Lobsang and the magic mala
A short story by David Michie
I am happy to be sharing this short story with all my subscribers this weekend.
If you would prefer to listen to it, rather than read it, please click the link below. I recorded the story sitting at our dining room table - so, not studio conditions, but I hope quite clear!
“Before a man studies Zen, to him mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after he gets an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, mountains to him are not mountains and waters are not waters; but after this when he really attains the abode of rest, mountains are once more mountains and waters are waters.”
D.T. Sukuzi, Essays in Zen Buddhism, London, Rider, 1926
Bumthang Valley, Bhutan
Once upon a time, in the remote mountain village of Narjey, there lived a young boy called Lobsang. Good-looking and brimming with bright-eyed zeal, the charismatic Lobsang would sweep up the other village children in adventures that were inspired by his compelling and ever-vivid sense of magic.
Hearing talk of a mysterious-sounding forest hut beyond expression, said to exist in the next valley, at the age of ten he led a gang of local boys, climbing among dense blue pines until they came across a small, dilapidated cabin. Eavesdropping on a conversation about the nectar of immortality, blessed by White Tara herself, he and his trailblazers spent most of one long summer searching, until they found a hidden spring sparkling, undiscovered, in a crevice beneath a boulder.
Lobsang had heard about an especially supernatural place, where a narrow cliff path widened into what was not so much a cave as a tear in the fabric of reality. If you stepped through this fissure, you would soon find yourself in a pure land where you came to know everything. Although most people chose to stay in this wondrous dimension, those who returned from it were possessed of miraculous powers. But in all his wanderings, Lobsang never discovered the fabled mountain path.
One day when he was still ten years old, the village received a visit from Lama Sonam who was on his way to visit elderly relatives further up the valley. Great respect and hospitality were automatically afforded to the monk, who in return offered blessings to the villagers.
Lama Sonam was the son of Yogi Pema, a fierce Nygingma master who had developed extraordinary abilities. During his life Yogi Pema had used his mala so constantly that its lotus seed beads were said to have acquired some of his mystical energy, glowing in the dark. On his deathbed, Yogi Pema had given this legendary mala to his son.
The evening that Lama Sonam offered blessings, Lobsang joined most of the village, crammed in the headman’s small living room. He had no particular wish to receive blessings himself. More than anything, he wanted to catch a glimpse of the magic mala.
He wasn’t the only one. Before Lama Sonam had said so much as a word, one of the village elders asked if it was true that he had received the special mala from his father? Lama Sonam had nodded, touching his robe to indicate not only that this was the case, but that he was carrying the mala at this very moment. Would he be willing - the village headman, Sangay, was always direct - to use this very same mala to bless the villagers? But of course, smiled Lama Sonam, a twinkle on his gentle face seeming to indicate that this was exactly what he had planned all along.
Through the ceremony that followed, one illuminated by the many butter lamps that had been lit on a small altar, Lobsang watched Lama Sonam recite verses and twirl ritual objects with the fluent ease that came from much practice. As sandalwood incense suffused the room, those villagers who knew some of the chants joined in where they were able, their voices rising in a rhythmic incantation Lobsang had never experienced, but that made him feel strangely elated.
Then the moment arrived, and Lama Sonam invited any villagers who had specific requests, to approach him. Lobsang’s own father, Ugyen, was one of the first. Life had been tough on the family smallholding, with poor yields in the corn fields and that season’s chilli crop failing. Retrieving the mala from the pocket of his robe, Lama Sonam had extended his arm, touching Ugyen on the crown, invoking blessings of great increase from the Buddhas. All this time, Lobsang was staring at the lama’s hand. And was it really true that he could perceive a gleam emanating from between the monk’s fingers?
Elderly Dechen, one of the oldest women in the village, was up next, requesting relief from persistent rheumatism. Face filled with compassion, Lama Sonam reached out with the mala, pressing it to her head, requesting the blessings of pacification from the Buddhas. And although the mala was almost fully concealed, once again Lobsang caught a glimpse of that eerie luminosity.
Sangay, the village headman, was also a supplicant, asking for help with his trading business, which had been hit by cheap, foreign imports. This time, Lama Sonam invoked the Buddha’s blessings of power as he held the mala to the headman’s crown.
