As Yin began to drive out of Lhasa, I was silent, looking out at the mountains and wondering what Wil had meant by his note. Why had he decided to go on alone? And who were the dakini? I was about to ask Yin when a Chinese military truck crossed at the intersection in front of us.
The sight gave me a jolt, and I felt a wave of nervousness begin to fill my body. What was I doing? We had just seen intelligence officers staking out the hotel where we were supposed to meet Wil. They might be looking for us.
“Wait a minute, Yin,” I said. “I want to go to an airport. All this seems too dangerous for me.”
Yin looked at me with alarm. “What about Wil?” he said. “You read the note. He needs you.”
“Yeah, well, he’s used to this kind of stuff. I’m not sure he would expect me to put myself in danger like this.”
“You are already in danger. We must get out of Lhasa.”
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To Lama Rigden’s monastery near Shigatse. It will be late when we get there.”
“Is there a phone there?” I asked.
“Yes,” Yin replied. “I believe so, if it’s working.”
I nodded and Yin turned back to concentrate on the road.
That’s fine, I thought. It wouldn’t hurt to get far away from here before making arrangements to get home.
For hours we bounced along on the badly paved highway, passing trucks and old cars along the way. The scenery was a mix of ugly industrial developments and beautiful vistas. Well after dark, Yin pulled up into the yard of a small, concrete block house. A big, woolly dog was tied to the side of a mechanic’s garage to the right, barking at us furiously.
“Is this Lama Rigden’s house?” I asked.
“No, of course not,” Yin said. “But I know the people here. We can pick up some food and gasoline that we might need later. I’ll be right back.”
I watched as Yin walked up the board steps and knocked on the door. An older Tibetan woman came out and immediately pulled Yin into a full embrace. Yin pointed at me, smiled, and said something I couldn’t understand. He waved for me, and I got out and walked into the house.
A moment later we heard the faint squeaks of car brakes outside. Yin darted across the room and pulled back the curtains to look. I stood right behind him. In the darkness, I could see a black unmarked car sitting on the side of the road across from the rutted driveway, a hundred feet away.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Yin replied. “Go out and get our packs, quickly.”
I looked at him questioningly.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Go get them, but hurry.”
I walked out the door and over to the Jeep, trying not to look toward the car in the distance. I reached through the open window and grabbed my satchel and Yin’s pack and then briskly walked back inside. Yin was still watching out the window.
“Oh my,” he said suddenly, “they’re coming.”
A blast of car lights lit the window as the car raced toward the house. Grabbing his pack from me with one hand, Yin led the way out the back door and into the darkness.
“We must go this way,” Yin yelled back at me as he led me up a path into a group of rocky foothills. I glanced back down at the house and, to my horror, saw plainclothes agents piling out of the car and encircling the residence. Another car we hadn’t even seen sped around the side of the house, and several more men jumped out and began to run up the slope to our right. I knew if we kept going in the direction we were going, they would cut us off in minutes.
“Yin, wait a minute,” I said in a loud whisper. “They’re heading us off.”
He stopped and put his face very close to mine in the darkness.
“To the left,” he said. “We’ll go around them.”
As he said that, I caught sight of the other agents running in that direction. If we followed Yin’s route, they would see us for sure.
I looked straight up the most rugged part of the incline. Something caught my eye: A dim patch of the trail was perceptibly lighter.
“No, we have to go straight up,” I said instinctively, and headed in that direction. Yin lagged behind me for an instant and then hurriedly followed. We made our way up the rocks, with the agents closing in from the right.
At the top of a rise, an agent seemed to be right on top of us and we ducked between two large boulders. The area around us was still perceptibly lighter. The man was no more than thirty feet away, moving around to where he would soon see us clearly. Then, as he approached the edges of the slight glow, seconds from seeing us, he abruptly stopped, started to walk forward again, then stopped again, as if suddenly having other ideas. Without taking another step, he turned and ran back down the hill.
After a few moments I asked Yin in a whisper if he thought the agent had seen us.
“No,” Yin replied. “I do not think so. Come on.”
We climbed the hill for another ten minutes before stopping on a stony precipice to look back down at the house. We could see more official-looking cars driving up. One was an older police car with a blinking red light. The scene filled me with terror. No doubt about it now, these people were after us.
