I put aside my greatly attractive and greatly loved one and had to separate from her. For the sake of Tibetan independence and for a new future happiness and well-being together with you all, to stay alive, I have stayed away from you like this.

What happened is that the letter to me that you wrote in love and sent from your heart arrived the very evening that all of us in the Tibetan Young Lion Brigade undertook a covert action for independence for the ninth time. Who could have prevented me, once I had pledged myself to heroism and become the tiger of my name, from the field of battle? In fact we from the start, all of us equally, had pledged ourselves to this work. A young man’s bravery and love for his country, those two, gave me no chance to fulfil your request to me so I had to set aside your heartfelt words. But how could anyone ever think that I would have to leave you?

My darling, have you heard? That night we went all over the place sticking up posters for independence, we hoisted the Snow-lion flag of the great land of Tibet over the main door of the central Jokang temple, and the next day, together with the people, threww out leaflets in a peaceful demonstration. At that point hundreds of heavily armed police and security officials descended on us and violently suppressed the demonstration killing a number of people nearby me. I was burning with rage but not able to behave in the fashion of those heroic fools. And since violent conflict is not our way even though filled with the savage confidence of a tiger I left the battlefield. I have no idea whether it was fate or or somebody’s protection, but a young woman led me to an escape path and I made it to somebody’s house. But some beggars who were being paid off with a salary from the security department knew who some of the members of our group were. When I heard that they had been arrested we got together and discussed the situation we were in and how hard it would be to get out of it. We decided there and then that we would have to escape as refugees to India and left that very night. All of the city, the inside and outer parts were under strict curfew so I was not even able to meet my parents to say goodbye. I left a letter with a friend of mine but I heard that the very next day he was arrested. All the roads were blocked and they were mounting detailed searches so we went via a tortuous route through the mountains and after more than three months got to India by way of Mount Kailash. I had an audience withe His Holiness the Dalai Lama and he spoke to me. I felt a new happiness as if I was in a dream. The refugee government here has set up a big infrastructure and is practicing an authentic version of democracy. It is excellent. Moreover His Holiness’s constituion of a religio-secular rule that has spread beneath all the heavens has given us a new faith and confidence that the sun of independence will dawn. For a few months I went to the Tibetan settlements with a documentary film showing the reality of the situation in Tibet, spreading it about there. Nowadays I am studying in a school for new refugees run by the exile government, learning English. My physical health is as well as can be, so you do not have to worry on my account.

My darling, I am separated in this way from my homeland, but my mind remains there in the valleys of the snow mountains and between your breasts. How could just food and clothes be enough! The happiness of human life is nourished by love, and you are the mother and lady of my love, there is no other. No doubt the pair of white conch shells that deserve my affection, left there on your breast have been stained a little, and there is still some unfinished work of cleaning left for me to do. When I do it at last, even if I do not find the nectar of the gods to use, I will wash you with the milk of the partners of the high mountain yaks.

My darling, the doctor who cures the malady of love is the owner of that love alone, now I realize that. Until I see you again this love malady of mine will remain, and if I do not meet with you it will probably cause my death. My darling, you too likely have this same sickness that I have and I am the one that can pluck it out. So just to give temporary relief from the sharp pains I have sent you this letter along with a picture. Are my parents my friend Tinlay and the others well? Please convey my greetings to them on my behalf.

My darling, how could I ever finish all I have in my heart to say? I think it would be best if you too came here, and I hope you will do so, because unless you do it will be hard to get together for a long time. If you do decide to come let me know and I can arrange a way. Generally speaking a lot of refugees are arriving nowadays so there are people to help you come, but you have to be careful. If you come via Mount Kailash apart from the steep paths there is no danger. But you have to get together flashlights and warm clothes beforehand. If you come via Dram, near to Kathmandu, it is much more dangerous—there are lots of places you can get arrested, and there is a real danger of being beaten up, robbed, or raped by the Nepalese. So think about this and be brave.

With prayers that we will soon be together..."

[66] She just sat there staring in surprise as if waking up from in the middle of an amazing, pleasantly exciting dream.

"He really is brave, and lucky; to meet the Dalai Lama. Really, it is fortunate to be able to be a part of carrying out his aims. Phamo, as the saying goes, if your faith in your true religion does not change the change in outer appearance is not important. So you should go too. It is better if you just go and see him as soon as you can. The truth is, I know that with the pair of you, you cannot stagger through the day whenever the other is absent." Tinlay just blurted out all that he was thinking in his heart, and she, as if shaken out of a dream confronted the reality that she was now a nun.