After each blessing, Lama Sonam whispered special instructions in the ear of the receivers, who would nod gratefully, palms folded together at their hearts as they stepped away. Amid all the ritual, the incense and the butter lamps, an important transmission had occurred. And later that night, talking in low but excited voices about what had happened with family and friends, Lobsang found that he was not the only one to have caught sight of the radiance of the magic mala. There were some in the room who, from different heights and other angles, had seen the luminosity even more unquestionably than he.
In the months that followed, Lobsang observed how grandmother Dechen, despite her advanced years, became more sprightly. The pain in her joints had been greatly eased, she would tell anyone who would listen. The village headman, meantime, became so caught up in business than he was rarely ever home, his trade in new varieties of goods generating handsome profits. As for Lobsang’s family, their strenuous efforts to plant out more seed that year than ever before were richly rewarded by a bumper harvest.
In time the visit by Lama Sonam began to fade from most people’s memory as new dramas – births, deaths and marriages – became the focus of village attention. But for Lobsang, the magic of the lama’s visit seemed only to grow along with the evidence of his blessings. And a new idea took seed in his mind.
Two years later, when word came that Lama Sonam was once again visiting relatives along the valley – by a different path this time - Lobsang hastened to see him. Within moments of encountering the monk, sitting quietly on a wooden balcony bedecked with fluttering prayer flags, he began speaking. In a torrent of enthusiasm he explained how he was from Narjey village which the lama had visited – did he remember? How auspicious his blessings had been, and the results they had effected - and all through the extraordinary powers of his magic mala.
After the excited rush of words had come to an end, for a while there was only the sound of the wind in the trees. Then Lama Sonam asked Lobsang softly, “Is there a request you’d like to make?”
Lobsang had given his deepest wish much thought, and he had decided not to approach the matter directly. He didn’t want to come across as covetous and self-seeking. He didn’t just want the mala for its own sake, he told himself. No, he wanted it to be able to help others, like Lama Sonam. To heal the sick, comfort the bereft, promote abundance in all things. Was there any purpose in life greater?
So, when he answered the monk’s question he did so obliquely. “I am wondering, lama, if you would consider taking me on as a novice monk?”
Having made his momentous plea, Lobsang searched the lama’s face very closely trying to guess his response. Not that the monk’s expression hinted at anything he had anticipated. Instead, he almost seemed to be suppressing a glint of playfulness.
Dragpa Monastery, he explained, was a very small establishment of only 35 monks. For a novice to join, one of the current monks must leave. And the monastery was at capacity. But if Lobsang was willing to join as a personal attendant, sleeping in a small room beside the monastery kitchen, and running errands for himself and the other senior monks, he could come to Dragpa this year after harvest. Then, when a vacancy became available, he could become a novice.
It was all Lobsang could do not to shout at the top of his voice and thunder around the wooden balcony with glee. So utterly disarming was the monk’s manner, that when Lama Sonam asked “Is there any particular reason you wish to become a monk?” Lobsang replied, “I want to be like you. To heal the sick. To comfort the bereaved. To offer abundance in all things. Perhaps when you die-” in his excitement, the words came tumbling out of his mouth, “-you might even leave me your special mala so I can continue your work.”
Lobsang regretted his foolhardiness the moment he spoke. But Lama Sonam only burst out laughing.
“And so we finally come to it!” he chortled. “Yogi Pema’s magic mala.”
“I know I am not a blood relative,” Lobsang was emboldened to explain the logic that had formed in his mind. “But no one in the next generation of your family wants to be a monk or a nun. And I am from the village in the same valley. In a way, there is a connection.”
“So there is,” the monk seemed further entertained by this. “And there is no doubt that you have two qualities most useful to a spiritual seeker. In abundance.”
Lobsang was so relieved not to have provoked Lama Sonam’s displeasure that he didn’t ask what those two qualities might be. Instead, his large brown eyes gleaming with emotion he beseeched him, “So you would consider my request, lama?”
“About the mala?” confirmed the monk.
Lobsang nodded, holding his gaze with an intense expression.