Yin was also looking anxiously toward the house, his hands again shaking.
“What are they going to do to your friend?” I asked, horrified at what he might say.
Yin looked at me with tears and fury in his eyes, then led the way farther up the hill.
We walked for several more hours, making our way by the light of a quarter-moon that was periodically obscured by clouds. I wanted to ask about the legends Yin had mentioned, but he remained angry and sullen. At the top of the hill, Yin stopped and announced that we must rest. As I sat down on a nearby rock, he walked off into the darkness a dozen feet or so and stood with his back toward me.
“Why were you so sure,” he asked without turning around, “that we should climb straight up the hill back there?”
I took a breath. “I saw something,” I stammered. “The area was lighter somehow. It seemed the way to go.”
He turned and walked over and sat down on the ground across from me. “Have you seen such a thing before?”
I tried to shake away my anxiety. My heart was pounding and I could barely talk.
“Yeah, I have,” I said. “Several times recently.”
He looked away and was silent.
“Yin, do you know what is happening?”
“The legends would say we are being helped.”
“Helped by whom?”
Again he just looked away.
“Yin, tell me what you know about this.”
He did not respond.
“Is it the dakini that Wil mentioned in his note?”
Still no response.
I felt a rush of anger. “Yin! Tell me what you know.”
He stood up quickly and glared at me. “Some things we are forbidden to speak of. Don’t you understand? Just mentioning the names of these beings frivolously can leave a man mute for years, or blind. They are the guardians of Shambhala.”
He stormed over to a flat rock, spread his jacket, and lay down.
I felt exhausted too, unable to think.
“We must sleep,” Yin said. “Please, you will know more tomorrow.”
I looked at him for a moment longer, then lay down on the rock where I was sitting and fell into a deep sleep.
* * *
I was awakened by a shaft of light rising between two snowy peaks in the distance. Looking around, I realized that Yin was gone. I jumped up and searched the immediate area, my body aching all over. Yin was nowhere I could see.
Damn, I thought. I had no way of knowing where I was. A deep wave of anxiety rushed through me. I waited for thirty minutes, looking out at the brown, rocky hills with little valleys of green grass, and still he had not returned. Then I stood up again and noticed for the first time that down the slope about four hundred feet was a gravel road. I grabbed my satchel and walked down through the rocks until I reached the road and then headed north. As best I could remember, that was the direction back toward Lhasa.
I hadn’t gone a half mile before I noticed that there were four or five people less than a hundred paces behind me heading in the same direction. I immediately left the road and moved well up into the rocks so that I would be hidden but could still watch them pass. When they reached me, I realized that it was a family, made up of an old man, a man and a woman of about thirty, and two teenage boys. They were carrying large sacks, and the younger man was pulling a cart filled with possessions. They looked like refugees.
I thought about approaching them and at least finding out which way to go, but I decided against it. I was afraid they might report me later, and so I let them go by. I waited another twenty minutes, then carefully walked in the same direction. For about two miles the road weaved its way through the small rocky hills and plateaus, until in the distance, at the top of one of the hills, I could see a monastery. I moved off the road and climbed through the rocks until I was about two hundred yards below it. It was made of sandy-colored brick, with the flat roof painted brown, and had two wings, one on each side of a main building.
I could see no movement, and at first I thought the place was empty. But then the door at the front opened, and I saw a monk, adorned in a bright red robe, come out and begin to work in a garden near a lone tree to the right of the building.
He looked harmless enough, but I decided to take no chances. I walked back to the gravel road, crossed it, and made a wide berth around the left side of the monastery until I was well past. Then I carefully proceeded up the road again, stopping only to take off my parka. The sun was beating down now and it was surprisingly warm.
After about a mile, as I was about to crest a small rise in the road, I heard something. I ran into the rocks and listened. At first I thought it was a bird, but slowly I realized it was someone talking, far in the distance. Who?
Taking great care, I moved up through the rocks until I had a higher position, then peeked over at the small valley below. My heart froze. Below me was a gravel crossroads at which were parked three military jeeps. Perhaps a dozen soldiers stood around smoking cigarettes and talking. I backed away, keeping low, and walked the way I had come until I found a place to hide between two rocky mounds.