"I, what will I do now?" Again, tear drops, not burning nor yet cold, fell from her eyes.

"Don’t worry. We are all of us ordinary people, it is okay to work it out. I will accompany you there. I want to go to India."

"Really, but now I am a nun."

"One way or the other it is best to go to India. Takla is there waiting for you. Even if you cannot forsake your life as a nun, you still cannot get rid of Takla from your heart. If you live your life in that way what is it, good or bad? Anway, do not let yourself slip into regrets." Tinlay said what was on his mind with a slight irritation or sense of loss.

 

Outside snowflakes were coming down one on top of the other and it was just as if a great big white carpet had been spread over the land. A warming, spreading alpine snow flower was there showing its head in that wold, windy, snowy place. It is a living flower with a heart; it is swaying there with love; it is a Tibetan girl with love in her heart purer even than the white white snow.

 

After sending the letter Takla did nothing, day or night, but wait for the arrival of a reply. One, two months passed. Piled on top of the problems he had with the weak lentils and other vegetarian food he was not used to, now he experienced a second mental suffering. He began to lose his strength and his body seemed as if it had shrunk. The one thing that did not lose its brilliance was the scar on his forehead that shone out. It was as if it stood as an outer sign of his unchanging, inner love. Just as Phamo had waited earlier for the arrival of his letter, now he too was the first to meet the Indian postman every time he arrived.

Oh! He read her letter. He always read the letter of her love where he slept. It seems when a person is down it is their dreams that make them laugh and give them courage. Never did he get one vision that could satisfy his longing. Really, though, he lived on his dreams, and dreams were his single sustenance.

Another month passed. The head of the spring maiden raised up to show her smiling confident face in the school gardens, but Takla’s countenance did not brighten up. Where was his glorious spring goddess? When will she arrive?

One day, in the evening, he carved a pattern like a scar into the bark of the trunk of a Banyen tree in the place where he was studying. As he was returning from there and Indian who knew how to speak halting Tibetan, not a carrier pidgeon and not the pony express either, but who knew Takla of all the five hundred students, came running up to him as if in a sprint. Takla immediately looked at the envelop. It was a letter from home but without any sender’s name on it. He opened the envelop with slightly trembling hands.

"To my brother Takla who is my second heart. From your younger sister Kelsang Dolma who governed by her karma, through a chain of tears of happiness and sadness, with trembling hands pens this picture of her mind..."

Takla left off reading for a moment and stayed with his eyes closed. His brain did not have the foggiest idea of what the name "younger sister Kelsang Dolma" meant, but his thoughts became strangely agitated. He continued reading.

My beloved, your letter left me with two things: first as in the poem about the king who longs for his departed queen Avinda, "On the other side of death I will befriend her again so I wanted to die. Avinda, how can it be that I find you again here in this life?" like that was the amazing happiness I felt. As for the second thing, my unhappiness and my fear, read on.

My beloved, it is definite that the term of respect "brother" and this new "younger sister" will have confused you a bit, and then will give you pain. Just like your amazing tale, I too have a strange little story to tell, how could it not be so? I have to write to you about it, even though I do not want to, in order that you will take a new path for the rest of your life.

My beloved, back then, since sending you that letter, whether or not I had even one happiness in my mind you can know from asking this statue of Tara. She will tell you for certain. And in my dream I had a bit of a view of the acts of your life. All I never found in my dreams were the footprints of your return. Never once until now has any good news come to my ears. Your father wrote to me from Lhasa back then and said you had died. When I heard such shocking news I simply fainted away. I went mad, and as if possessed followed after you shouting out for a free Tibet and ended up in court. I bear many new scars from the harsh punishment meted out in jail, but nothing that went beyond my broken heart. How could anything be greater than that? Gradually I cleared my head and thought about the rest of my life. I thought that perhaps I should follow you and go to meet the messenger of death, and I thought about that temple where I had made my solemn promise. Then I had a dream. A young woman was picking flowers. She led me inside a temple and said if for the time being I were to study and worship there our aims would be accomplished. I thought this must be Tara showing me the way, and when I thought about how I suffer without you, about the harsh suffering I was undergoing in jail, the oppression from the government policies, and the strife in our society I saw myself like a little boat lost on a vast ocean of suffering. Oh Precious Three Jewels, I thought, is it not true that suffering is the very nature of life. I suddenly wanted to leave it, and so with that dream I changed to another way of life. Once I had made up my mind I kept on acting the part of the mad woman in order to gain release from jail, acting like I wanted to die and crying out, singing songs, doing all sorts of things, so that after about a month I was no longer thought to be a person, I was "Mad Phamo," and they let me out of jail. On the same day that I was released the first step I took was towards the Tara temple, and from then on I have been the new nun "Mad Kelsang Dolma."