Lama Sonam reached out to squeeze his shoulder. “I can do even better,” his look was penetrating. “And you won’t have to wait until the day I die. If you come to Drapga Monastery this fall, and perform your duties as an attendant most diligently, then when the time comes for you to become a novice monk, if you still wish, I will give you the mala then.”
Although it was a five-hour trek home from his visit to Lama Sonam, Lobsang was so enraptured by the monk’s extraordinary promise that afterwards he was unable to remember a single step of it.
As an attendant at Drapga Monastery, Lobsang was expected to help prepare and fetch meals, carry Lama Sonam’s belongings, and prepare endless cups of tea. He would see villagers from the most remote parts of the countryside visit the lama with similar requests to those he had witnessed in Narjey. The first few times this happened, he was most surprised: an elderly man seeking help with persistent sleeping problems, a young man unhappy in love, a couple wishing to conceive, came for his blessings - and never once was there any mention of Yogi Pema’s magic mala.
From the day he arrived at the monastery, Lobsang had been careful to protect the vow he’d made to Lama Sonam on that most auspicious afternoon. “Never say anything about Yogi Pema’s mala, or my promised gift of it, to anyone at Dragpa,” Lama Sonam’s eyes had been filled with portent. “It would be most unwise to create envy.”
As Lobsang followed blessing after blessing bestowed on a never-ending stream of petitioners, many of them with the most propitious of outcomes, he came to realize that Yogi Pema’s mala, while the much sought-after source of all miracles in Narjey, had no relevance elsewhere.
One day he prepared a tray of tea and biscuits for several monks who had just completed a Dzogchen retreat. Relaxed and sociable as they discussed their experiences, one of them remarked in passing, how wishful - but incorrect - was the view that any object could have qualities from its own side that might somehow imbue it with special powers. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a pen so inherently inspiring that whoever picked it up could write amazing verses!” he chuckled.
“Or an archer’s bow,” chimed a fellow retreatant, “so innately unerring that whoever used it would always hit bullseye.”
As they all laughed at the self-evident craziness of such a notion, Lobsang pretended to share the humour. But inside he was thrown into turmoil. The observation, he instantly realised, directly challenged his own assumptions. For as long as he could remember, the villagers of Narjey had had no doubts about the special powers of Yogi Pema’s magic mala. And not only the mala. The whole world around them was filled with sacred objects and holy places that were charged with special energies.
“Geshe Chodron,” one of the monks named the former abbot, on whom he had attended, “wrote his reknown vajrayana commentary using two plastic pens from the New Delhi Holiday Inn someone gave him after staying there.”
“What a mind he had!” spoke one of the others, with great reverence.
“The kind of mind,” agreed Geshe-la’s former attendant, “that could transmute any object into the divine.”
Among Lobsang’s favourite times at Dragpa Monastery were, in good weather, when Lama Sonam told him to prepare a meal, and the two would go for walks in the valley forests. It was on just such an occasion, one glorious summer’s afternoon not long after the conversation that had so shocked Lobsang, when the two of them settled to enjoy a picnic.
“Soon, it will be time for you to go home for the harvest. Your first since coming to Dragpa,” observed Lama Sonam. It was customary for most monks, who came from villages like Narjey, to return to their family homes to help harvest crops and prepare the buildings for the winter to come.
“Has it been a good year?” The lama was regarding him closely.
“Oh yes!” Lobsang answered, before launching into a little speech about how, in a small monastery like Dragpa, a monk – even an attendant! - could spend time with the most learned Geshes and accomplished yogis, learning much from them directly – a speech which had been recited frequently by every monk at Dragpa since the days that Lama Sonam himself had been a novice.
Waiting for him to finish, Lama Sonam approached the subject from a different angle. “Have you changed in any way, do you think?” he asked.
Lobsang’s expression turned pensive. He knew he couldn’t evade the lama’s scrutiny for long. Indeed, the candour of his question suggested that Lama Sonam already had an inkling that he no longer harboured the same firm certainties with which he’d arrived. But what was in their place? He couldn’t say - not for sure. His feelings were a confusing mix of shame about his former ignorance, regret for his lost innocence, and bewilderment about what he should be thinking.
He also sensed - but couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge - a buried streak of resentment that Lama Sonam hadn’t set him straight about the true source of magic from the very beginning.