From there I heard something else in the distance out beyond the roadblock. It was a low drone at first and then a whirling, clapping sound I recognized. It was a helicopter.
Panicked, I ran through the rocks as fast as I could, away from the road. I crossed a small stream and slipped, drenching my pants up to the knees. I jumped up and started to run again when my foot slipped on one of the rocks and I careened down a hill, ripping my pants and gouging my leg. Struggling to my feet, I kept running, looking for a better place to hide.
As the helicopter closed, I bounded over another small rise and was looking back when someone grabbed me and pulled me down into a small gorge. It was Yin. We lay perfectly still as the large helicopter flew directly over us.
“It’s a Z-9,” Yin said. His face looked panicked, but I could tell he was also furious.
“Why did you leave where we were camped?” he half shouted.
“You left me!” I responded.
“I was gone less than an hour. You should have waited.”
The fear and anger exploded in me. “Waited? Why didn’t you tell me you were going?”
I wasn’t through, but I could hear the helicopter turning in the distance.
“What are we going to do?” I asked Yin. “We can’t stay here.”
“Back to the monastery,” he said. “That’s where I was before.”
I nodded, then raised up and looked for the helicopter. Luckily it was veering off to the north. At the same time, something else caught my eye. It was the monk I had seen earlier, moving down the ditch toward us.
He walked up to us and said something to Yin in Tibetan, then looked at me.
“Come, please,” he said in English, grabbing me, pulling me toward the monastery.
When we arrived, we first walked through a side courtyard gate and past many Tibetans standing with bags and various belongings. Some of them looked very poor. Then we reached the main building of the monastery, and the monk opened the large wooden doors and led us through an entry room, where more Tibetans were gathered. As we walked by, I recognized one group; it was the family I had let pass me on the road earlier. They looked at me with warm eyes.
Yin saw me looking at them and questioned me about it, and I explained that I had seen them back on the road.
“They were there to lead you here,” Yin said. “But you were too afraid to follow the synchronicity.”
He glanced at me sternly and then continued to follow the monk into a small study with bookcases and desks and several prayer wheels. We were then seated around an ornately carved wooden table, where the monk and Yin carried on an extensive conversation in Tibetan.
“Let me see your leg,” another monk asked in English from behind us. He carried a small basket filled with white bandages and several dropper bottles. Yin’s face lit up.
“You two know each other?” I asked.
“Please,” the monk said, offering his hand while bowing slightly. “I am Jampa.”
Yin leaned toward me. “Jampa has been with Lama Rigden for over ten years.”
“Who is Lama Rigden?”
Both Jampa and Yin looked at each other as though not sure how much to tell me. Finally Yin said, “I mentioned the legends to you earlier. Lama Rigden understands the legends more than any other person. He is one of the foremost experts on Shambhala.”
“Tell me exactly what has happened,” Jampa said to me as he dabbed some kind of salve on my scraped leg.
I looked at Yin, who nodded for me to comply.
“I must present what has happened to you to the Lama,” Jampa clarified.
I proceeded to tell him everything that had occurred since arriving at Lhasa. When I finished, Jampa looked at me.
“What about before you came to Tibet? What had happened?”
I told him about my neighbor’s daughter and about Wil.
He and Yin looked at each other.
“And what have you been thinking?” Jampa asked.
“I’ve been thinking that I’m in over my head here,” I said. “I’m planning to head to the airport.”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Jampa said quickly. “This morning, when you discovered that Yin had left, what was your attitude, your state of mind?”
“I was scared. I just knew the Chinese would be on me in minutes. I tried to figure out how to get back to Lhasa.”
Jampa turned and looked at Yin, frowning. “He doesn’t know about the prayer-fields.”
Yin shook his head and looked away.
“We’ve discussed it,” I said. “But I’m not sure how it matters. What do you know about these helicopters? Are they after us?”
Jampa only smiled and told me not to worry, that I would be safe here. We were interrupted by several other monks delivering soup, bread, and tea. As we ate, my mind seemed to clear and I began to assess the situation. I wanted to know everything about what was going on. Right now.
I looked at Jampa with determination, and he returned my gaze with a profound warmth.
“I know you have many questions,” he said. “Let me tell you as much as I can. We are a special sect here in Tibet. Not typical. For many centuries we have held the belief that Shambhala is a real place. We also hold the knowledge of the legends, verbal wisdom as old as the Kalachakra, which is devoted to the integration of all religious truth.