When he got to this part of the letter he stopped and the tears in Takla’s eyes made everything hazy. He remained stupified for a moment. He wanted to read on but it was if he did not, but he pushed himself to read.

"My beloved, this is the drama of our love, and I thought that all the wholesome benefits of my act I would dedicate to your well-being. But you are still alive here! I just do not know whether to take that as a sign of good or bad luck. But whatever it is, I have taken my second vow to live a strict moral life and be only a nun, and I cannot go back again to re-grow those long braids I had before. I would be wrong to do so, but worse, how could I lead you to an infraction? You cannot transfer the suffering of hell away from someone. They say, "Worse than this boss is the fearsome boss of death, far longer your future than the time of this life." So we will both have to lay aside the activity of an ordinary life, and you, do what you find pleasant, find a new life path to make you happy.

My beloved, from now on please change me in your heart. Please change your beloved Phamo into your younger sister. Please let me call you my brother. And even if this letter does not relieve your painful sickness, I hope that it will prevent an increase in your love.

I too do not want to live in this repressive environment. I would have not regrets if I could meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama one time and die. If you can live happily in this world my heart would be okay.

Your mother and father are well. When they heard about what had happened they were so happy they could not sleep. Tinlay is coming over there. Do not worry about me. I pray you will live long without sickness, and will be happy.

Sent in the month when the snow-flowers are spread about..."

 

"Ding, ding, ding." The bell for supper rang and the students grabbed their metal bowls and gathered noisely at the dining room door. Takla wiped his eyes, turned away and with heavy steps went back to the Banyen tree shaking his head.

 

 

Honestly, for all the love between them, do they connect no more than this? See if you can foretell. If you do not know, keep reading.

 

Green Blood That Drips From the Banyen Tree

 

 

The call of the blue cuckoo of spring sounded clearly and the buds on the branches of the trees sprouted a brilliant green. This is the time of the lady of spring. Beneath the huge tree with a hundred braided creepers for its topknot, its branches spreading out in all directions giving shade and coolness over a big expanse sat a young woman holding a a pen-knife in her hand carving a scar pattern into the bark of the trunk of the tree. The old scars left in its barck still clearly read, "Phamo" and besides that were many many slightly fainter carvings in English saying "I love you." The new carving that she had cut into the tree, giving it a scar, said "Takla." On her damp face sprinkled with many drops it was hard to distinguish which were the beads of persperation from the summer heat and which were tear drops. She is Kelsang Dolma. As we look she seems to have changed a little. The color of her clothes has changed from the saffron and the length of her sleeves is long. It could be that that is the way the modern monks and nuns of today dress, so why need to be surprised? This carving "Takla" was her love in a seeable form. You could easily make out that the "Phamo" was likewise the embodiment of the love of the other. And the many "I love you-s" in English were the brief elucidation of that theme.

You could say of this new refugee sitting here that she was there to study. But her continual journey to the foot of the tree was hardly just for the purpose of study or to feel relief from the scorching heat. Were it to be so, why the mix of sweat and tears as she carves? In fact, though, she has not changed. If she goes up she seeks only for him "Where did Takla go," if she goes down, only him, "Do you know Takla?" But she cannot find any trace of him at all. In the middle of that intense heat of summer, snowflakes were falling on that little starter flame of her happiness and hopes.

Then one of Takla’s school friends, Dondup, helped her and wrote a letter to the missing person’s column in Shecha, the Tibetan most widely circulated of the refugee community’s monthly magazines. After waiting for a month, one day in the late afternoon a letter arrived. With great happiness she looked at the address, and when she did so she clearly saw only the word "Takla;" it stood out. Clutching the letter to her breast she ran to the Banyen tree. The "Takla" carved into the tree seemed in her eyes to actually be Takla. Between her breasts her heart throbbed. What did it presage?

"Precious Jewels you knwo what is written in this letter. May it be good." Saying this to herself and with trepidation she opened the letter.

"My dear younger sister. Did you have any difficulty on your journey? When did you arrive? I hope no frost of bad problems attacked the saffron of your youthful vigor; that this finds you keeping well with your stainless morality. How come you did not go to a monastery, but have gone to a school instead? Do you want to learn English?