Meeting the lama’s eyes he eventually admitted, “I think I have changed my view on … the way that things are.”
“Oh?” Lama Sonam looked most interested, gesturing that he should continue.
“I have come to see that there is no such thing as a pen with inherent qualities that can make it’s owner write inspiring texts,” he repeated the overheard idea which had caused him such upheaval. “Or an archer’s bow so constant that no matter who uses it, they will always find their target.”
In the drowsy warmth of an afternoon replete with the sound of bees humming and birds trilling, there followed a significant pause before Lama Sonam asked, “And what of a mala that has magical powers?”
Lobsang looked up, facing him directly. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“You have such trust that I know, yes?” smiled the monk.
Lobsang nodded.
“Faith is good,” he responded. “Reasoning is better. What does reason tell you about the blessing powers of the mala?”
Lobsang took a long time to give voice to the recognition that had been developing in his mind, “What I have seen with my own eyes, is that whether you use the mala, or do not use the mala, the people who come to see you are blessed. Therefore, the blessing does not depend on the mala.”
Lama Sonam didn’t speak a word, but his expression seemed to confirm this.
After a moment Lobsang continued, “When you told me I must keep quiet about you giving me the mala because you wanted to avoid envy, that wasn’t the only reason, was it?”
Lama Sonam met his gaze evenly. “Favouritism, even of small kinds, can create tensions in a small monastery.”
“Yes.” There was more to it, and Lobsang was determined to have it confirmed, “But it is stupid to believe that a mala can possess magic. I think you wanted to protect me from displaying my own ignorance when I first arrived.”
“Have no fear about that,” chuckled Lama Sonam. “People say the most ignorant things all the time. I do so myself.”
“But it’s wrong, isn’t it, to believe that a mala can possess magic?”
“From an ultimate perspective,” conceded the monk. “It is not accurate.”
“So the villagers at Narjey. My family. My friends. They are mistaken believing as they do?” There was hurt in Lobsang’s tone as he found the words to express the betrayal he felt.
Lines formed across his forehead as he acknowledged Lobsang’s pain, but Lama Sonam seemed unruffled.
“Tell me, Lobsang-la,” he used a term of affectionate regard as he held his attendant’s gaze. “The villagers at Narjey. Your family. Your friends. Were their beliefs a source of blessing?”
Lobsang pulled a face before, reluctantly, conceding.
“Then how foolish are they?”
Lobsang found it hard to answer this, nor did he think it was a question to which Lama Sonam needed a response. Instead, the two of them sat feeling the warmth of the sun on their faces, the fresh, regenerating scent of pine carried on the air. Before Lama Sonam said, “The more important question is: if the magic wasn’t coming from the mala, where was it coming from?”
Lobsang remembered the monks talking about Geshe Chodron. How he had written the most highly-esteemed text with only a couple of cheap, plastic pens - but that hadn’t mattered. It wasn’t the quality of the instruments that counted, but the great virtue of Lama Chodron’s mind.
“The magic was coming from your mind,” he told Lama Sonam, with an expression of some reverence.
“I see.” The same glint of amusement appeared on the monk’s face as the time that Lobsang had confessed his ambition to inherit Yogi Pema’s mala. Only, now that Lobsang knew him much better, he recognised what it meant.
“This is something to consider further, is it not?”
They were the words Lama Sonam liked to use when Lobsang got something wrong. Something to consider further. But what could be wrong with what he’d just said? Why did things have to be so very difficult?
“When you go home,” the monk told him now. “Perhaps take with you the Garland of Views by Padmasambhava if you feel the inclination to study.”
“Yes, lama.”
“In time you will master all the subjects in it. After all, you have the two qualities that are most useful to be a spiritual seeker. But for the moment,” his eyes twinkled. “Best not to say too much about malas or the source of blessings.”
Lobsang tried to smile. And even though he recognised that this was the second time Lama Sonam had mentioned the two most useful qualities of a spiritual seeker, he was too overwhelmed, too disheartened to ask the monk exactly what those qualities might be.