“Many of our lamas are in touch with Shambhala through their dreams. A few months ago, your friend Wil began to show up in Lama Rigden’s dreams of Shambhala. A short time after that, Wil was led to this very monastery. Lama Rigden agreed to see him and found out Wil was also having dreams of Shambhala.”
“What did Wil tell him?” I asked. “Where did he go?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid you must wait and see if Lama Rigden will give you that information himself.”
I looked at Yin, and he attempted to smile.
“What about the Chinese?” I asked Jampa. “How are they involved?”
Jampa shrugged. “We don’t know. Perhaps they know something about what is happening.”
I nodded.
“There’s one more thing,” Jampa said. “Apparently in all the dreams there appears another person. An American.”
Jampa paused and bowed slightly. “Your friend Wil wasn’t sure but he thought it was you.”
After bathing and changing clothes in the room Jampa had provided, I walked out into the back courtyard. Several monks were working in a vegetable garden, as though the Chinese were of no concern. I looked out at the mountains and surveyed the sky. No helicopters anywhere.
“Would you like to sit on the bench up there?” a voice spoke from behind me. I turned and saw Yin walking out the door.
I nodded and we walked up several terraces filled with ornamental plants and vegetables until we reached a sitting area facing an elaborate Buddhist shrine. A large mountain range framed the horizon behind us, but toward the south we had a panoramic view of the countryside for miles. Many people were walking on the roads or pulling carts.
“Where is the Lama?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Yin replied. “He has not yet agreed to see you.”
“Why not?”
Yin shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Do you think he knows where Wil is?”
Again Yin shook his head.
“Do you think the Chinese are still looking for us?” I asked.
Yin only shrugged, looking out into the distance.
“I’m sorry my energy is so bad,” he said. “Please don’t let it influence you. It’s just that my anger overwhelms me. Since 1954, the Chinese have systematically set out to destroy the Tibetan culture. Look at those people walking out there. Many of them are farmers who are displaced because of economic initiatives the Chinese have mandated. Others are nomads who are starving because these policies have interrupted their way of life.” He clenched both fists.
“The Chinese are doing the same thing Stalin did in Manchuria, importing thousands of outsiders, in this case ethnic Chinese, into Tibet to change the cultural balance and institute Chinese ways. They demand that our schools teach only the Chinese language.”
“The people outside the gates of the monastery,” I asked, “why do they come here?”
“Lama Rigden and the monks are working to help the poor, who are having the worst time with the transition of their culture. That is why the Chinese have left him alone. He helps solve the problems without agitating the populace against them.”
Yin said this in a way that reflected a mild resentment against the Lama, and immediately he apologized.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply that the Lama is cooperating too much. It’s just that what the Chinese are doing is despicable.” He clenched his fists again and hit his knees. “Many thought at first that the Chinese government would be respectful of Tibetan ways, that we could exist within the Chinese nation without losing everything. But the government is bent on destroying us. This is clear now and we must begin to make it more difficult for them.”
“You mean try to fight them?” I asked. “Yin, you know you can’t win that.”
“I know, I know,” he said. “I just get so angry when I think of what they are doing. Someday the warriors of Shambhala will ride out and defeat these monsters of evil.”
“What?”
“It is a prophecy among my people.” He looked at me and shook his head. “I know I must work on my anger. It collapses my prayer-field.”
Abruptly he stood up and added, “I’ll go ask Jampa if he has talked with the Lama. Please excuse me.” He bowed slightly and left.
For a while I looked out at the Tibetan landscape, trying to comprehend fully the damage the Chinese occupation had done. At one point I even thought I heard another helicopter, but it was too far away to be sure. I knew Yin’s anger was justified, and I thought for several more minutes about the realities of the political situation in Tibet. The thought of asking for a phone came back to mind, and I wondered how hard it would be to place an international call.
I was about to get up and head inside when I realized I felt tired, so I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to focus on the beauty around me. The snowcapped mountains and the green and brown colors of the landscape were stark and beautiful, and the sky was a rich blue with only a few clouds along the western horizon.