My dear younger sister, the letter you sent from our homeland piled on to the flame of my sadness the firewood of defeat. It pressed down the force of my love and wounded me. But still my love was not bowed and did not die, rather it spread the wings of its life force and flew to the peaks of the Himalayas. From there it looked far off to where you were. Again and again I saw clearly before my eyes the sad drama you had played out for my sake and that you had written out for me in the lines of your letter. Still, the thing that was hard for me and hard for me to understand was if you came, how to come to meet you. I thought hard and deep about that, I had miraculous dreams and just because of my love I changed my way; I cut my hair, I cut off my sleeves and I cast far away the ordinary householder’s life, and wandered south to the monasteries down near the edge of the southern sea.

My dear little sister, just as you were not able again to adorn yourself with new braids of hair I too, though I would have loved to have taken off your clothes... how could it have been the right thing to do? So I followed you, and as I shouted out and pledged to keep my love, I did what you did, to meet the cost of love, to give to you in your new way of life some confidence and a semblance of the warmth of happiness and excitement—in line with the saying that the best folk keep their word and the animal called the pharpa treads again in its own steps—I kept that vow I made in that temple. My dear beloved, saffron-clad, little sister you now have a saffron-clad brother—it is me Kelsang Tsultrim."

She stopped reading. An inexplicable feeling cramped up her whole body, and she leaned back on the tree trunk somewhere between fainting and squatting. Slowly tears began to fall from her eyes; they poured out, poured down, twin streams that made no sound of falling water, down along her cheeks and then down into the valley between her breasts. What she was remembering, what she was thinking I do not know, she just stayed for a long time without moving. But the sky of the holy land of India is not like the sky of Tibet that befriends those oppressed by deep sadness, or again, that makes it even worse for them. The earth is as green as can be, so fertile, the sky blue and stainless, and now the clouds at the end of the day were brilliantly tinged red and gold by the rays of the setting sun .

The clothes fashioned out of renunciation of the world are those red-gold clouds at the end of the day; the coarse yak-hair material of the nomad tents fashioned out of desire are the thunderheads; the clothes fashioned out of love are of a new color that is not any of these—from the blue, blue of the sky and the brilliant white of the snow mountains.

 

Kelsang Tsultrim had on the robes of a monk and nobody could say he did not study the Dharma. He was always there, where the monks gathered for their morning devotions, in the courtyard where they debated the Dharma in the evening, wherever the most monks were to be found there he was too, but inside, where nobody could see, was another quite different state of mind. As it is said, "The face of my Lama that I should meditate on appears not before my mind’s eye; but the face of my beloved that I should not meditate on—it just dances naturally before my eyes." When he drank from his begging bowl Phamo’s face appeared there, when he opened a book Phamo’s letter appeared there for him to read, and at the end of it all in his dreams he stroked her breasts.

One day, like a crow carrying off a lump of butter to eat, he took a letter far off to a tree to read.

"To my brother whose loving heart increases in size like the golden moon, but without end...

The blue cuckoo melody that wafted over to me from your precious hands in the form of your loving letter produced in my ears an amazing new nectar, it moved my mind and made my body tremble. Who could know just how big the body of the love between us both is? Were we not to have been separated because of the repression, or were we not to have had such hardship because of our karma how would we ever have gauged the profoundity of our love for each other, a love deeper than the ocean and vaster than the reach of a galaxy.

[76] My dear brother, since reaching here I have shought only for you, but what I have found is "Phamo" in this tree hung with vines. From that tree I read the story in your heart. But I had not read even a part of your hidden story. I too carved our name in that tree and said many secret things too, indeed, I am still carving, but I absolutely did not want those scars on the tree to grow old. But that this is my shortcoming I only realized at last today. I really am a person who got a lesser status birth. It seems that I do not have a life path here in this world through which I will reach what I hope for. My brother, you really are amazing, but I too have a second surprising little story to tell, and I want to write it out for you.

After your letter arrived I told my parents that I wanted to go on a pilgrimage and secretly with Tinlay went off to Lhasa. I met three nun friends there. Just before coming to India we took what you did as our example and on the night before the anniversary of the the March uprising we stuck up a number of posters proclaiming the truth of Tibetan independence. Just when we were about to stick up the last poster in front of the Lhasa cinema, suddenly, a loud fearsome voice called out "What are you doing?" We were about to run when we heard the scary order in Chinese, "Who are you. Stop. If you move we will shoot." Two policemen dressed in ordinary Chinese uniforms holding revolvers and two holding tazers came running up and arrested us. But that is not the reason why I have a sad tale to tell.

They took us away and led us to a big empty building. It was past twelve in the middle of the night and they asked us where we were from, what monastery we were with. One of them holding a tazer asked us that, in Tibetan, calling us criminals.