The Lobsang who returned home soon afterwards was changed from the one who had first set out for Dragpa Monastery. While he had the same friendly temperament and charming manner, he was also quieter and more withdrawn. Arriving just as the harvest was to be brought in, there was little time for Lobsang to lead his boyhood friends on the daring exploits that had once pre-occupied him. Nevertheless during spare moments, instead of going out, he would withdrew to a corner to read Padmasambhava’s famous text. His family attributed his new seriousness to monastic discipline.
Lobsang returned to Dragpa Monastery to learn that one of the monks had been requested to attend to the royal family in Thimpu – a high honour for the whole monastery! This meant that he could now become a novice.
One of his tutors was the head of the monastery, Abbot Lundro himself, whose austere features, hazel eyes, and far-away expression seemed to confirm his elevated, scholarly stature. Fearful that the abbot would ask him a question revealing his own deep ignorance, it was Abbot Lundro who was to offer the solution to Lobsang’s dilemma about magic and where it came from – but not without throwing him into even deeper agitation first.
“In the Dharma we recognise a difference between the figurative and the literal,” he began class one day, smoothly tossing a grenade into Lobsang’s consciousness. “It would be very confusing, and wrong, if we were to take literally something that was intended to be figurative.
“We talk easily about the “demons” of hatred and attachment, even though there are no physical demons. But sometimes, when discussing things as subtle as thoughts or feelings it helps to give form to them, to externalise them, to create a physical impression of them, so that we might identify them and their characteristics more clearly. Does this make sense?”
Abbot Lundro’s students were nodding.
This being the first time he had heard such a thing, Lobsang felt powerfully struck by the insight.
“Take an idea like ‘the forest-hut beyond expression,’” the Abbot continued. “A beautiful evocation of a place of great restfulness. It refers to a mental state, an inner tranquillity we feel as meditators when we let go of all thoughts and conceptuality and simply abide in the pristine nature of our minds. Is there an actual place we can go to, a physical hut in the forest where we can unfailingly have such a feeling?”
Heads were being shaken.
“No,” he confirmed, before shrugging. “Well, perhaps. But the forest hut we are referring to is figurative, not literal.”
In the silence that followed, one in which he was feeling deeply unnerved, Lobsang felt a phrase welling up from inside him without any conscious effort on his part. “The nectar of immortality,” he said, the words seeming to come from his mouth as if someone else was speaking.
Abbot Lundro looked at him, for the very first time, thought Lobsang, really noticing him. Lobsang felt those clear eyes meeting his with a perspicacity, an appreciative awareness he had never sensed in the abbot before.
“Another good example,” he agreed. “Is there really a liquid somewhere you can drink that will extend your lifespan forever?”
Once again, heads were being shaken.
“Of course not. Or it would be the most expensive drink in the world!” he smiled wryly. “What the nectar of immortality refers to is the taste of shunyata, of wisdom. Once you have had such an experience you no longer fear physical death, because the primordial consciousness you know yourself to be, continues, just as it arrived into this particular experience of reality we call ‘me.’”
At Dragpa Monastery, Lobsang had plenty of time to contemplate the insights being revealed. And opportunities to process the quite extraordinary implications they had for him and everything in his world. Looking back, he recognised his childish credulity in believing that there were such places as forest huts where the energy of someone from over a millennium ago, might still be felt. Or mountain springs whose water had such potent blessings they could prolong your life. All that was as nonsensical as believing that a string of lotus seeds might possess some magical power.
One mystery, however, remained unsolved from his childhood days. On their next walk in the forest together, Lobsang explained to Lama Sonam his class had been learning about the difference between the literal and the figurative. How it had opened his eyes to the meaning of many things including the forest hut beyond expression and the nectar of immortality. He remembered babbling on about his adventures to what he believed were exactly such places the very first time he’d spoken to the lama. To his relief, Lama Sonam made no reference to this.
Lobsang pressed him on one particular metaphor he didn’t understand. He explained the narrow, cliff path he’d heard about, where one side of the path fell vertiginously to oblivion and the other was a sheer rock face. Where, if you progressed far enough, the rock would suddenly fall away to reveal a tear, a rupture, between normal reality and a pure land where everything was delightful, verdant and divine. What, he asked his lama, was the figurative meaning of this?
“You have come far in your understanding, have you not?” Lama Sonam congratulated him, after he finished. “There are many who would be incapable of even asking such a question. So let me explain with my own simple understanding as best I can.