As I gazed out, I noticed that the two monks who were several tiers down below me were staring intently up in my direction. I glanced behind me to see if there was something up there, but I could see nothing unusual. I smiled back in their direction.
After a few minutes one of them walked up the stone steps toward me, carrying a basket full of hand tools. When he reached me, he nodded politely and began to weed a bed of flowers twenty feet to my right. Several minutes later he was joined by another monk, who began digging as well. Occasionally they would look over at me with inquiring eyes and deferential nods.
I took more deep breaths and focused on the far distance again, thinking about what Yin had said concerning his prayer-field. He was worried that his anger against the Chinese collapsed his energy. What did he mean by that?
Suddenly I began to feel the warmth of the sun and to sense its radiance more consciously, feeling a certain peacefulness I hadn’t felt since coming here. I took another breath with my eyes closed and perceived something else, an unusually sweet fragrance like a bouquet of flowers. My first thought was that the monks had clipped some of the blooms off the plants they were working on and had placed them near me.
I opened my eyes and looked, but there were no flowers close by. I felt for a breeze that might have blown the fragrance over toward me, but there was none stirring. I noticed the monks had dropped their tools and were staring intensely at me with wide eyes and their mouths half-open, as though they had seen something strange. Again I looked behind me, trying to figure out what was going on. Upon noticing that they had disturbed me, they quickly gathered up their tools and baskets and almost ran down the path toward the monastery. I followed them with my eyes for a moment, watching their red robes flip and sway as they glanced back at me to see if I was watching.
* * *
As soon as I walked down and entered the monastery, I knew something was abuzz. The monks were all scurrying about and whispering to one another.
I walked down a hallway and into my own room, planning on asking Jampa for the use of a phone. My mood was better, but I was again questioning my own sense of self-preservation. I was being drawn further into what was happening here, instead of trying to get out of this country. Who knew what the Chinese might do if I was caught? Did they know my name? It might even be too late to leave by air.
I was about to get up and look for Jampa when he burst into the room.
“The Lama has agreed to see you,” he said. “This is a great honor. Don’t worry, he speaks perfect English.”
I nodded, feeling a little nervous.
Jampa was standing at the door looking expectant.
“I am to escort you—now,” he said.
I got up and followed as Jampa led me through a very large room with high ceilings and into a smaller room on the other side. Five or six monks, holding prayer wheels and white scarves, watched with anticipation as we walked up toward the front and sat down. Yin waved from the far corner.
“This is the greeting room,” Jampa said.
The interior of the room was wooden and painted a light blue. Handcrafted murals and mandalas adorned the walls. We waited for a few minutes and then the Lama entered. He was taller than most of the other monks, but was dressed in a red robe, exactly like the ones they wore. After looking at everyone in the room very deliberately, he summoned Jampa forward. They touched foreheads, and he whispered something in Jampa’s ear.
Jampa immediately turned and gestured to all the other monks to follow him out of the room. Yin, too, began to leave, but as he did, he glanced at me and nodded slightly, a gesture I took as support for my impending conversation. Many of the monks handed me their scarves and nodded excitedly.
When the room was empty, the Lama motioned for me to come forward and sit in a tiny straight-back chair to his right. I bowed slightly as I came up and sat down.
“Thank you for seeing me,” I said.
He nodded and smiled, looking me over for a long time.
“Could I ask you about my friend Wilson James?” I finally inquired. “Do you know where he is?”
“What is your understanding of Shambhala?” the Lama asked in return.
“I guess I’ve always thought of it as an imaginary place, a fantasy. You know, like Shangri-La.”
He cocked his head and replied matter-of-factly, “It is a real place on Earth that exists as part of the human community.”
“Why has no one ever discovered where it is? And why do so many prominent Buddhists speak of Shambhala as a way of life, a mentality?”
“Because Shambhala does represent a way of being and living. It can be spoken of accurately in that manner. But it is also an actual location where real people have achieved this way of being in community with each other.”
“Have you been there?”
“No, no, I have not yet been called.”
“Then how can you be so sure?”
“Because I have dreamed of Shambhala many times, as have many other adepts on the Earth. We compare our dreams and they are so similar we know this must be a real place. And we hold the sacred knowledge, the legends, that explain our relationship to this sacred community.”
“What is that relationship?”