"They are pretty; flowers still in bud," said one of the men in Chinese. "Really we should produce you in court and you should feel the electric shocks of the tazer and be punished, but you look nice to me, and not only that, you look like you have nice clean bums too! Ha ha ha! Now listen to me. You do not need to be scared. We will let you go tonight," he said trying to lift up my head with his hand under my chin to kiss me. I was scared but so angry I spat right in his face. With a practiced right hand he slapped me really hard, whap whap, with the front and back of his hand across my cheeks. Tinlay spoke to them in Chinese and pleaded with them. "Please, don’t do that, they are nuns." One of those carrying a tazer snorted and told him to shut up. "What do you think you are," he said letting him have it with his tazer. Tinlay blacked out and fell to the ground. "Tie him up and take him away." They cuffed Tinlay and left him behind the building.

"So we have a brave one (phamo) here. You would do well to make the right choice. Do you know the difference between the pain of a tazer and the pleasure of a cock?" He gave me one shock with a tazer on my breast and they started to put the other into my vagina. I fell down and thought better to go to jail than to fail to keep the moral code, so I screamed out, "Rapists, Help us!" The other nuns began screaming out too, but they stiffled our cries and stuffed cloth in our mouths.

"Oh! Please excuse us," said the Tibetan guy, "but the security office has such a concern for us homeless beggars, and has given us such a golden opportunity it would be a shame not to use it." As he said that one of his companions ripped the clothes off one of the nuns. Each of them forced us nuns into different rooms in the empty building and raped us repeatedly until dawn. Not only did they break their own laws, they destroyed our religious morality. At dawn they let us go and took Tinlay away.

My brother that statement, "Wherever I look becomes an unlucky place, wherever I sit down the grass will not grow" really does apply to me. I cried. We got together and we cried and cried for a long time. I considered killing myself. I kept on thinking about it, and then you came into my thoughts. As long as you remained her on earth I was not capable of quickly leaving. So I comforted myself and steeled my mind with the advice of the elders, that we should remember the end of suffering is nor far, and we should try to make our happinesses last. So I set aside the tatters of my life and taking the little starter flam that remained set out on the road. I followed in your footsteps, and again I met with the spirit of your love at the foot of this Banyen tree.

But still today’s letter appeared to me like an amazing dream. I never had the wish that you would keep that vow you made in the temple, and I never once remembered it. Tara only knows whether or not I have helped or harmed your life.

My brother, even though I am come to this state I rejoice greattly in the moral path that you have chosen. My outer body has been ruined, but my mind is pure. But the Kelsand (lucky) in Kelsang Dolma is just words now, and the blessing of Dolma (Tara) does not seem to have rested in this body. I guess it is the punishment for some karm of mind from the past.

My brother, please stay Kelsang Tsultrim, keep the Kelsang (luck) of practicing the Dharma and the Tsultrim (morality) of those who wear the saffron robes. This is what I strongly urge you to do, and it is the honest speech from my heart. From today on I am going to really devote myself to study here beneath the shade of the Banyen tree. I will take only my shadow as my friend and have to travel far off on a new little trail for my life.

Yours..."

 

The letter left him not knowing whether to cry or to laugh. A totally unfamiliar emotion arose in him that also made his body of flesh and blood feel totally different than it had ever felt before. He thought how he had rushed too quickly to become a monk, and felt sorry he had done it and muttered all sorts of things to himself. "This has got to be a dream. If it is for real how come if we live here in this world it is impossible for us to be together and share a happy life? That logic that sees happiness at the end of suffering and a purpose in waiting is false. That vow we took in the temple was if we were parted by death for as long as we live, and to prevent problems from happening. It definitely was not to scar our lives. If our love and vows are not made up then definitely green blood is going to start flowing out of those carvings that scar the Banyen tree. Tara! Either your blessings are all used up or else you really have made us in particular do a lot. What is it that has caused changes like this? Is it karma, oppression? What am I going to do now? Phamo, you are Phamo again, and really you are an heroic lady, but how can I bear it if you really do take only your shadow as your friend and travel far away? How could that be right? As for me, I am not going to be able to make any more than an outer show of the religious life. Phamo, I...what will I do." From his eyes some tear drops spattered onto the letter on his lap and the letters of his name in the sentence that she wrote, "Please stay Kelsang Tsultrim, keep the luck of practicing the Dharma, and the morality of those who wear the saffron robes" because to smudge and blur.

