Free A Step Away from Paradise: A Tibetan Lama's Extraordinary Journey to a Land of Immortality by Thomas Shor

as uncounted neighbors—had. Many of those who hadn’t yet awakened with a piece of their flesh missing abandoned their houses to the elements and fled. Desolation vied with despair. Hope was an early casualty. Even the monastery perched on the rocky slope above the village had been abandoned by the very ones who could have helped them, the lamas.
     
    Chokshi, of Shrimoling, the ‘Place of the Female Cannibal’
    Chokshi never considered leaving. Deciding not to wait until he saw his own flesh disappear before his very eyes, he set out to find help. He went up the valley to Kardang—near the district headquarters of Keylong—to consult with the highest and most respected lama in the valley at the time, Kunga Rinpoche.
    Chokshi recalled for me what happened.
     
    Kunga Rinpoche, the Lama of Kardang Gompa
    ‘I walked up the valley to Kardang, and there I made an offering before Kunga Rinpoche. I told him why I was there, that so many in my village were having their limbs slowly eaten away, that we were being isolated and no one wanted to come close enough even to talk to us. The lama listened carefully, and he said he would do a mo , or divination, to see what course we should take.
    ‘From the voluminous folds of his robe he produced a weathered bag, inside which there was a wooden box. He took the lid from the box to reveal two ancient bone dice. He intoned a prayer, blew on the dice, shook the box and let the dice fall on the low table before him. Noting the result on a scrap of paper with a pencil stub, he threw the dice again. He took from his shelf a pecha —a Tibetan scripture wrapped in silk cloth—and consulted it. He marked things on the paper, threw the dice again and consulted another pecha , all the time noting things on the paper. It was a full half hour before he spoke.
    ‘“The situation in your village is extremely serious,” he told me, “and fraught with dangers. I am afraid it is beyond my powers to help you. But there is a high lama at the monastery in Pangi. His name is Tulshuk Lingpa. My divination shows that only he can help you.”
    ‘I had never heard of this lama, or of Pangi.
    ‘“Where is Pangi,” I asked the lama, “and how do I get there?”
    ‘“Pangi is a two-day march from here,” he told me. “But you won’t find him there now. Go to Tso Pema, and look for him there.”
    ‘I’d heard of Tso Pema—Rewalsar as it’s known locally—the lake sacred to Padmasambhava. I’d never been there. In fact I only knew my village and the town of Manali, the first town in the low country just over the Rohtang Pass. Who had time to travel in those days, even on pilgrimage? But now the fate of my entire village depended on me. All of my limbs were still intact but I knew it was only a matter of time. I set out immediately for Tso Pema. Since I had no money for the bus, I walked. It took me five days.
    ‘When I arrived in Tso Pema I asked for Tulshuk Lingpa, and someone told me to look inside the old Nyingma monastery. When I went inside, I found only a Tibetan man sitting on a scaffold putting the finishing touches to Chenresig, the Buddha of Compassion, which he was painting on the wall. He was dressed in street clothes. When I asked him for Tulshuk Lingpa, I thought he must have misunderstood me when he told me it was him I was looking for.
    ‘We expected our lamas to be dressed in robes and to have shaved heads. Instead, he had long black hair, which was braided with a piece of red cloth and wrapped around his head as is the style of so many Tibetan men. He wore a regular pair of pants and an old shirt, both of which were spattered with the bright colors with which he was painting the gods, demons and Buddhas on the monastery wall. But there was something in his eyes; they penetrated me like two burning coals. I knew immediately that he could help my village.
    ‘I told him I had come from far away, and that Kunga Rinpoche had sent me. Even before asking what it was about, he