“We are to preserve the knowledge while we are waiting for the time when Shambhala will come out and make itself known to all peoples.”
“Yin told me that some believe that the warriors of Shambhala will eventually arrive to defeat the Chinese.”
“Yin’s anger is very dangerous for him.”
“He’s wrong, then?”
“He is speaking from the human viewpoint that sees defeat in terms of war and physical fighting. Exactly how this prophecy will come true is still unknown. We will have to first understand Shambhala. But we know that this will be a different kind of battle.”
I found the last statement cryptic, but his manner was so compassionate that I felt awe rather than confusion.
“We believe,” Lama Rigden continued, “that the time when the way of Shambhala shall be known in the world is very close.”
“Lama, how do you know this?”
“Again, because of our dreams. Your friend Wil has been here, as you undoubtedly have already heard. This we took as a great sign because we had earlier dreamed of him. He has smelled the fragrance and heard the utterance.”
I was taken aback. “What kind of fragrance?”
He smiled. “The one you yourself smelled earlier today.”
Now everything made sense. The way the monks had reacted and the Lama’s decision to see me.
“You are also being called,” he added. “The sending of the fragrance is a rare thing. I have seen it occur only twice—once when I was with my teacher, and again when your friend Wil was here. Now it has happened again with you. I had not known whether to see you or not. It is very dangerous to speak of these things trivially. Have you also heard the cry?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t understand what that is.”
“It is also a call from Shambhala. Just keep listening for a special sound. When you hear it, you will know what it is.”
“Lama, I’m not sure I want to go anywhere. It seems very dangerous here for me. The Chinese seem to know who I am. I think I want to go back to the United States as soon as possible. Can you just tell me where I might find Wil? Is he somewhere close?”
The Lama shook his head, looking very sad. “No, I’m afraid he has committed to go on.”
I was silent, and for a long moment the Lama just looked at me.
“There is something else you must know,” he said. “It is very clear from the dreams that without you, Wil could not survive this attempt. For him to succeed, you will have to be there as well.”
A wave of fear ran through me, and I looked away. This was not what I wanted to hear.
“The legends say,” the Lama went on, “that in Shambhala each generation has a certain destiny that is publicly known and talked about. The same is true in human cultures outside of Shambhala. Sometimes great strength and clarity can be gained by looking at the courage and intent of the generation that came before us.”
I wondered where he was going with this.
“Is your father alive?” he asked.
I shook my head. “He died a couple of years ago.”
“Did he serve in the great war of the 1940s?”
“Yes,” I replied, “he did.”
“Was he in the fighting?”
“Yes, during most of the war.”
“Did he tell you of his most fearful situation?”
His question took me back to discussions with my father during my youth. I thought for a moment.
“Probably the landing in Normandy in 1944 at Omaha Beach.”
“Ah, yes,” the Lama said. “I’ve seen your American movies about this landing. Have you seen them?”
“Yes, I have,” I said. “They moved me very much.”
“They told of the soldiers’ fear and courage,” he went on.
“Yes.”
“Do you think you could have done such things?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see how they did it.”
“Perhaps it was easier for them because it was the calling for a whole generation. On some level they all sensed it: the ones who fought, the ones who made the arms, the ones who provided the food. They saved the world at the time of its greatest peril.”
He waited as though he expected me to ask a question, but I just looked at him.
“The calling of your generation is different,” he said. “You, too, must save the world. But you must do so in a different way. You must understand that inside you is a great power that can be cultivated and extended, a mental energy that has always been called prayer.”
“So I’ve been told,” I said. “But I guess I still don’t know how to use it.”
To this he smiled and stood up, looking at me with a twinkle in his eye.
“Yes,” he said. “I know. But you will, you will.”
* * *
I lay down on the cot in my room and thought about what the Lama had told me. He had ended the conversation abruptly, waving off my remaining questions.
“Go and rest now,” he had said, calling in several monks by ringing a loud bell. “We will talk again tomorrow.”
Later both Jampa and Yin had made me recount everything the Lama had said. But the truth was that the Lama had left me with more questions than answers. I still did not know where Wil had gone or what the call of Shambhala really meant. It all sounded fanciful and dangerous.
Yin and Jampa had refused to discuss any of these questions. We had spent the rest of the evening eating and looking out at the landscape before going to bed early. Now I found myself staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep, thoughts whirling in my head.