 

My dear readers, if this little story is not all that you wished for, then it is right that I do the mirror divination to see what fate has in store for them and write it down. But do not blame me if their path veers of because of their karma.

 

When Blood and Tears Meet

 

 

On paved open area in front of the Dalai Lama’s temple in Dharamsala, led by the Tibetan Youth Congress were a big noisy crowd of Tibetans and their foreign supporters who were going to go on the peace march and who were going to do the fast until death in Dehli. They had to be patriots no more than fifty years of age. Amongst this group of neither very young nor very old people some carried marching banners on which they had written "Tibet is originally a free country" "We want independence now" "Tibetans demand their human rights" "Stop destroying Tibet’s environment" "Free the young incarnation of the Panchen Lama from jail" "Chinese get out of Tibet" "Tibetans are the true owners of Tibet" and so on. Amongst that crowd of black-haired and blond-haired people in which you could not make out Tibetan from non-Tibetan, a young pretty woman in a reddish brown colored Amdo dress with her beautiful hair done in braids nearly two feet long was holding aloft a sign saying, "Give you life for the sake of an independent Tibet." Who was she waiting for?

"Phamo." From behind her a young man shouted out and she turned around. "Oh! Dondup, I’ve been looking for you."

He looked into her face and said. "I did not know you were one of the people who are going to do a fast until death. You really are Phamo (a heroic lady)." He spoke with sincerity and again drew in a long breath. "But have you thought about Takla?"

"That I am strong enough to die like this is mainly because of him. If we two got together it would be difficult to be able to die. I am doing this so that he can live."

"It is hard to say if you are doing it so he can live or because your mental suffering is driving you to die."

"He is now a monk. He knows how to deal with it. If I stay alive I will just get to need him more and more, and not only that, it could become the ground for him to suffer. He might give up being a monk for me."

"An what would be wrong with that anyway? That is the best thing that could happen. Nowadays giving up being a monk does not even rate the notice that you give a change of clothes. In this place they count that as good, don’t they?"

"Oh no, I really could not do that. And I doubt he is that type either. It is not right to play around with your karma."

"Well who has been playing around with the karma of you two guys? Is it Karma or is it the Chinese communists?

"Look, please do not talk like that. Just let it be. I have made up my mind and I have no regrets about it. This female body of mine has no value at all. So if I give it up for the sake of my country and the Tibetan people I consider that to be a good thing. There are three things that he and I think are really worth protecting in this life. First is the restoration and protection of the independence of the Tibetan people, second, the sincere love we have had for each other since we were little, and third our respect for the law of karma." She lifted up her head and drew in a long breath. "And it is up to each individual whether or not, in the face of many inner and outer problems, they can keep giving them importance and guard them. The inspiration that first enabled me to go like this to my death and that stands behind me now I get from these three most important of all things.

"It is likely that right now Takla is on his way to take part in the peace march. He has done it a number of time before. I would be good if you two could meet once."

"Last night I had a frightening dream. Blood was pouring in big drops out of his scar on his forehead, and I was crying, trying to stop it with both hands. No matter how much I cried out to him he did not say anything. It was as if both his eyes were closed and could not be opened. I grasped a hold of him thinking, now let both of us die together, and the blood pouring out of the scar in his forehead turned into a white offering scarf that wrapped around us, binding us tightly together. So whether I am going to meet him now I do not know, but whatever hapens we are each totally in love with each other and it looks like the time for us to be permanently apart has at last arrived." Again she drew in a long breath, "And yes, please when you get back to school, in my trunk you will find my diary. Please give it to him."

"You need have no worry on that score. I will definitely give it directly to him for you. Boy, that dream really was a strange one."

"Newspaper, newspaper, read all about it." At that moment a newspaper seller arrived and together they bought one. On the front page was a headline that read, "An Unfortunate Incident Yesterday in Delhi," together with a picture of a brave man covered in blood. The moment Phamo saw it, with trembling hands and lips she said, "That’s Takla isn’t it?" Her hands began to shake so much Dondup could not read the page properly anymore so he pulled it our of her hands and with an exclamation they began reading together.

"A monk from Drepung monastery in the south called Kelsang Tsultrim, his name before ordination Takla, who earlier led demonstrations and marches for Tibetan independence in Lhasa, an heroic patriot who had not only already participated, a number of times before, in peace marches but was now preparing to take part in the fast until death met up with an unbelievable misfortune on his way there."

"Oh my god!" involuntarily escaped Phamo’s lips. She cradled her head with her hand and with her eyes blurry stopped reading. Dondup continued on hesitantly.

