Look to the World for Signs

As we drive up into the hills, Uncle shares with us how the three candidates we are tasked with interviewing are discovered. The One for Whom the Sky Never Darkens dies almost eight years ago. As he lies on his deathbed in Dharamshala, the monks in all the Buddhist realms begin to look to the world for signs of where he might return. Anytime a tulku is dying, a monk is assigned to sit by Yamdrok Lake in Tibet, the lake said to be sacred and a place where visions often appear in its clear waters, the Himalayas visible in the distance.

Sometimes when a reincarnation lies dying, he takes up a quill before he breathes his last breath and draws something of significance. It can be anything. One dying lama draws a V, which his fellow monks interpret as a bird. Sometimes the soon-to-be-departed writes a word or a number, sometimes an entire letter telling his friends where to find him and telling his reincarnated self who he is.

Often those close to the dying lama begin to have significant dreams. They see themselves in strange landscapes where they move over the earth as an animal or as an element—water, fire, air, the ground itself. Sometimes after the tulku is cremated, clues are discovered among the ashes—pearls are most common. Following the ceremony, a general council is called and the evidence collected. Then one monk is charged with finding the reincarnation. This process can often take several years. Nothing is rushed. Most tulku are discovered between the ages of three to six. Mun is an unusual case. He is eight when someone arrives at our ger and changes our lives.

In the case of the one we are searching for, it is Little Bat who has the most dreams. Little Bat is not a tulku, but as a child, the One for Whom the Sky Never Darkens is his guardian, so it is only right that Little Bat should be consulted along with Uncle, who many years ago as a young monk is the One for Whom the Sky Never Darkens’s heart’s disciple.

Mongolia is a land of contrasts. The jagged mountains in the west, the endless desert in the south, the grasslands and steppe centered in the middle, the taiga and the snow forests in the north. It is unusual that there is no specific clue to help pinpoint a more exact location of the child for whom we search. Just last night Little Bat dreams of a figure wrapped in the cloak of the eternal blue. This could literally be anywhere. A figure with a heart so big it could manifest wherever it pleases.