I replayed my whole experience in Tibet in my mind several times and then finally drifted into a fitful sleep. I dreamed of running through the crowds of Lhasa, seeking sanctuary at one of the monasteries. The monks at the door took one look at me and shut the door. Soldiers pursued. I ran down dark lanes and alleyways without hope until, at the end of one street, I looked to my right and saw a lighted area similar to the ones I had seen before. As I moved closer, the light gradually disappeared, but ahead of me was a gate. The soldiers were coming around the corner behind me, and I dashed through the gate and found myself in an icy landscape…
I woke up with a start. Where was I? Slowly I recognized the room and got to my feet and walked to the window. Dawn was just breaking toward the east, and I tried to shake off the dream and go back to bed, an idea that proved to be totally fruitless. I was wide awake.
Pulling on a pair of pants and a jacket, I walked downstairs and outside to the courtyard by the vegetable gardens and sat down on an ornate metal bench. As I stared out toward the sunrise, I heard something behind me. Turning, I saw the figure of a man moving toward me from the monastery. It was Lama Rigden.
I stood up and he bowed deeply.
“You are up early,” he said. “I hope you slept well.”
“Yes,” I said, watching him as he walked forward and sprinkled a handful of grain in the fountain pond for the fish. The water swirled as they consumed the food.
“What were your dreams?” he said without looking at me.
I told him about the chase and seeing the lighted area. He looked at me in amazement.
“Have you had this experience in your waking life as well?” he asked.
“Several times on this trip,” I said. “Lama, what is going on?”
He smiled and sat on a bench opposite me. “You are being helped by the dakini.”
“I don’t understand. What are the dakini? Wil left Yin a note in which he referred to the dakini, but I’d never heard of them before that.”
“They are from the spiritual world. They usually appear as females, but they can take any form they wish. In the West they are known as angels, but they are even more mysterious than most think. I’m afraid they are truly known only by those in Shambhala. The legends say that they move with the light of Shambhala.”
He paused and looked at me deeply. “Have you decided whether to answer this call?”
“I wouldn’t know how to proceed,” I said.
“The legends will guide you. They say that the time for Shambhala to be known will be recognized because many people will begin to understand how those in Shambhala live, the truth behind the prayer-energy. Prayer is not a power that is realized only when we sit down and decide to pray in a particular situation. Prayer works at these times, of course, but prayer is also working at other times.”
“You’re talking about a constant prayer-field?”
“Yes. Everything we expect, good or bad, conscious or unconscious, we are helping to bring into being. Our prayer is an energy or power that emanates out from us in all directions. In most people, who think in ordinary ways, this power is very weak and contradictory. But in others, who seem to achieve a lot in life, and who are very creative and successful, this field of energy is strong, although it is still usually unconscious. Most of those in this group have a strong field because they grew up in an environment where they learned to expect success and more or less take it for granted. They had strong role models whom they emulated. But the legends say that soon all people will learn about this power and understand that our ability to use this energy can be strengthened and extended.
“I have told you this to explain how to answer the call of Shambhala. To find this holy place, you must systematically extend your energy until you emanate enough creative strength to go there. The procedure for doing this is set forth in the legends and involves three important steps. There is also a fourth step, but it is known in its completeness only to those in Shambhala. That is why finding Shambhala is so difficult. Even if one successfully extends one’s energy though the first three steps, one must have help in order to actually find the way to Shambhala. The dakini must open the gateway.”
“You called the dakini spiritual beings. Do you mean souls that are in the afterlife who are acting as guides for us?”
“No, the dakini are other beings who act to awaken and guard humans. They are not and never were human.”
“And they are the same as angels?”
The Lama smiled. “They are what they are. One reality. Each religion has a different name for them, just as each religion has a different way of describing God and how humans should live. But in every religion the experience of God, the energy of love, is exactly the same. Each religion has its own history of this relationship and way of speaking about it, but there is only one divine source. It is the same with angels.”
“So you aren’t strictly Buddhist?”