"After arriving in Delhi last night he went to the Drepung Guest House in Manju ka Tilla. That evening a friend from his own region of Tibetan called Tinlay arrived as a new refugee, recently released from Chinese jail. After talking for a long time they took a break and Kelsang Tsultrim went to the bathroom to take a shower. Not long after the sound of bumping and of running feet came from outside, then a cry like someone had been hurt. Hearing it Tsultrim immediately ran outside and saw that the light in the bathroom had been turned off, and saw some men running helter skelter down the stairs. Wondering what was going on he turned on the hall light and one of the men on the stairs yelled out in pain and fell rolling down the stairs. At the same time Kelsang Tsultrim, covered in blood collapsed at the bathroom door. Without fear or hesitation Tinlay lifted up Kelsang Tsultrim who barely able to lift up his right hand indicated that he should reun after the assailants. Shouting out "they killed a man, they killed a man" he ran into his room, got his chakkor (a sharp, heavy piece tied at the end of a piece of rope used by nomads to direct dogs in a roundup, and in fights), and went racing down the stairs. He caught up with two young men with their faces covered with scarves half-carrying and half-dragging a third man near the lower level of the building, near the door. He felled one of the pair right there and then with a blow on the head from his chakkor, but the other got behind him and stabbed him in the small of the back and ran off. At that moment the owner of the building and other hotel guests began shouting and appeared outside.

All of them quickly telephoned the police and they took Kelsang Tsultrim, Tinlay, together with the miscreant wounded in the leg and the one who had been knocked out cold. Based on the investigation by police detectives they had not been immeditately able to rush in on Kelsang Tsultrim because he had been with a friend, so they had laid in wait outside and got him when he went to the bathroom. They grabbed his arms and the lot of them stabbed him. Kelsang Tsultrim grabbed one of the knives off them and was able to stab one of them in the calf. The one he stabbed was a man he had earlier had an argument with. Furthermore, they learned that they were from the group associated with the Shukten worship, and moreover were members of the Delhi chapter of that organization. One of them had earlier been in the Chinese army.

Prior to this Kelsang Tsultrim had come to believe that what the Dalai Lama had said in his many writings over a long period about the worship of Shukten was true, that it harmed both the government and the religion of Tibet and that this was what other non-sectarian scholars and religious practitioners of the Dharma were also saying about it. He had spoken and written about the misleading materials being disseminated by the Shukten group, refuting it incisively and examing their position in detail. Because of that some of the them had decided to kill him and were looking for an opportunity to do so. This is what the investigation uncovered.

The man hit by Trinlay’s chakkor was the leader of the group. He never regained consciousness and died in the hospital. Tinlay is in an extremely serious state. As if in a last will and testament he made the statement, "Since I was protecting Takla let him die if he must, I have no regrets. If I can deliver a record that I kept of the realities of prison life that I experienced and the little money that I have to His Holiness the Dalai Lama I will be content." Kelsang Tsultrim is also in a very serious state. He has sustained seven stab wounds on the upper and lower parts of his body. He is on a respirator and is recieving special, timely medical attention but has not yet recovered consciousness.

Dondup’s voice sank lower and lower as he read and Phamo caught her breath, the sound of her crying getting louder and louder until she fainted away.

When she came to she decided that before Takla died or at the conclusion of the long months and years during which they had suffered so for their love she would have a final meeting with him. Prior to the start of the fast until death she asked for a dispensation to do so, and the leader of the Tibetan Youth Congress, empathizing with her said, "Even if he is not able to make it, what he has done is the same as what those on a fast to death do when they decide to give their lives for their country and their people. You two really are an heroic pair," and he accompanied her to deliver his greetings to Kelsang Tsultrim.

After a week the peace mark arrived in Delhi and assembled at the gate of the Chinese embassy, and about ten men and women began to fast until death. Day and night for the whole week Phamo had remained looking at Takla’s face. Finally they had held each other’s hands and looking into each other’s face had cried a long garland of tears together. That was all the good fortune their karma had for them, because then again they had to part. Oh! That parting was so much like the final parting of people at their death.

Sky Goddess, you know all the good and bad things that can suddenly happen to people. So right now would it not be right if something wonderful suddenly happened that left everyone flabbergasted and surprised? Oh! Wouldn’t that be right...

After the fast until death had been in progress for about two weeks most of the participants were like emaciated, famished, ghosts; they were beginning to get near death. A small car arrived and Dondup and some others were in it carrying Kelsang Tsultrim on a stretcher. They brought him to lie with those on the fast and put him next to Phamo. Phamo’s reyes could see him, and she experienced him with her mind but she could not lift her hand and was unable to raise herself. From her dry tired eyes in her dry ashen, sunken face a little moisture formed. Takla slowly extended his hand and wiped away the tear and with a smile spoke in a soft voice to her.

"Phamo, so glorious. This is how to die. Even if we cannot have happines in our life, we can consider it a happiness that we both can die together like this is silent communion. You can die happy in your heart and it is definite that in our next life we will have the fortune to be together." The radiance of a smile lit up her face as he said that and she was moved to tears. She raised her trembling hands and with their four hands clasped they again pledged their love, again pledged to die together, and again pledged to be together again.

Kelsang Tsultrim had had a new kidney put in and had also had his other vital organs changed, and slowly he started to recover. But he considered that he had come this time to join the fast until death and give the life he had for a cause cause for his people. What was the use of taking all the treatment and recovering? Even if he recovered he would die and it was much expense that would be wasted. "Come what may I am going to go and die now. And since Phamo is there, if I am able to die with her I will be even happier. Furthermore Tinlay, having escaped from the prison of our enemy and come here as a refugee from prison gave his life for me even before he was able to meet our precious leader the Dalai Lama. So there is just no way that I am going to keep on living. Now take me to the place they are fasting until death, please." He implored his friends and the Youth Congress, so in accord with that they had carried him here to the site of the fast.

When people see God there is no doubt that right there and then their is good luck and auspiciousness. Look! The Precious Jewel is there. He is in the saffron robes of a monk and is the God of Peace. He is the actual Precious Jewels here living amongst us and he goes up to each of those fasting, who are giving their lives, meeting with them. and in particular he goes to Kelsang Tsultrim and stroking his head with his hand gives him protection from all of his fears.

"How amazing you all are, you who have the fortitude to fast until your death, even and give up your lives for the Teaching and your just political aims. It is glorious, impressive. It is the authentic nature of heros and heroines with a surpassing love for their country and something about which none should feel shame or defeat. But our path is the path of peace and non-violence. To kill yourself is to be violent towards yourself. How can I, who preach non-violence countenance you undergoing such a painful death? So from today, for me, I ask you to end your fast until death, I ask you to do it for me. It is better if you remain alive and you and I together will find other peaceful and beneficial way to serve."

Thus with his gentle and beautiful voice he gave them succour, bringing uncontrollable tears to all those participating in the fast and to all those who were there with them in that place. Were those tears because of their faith? Their hopes and prayers? From some emotion of joy or sorrow or whatever that they were experiencing? Or were they from a combination of all of these?

 

At this point it could be that my readers are also feeling a sense of happiness. Ah yes! The time has indeed come fur us to sing a little song of happiness...

 

So a month or so after that the Tibetan Youth Congress and the Tibetan Women’s Association talked to Kelsang Tsultrim and Kelsang Dolma about what had happened to both of them earlier and suggested how they could keep up their spirits and take care of their future livelihood. They further encouraged them saying that they could leave a great impression through what they do. As an auspicious sign they bore the cost of their wedding and they presented to them on that occasion a medal honoring them as outstanding hero and heroine in the struggle for their country.

 

So no then, readers, is it not the time, is it not enough, that you should feel happy and give a round of applause!

 

[Phamo]: First a seed of love we planted deep as Mount Meru is high,

In between, the flooding streams of sorrow merged

into the torment in the valley far below,

And at the end it raised this tree of dreams and work here in this far off land.

[Takla]: Takla and his Phamo now are joyful in this land of dreams,

Love for each other and their country joined together hand in hand.

We march forward smartly to tomorrow’s victory

on this path of joy and peace.

 

These two spontaneous verses prompted by the wishes of those who were present that sprang from the mouths of each of them in turn perfectly summed up their lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[A few words about the ending: I added a second conclusion to this short story as many of my readers had asked me to do. I really do not know if there is a story writer who does this or not! But it is not inappropriate for a composition like this one. I offer this bowl of intoxicating homebrew of my new ending as an apology for causing you, my readers, much worry on this long, drawn out, and crooked path of life of blood and tears these various people followed. I pray that it will move you to soar on the wings of confidence.

But are the scars of the lives of this pair healed? Why shouldn’t I want to give both my people this happiness in life we all want? But not gaining what we want, and meeting with what is unwelcome is the way things are in reality—so it is not impossible that in the future these two will have to face a terrible separation and die at the end of my pen. But let’s all of us together pray that does not happen.

 

All the best, and good-bye.

March 30, 2000.]

 

 

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