“Our sect and the legends we hold have their roots in Buddhism, but we stand for the synthesis of all religions. We believe each has its truth that must be incorporated with all the others. It is possible to do this without losing the sovereignty or basic truth of one’s own traditional way. I would also call myself a Christian, for instance, and a Jew or a Muslim. We believe those in Shambhala also work for an integration of all religious truth. They work for this in the same spirit that the Dalai Lama makes the Kalachakra initiations known to anyone who has a sincere heart.”
I just looked at him, trying to take it all in.
“Don’t try to understand everything now,” the Lama said. “Just know that the integration of all religious truth is important if the force of prayer-energy is to grow large enough to resolve the dangers posed by those who fear. Also remember that the dakini are real.”
“What makes them act to help us?” I asked.
The Lama took a deep breath, thinking deeply. The question seemed to be a point of frustration for him.
“I have worked my whole life to understand this question,” he said finally, “but I must admit that I do not know. I think that it is the great secret of Shambhala and will not be understood until Shambhala is understood.”
“But you think,” I interjected, “that the dakini are helping me?”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “And your friend Wil.”
“What about Yin? How does he figure in all this?”
“Yin met your friend Wil at this monastery. Yin has also dreamed of you, but in a different context from myself or the other lamas. Yin was educated in England and is very familiar with Western ways. He is to be your guide, although he is very reluctant, as you have no doubt seen. This is only because he does not want to let anyone down. He will be your guide and take you as far as he can go.”
He paused again and looked at me expectantly.
“And what about the Chinese government?” I asked. “What are they doing? Why are they so interested in what is happening?”
The Lama lowered his eyes. “I do not know. They seem to sense that something is happening with Shambhala. They have always tried to suppress Tibetan spirituality, but now they seem to have discovered our sect. You must be very careful. They fear us greatly.”
I looked away for a moment, still thinking about the Chinese.
“Have you decided?” he asked.
“You mean whether to go?”
He smiled compassionately. “Yes.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I have the courage to risk losing everything.”
The Lama just kept looking at me and nodded.
“You said some things about the challenge of my generation,” I said. “I still don’t understand this.”
“World War II, as well as the cold war,” the Lama began, “was the previous generation’s challenge to face. The great advances in technology had placed massive weapons in the hands of nations. In their nationalistic fervor, the forces of totalitarianism were attempting to conquer the democratic countries. This threat would have prevailed had not ordinary citizens fought and died in defense of freedom, ensuring the success of democracy in the world.
“But your task is different from that of your parents. The mission of your generation is different in its very nature from that of the World War II generation. They had to fight a particular tyranny with violence and arms. You must fight against the concepts of war and enemies altogether. But it takes just as much heroism. Do you understand? There was no way your parents could have done what they did, but they persevered. So must you. The forces of totalitarianism have not gone away; they are just not expressing themselves any longer through nations seeking empire. The forces of tyranny now are international and much more subtle, taking advantage of our dependence on technology and credit and a desire for convenience. Out of fear, they seek to centralize all technological growth into the hands of a few, so that their economic positions can be safeguarded and the future evolution of the world controlled.
“Opposing them with force is impossible. Democracy must be guarded now with the next step in freedom’s evolution. We must use the power of our vision, and the expectations that flow out from us, as a constant prayer. This power is stronger than anyone now knows, and we must master it and begin to use it before it is too late. There are signs that something is changing in Shambhala. It is opening, shifting.”
The Lama was looking at me with steely determination. “You must answer the call to Shambhala. It is the only way to honor what your forefathers have done before you.”
His comment filled me with anxiety.
“What do I do first?” I asked.
“Complete the extensions of your energy,” the Lama replied. “This will not be easy for you because of your fear and anger. But if you persist, the gateway will present itself to you.”
“The gateway?”
“Yes. Our legends say that there are several gateways into Shambhala: one in the eastern Himalayas in India, one to the northwest on the border of China, and one in the far north in Russia. The signs will guide you to the right one. When all seems lost, look for the dakini.”
As the Lama was talking, Yin walked outside with our packs.
“Okay,” I said, feeling increasingly terrified. “I’ll try.” Even as I spoke, I couldn’t believe the words were coming from my mouth.
“Don’t worry,” Lama Rigden said. “Yin will help you. Just remember that before you can find Shambhala, you must first extend the level of energy that emanates from you and goes out into the world. You can’t have success until you do. You must master the force of your expectations.”
I looked at Yin and he half smiled.
“It’s time.” he said.