“The cliffside path is the one we follow, the middle way of the Dharma. On the one side is nihilism, the view that life is pointless and then we die. Such a view holds no future for our consciousness. After this life ends, we are forced to experience the results of it. On the other side of the middle way path, the solid rock face represents eternalism. This is the view that everything is permanent, just as we perceive it, especially ourselves. If we cling to this view, after this life ends, we are forced to experience the fruit of it, returning as a being in samsara, once again viewing ourselves and everything around us as independent, solid.
“But if we continue along the middle way, we come to a point where the apparently rock-solid world of appearances falls away. We realise that the only reason things appear fixed is because our karma forces us to see them like this. When we make such a realization, the path of middle way opens into a pure land where we no longer experience things as ordinary.”
Following him intently, Lobsang prompted, “How do we experience them?”
Lama Sonam met his eyes, “The way all beings experience all things - as a projection of their own minds. But by then, through our Dharma practice, we have exhausted so much negative karma and perfected so much virtue that our mind is very clear, very blissful, and the way that everything appears to us is divine.”
As he’d been speaking, Lobsang had felt the upwelling of a recognition so powerfully he almost wanted to shout it out. The answer to the question that had eluded him for so long.
“So, it’s our minds that make things appear the way they do!” he exclaimed with feeling, finally uncovering the origin of all things.
“Exactly!” beamed Lama Sonam.
“Which is why a mala is magical for some people but not others.”
“Quite so.”
“So when people come to you for blessings, the energy they feel isn’t coming from you. Even though they think it is.”
The monk was nodding.
“They are actually blessing themselves!”
Lama Sonam burst out laughing. “You could put it that way!”
Meeting his eyes, Lobsang chuckled gleefully too.
“You may have noticed,” continued Lama Sonam, “that when people come to see me, I also try offering a few practical words. Those may help change things – but only if they put their hearts and minds into it. The blessing is, if you like, a motivation. A boost of self-confidence blowing in their sails. That’s my job. To give hope. To support them along the cliffside path of the middle way until they arrive at the pure land for themselves.
There was a long pause as Lobsang asked, “Lama Sonam, if it’s possible to develop one’s mind the way you say, does this mean you don’t have to die to experience the pure land?”
“Absolutely!” Lama Sonam’s conviction was so assured, so radiant that it seemed a manifestation of exactly this transcendent state. “What happens when you die is almost besides the point. You have a mind here and now, and the means to transform it. Change your mind and you can change your reality to one that is transcendent.”
Two years later, soon after he became an ordained monk, Lobsang returned to Narjey village in the fall to help with the harvest. His family observed that he had become noticeably more like his old, outgoing self. In fact, more spirited, invigorated and inspired than ever before. Even though Narjey village hadn’t changed in any significant way, it was if he found himself in a divine reality. The hours picking corn may have been wearying, but he still found time to lead a group of other young men to paint mani stones along high mountain passes. Preparing buildings for the winter ahead demanded much time, but with some excitement he galvanized the resources to repair a prayer wheel propelled by a nearby stream, so that the mantra of Avalokiteshvara might be cast, far and wide across the mountains, raining blessings on all sentient beings.
Best of all - so far as the villagers of Namjey were concerned - was that on becoming fully ordained, Lobsang had been given the most treasured of tributes by Lama Sonam. Lobsang told people that the gift was because he came from a nearby village to the lama – and indeed, Yogi Pema – and attended the same monastery as them. There was almost a family connection. But the villagers decided that such an accolade could only have been made because the lama recognised their village son as possessing special powers. A new mythology quickly took root about Lobsang and his siddhis. And it wasn’t long before people came, bowing deeply and palms together at their hearts, requesting blessings, as he held Yogi Pema’s magic mala in his hand.
There were times at night, when Narjey village slept, that Lobsang would go up to a smooth rock overlooking the valley. There he’d sit contemplating his journey, reflecting on what he’d learned at Dragpa Monastery, the important conversations, the insights. These included an exchange with Lama Sonam, soon after he took his monastic vows.
The two of them had been sitting drinking tea and eating slices of the specially baked cake made in Lobsang’s honour.
“I would never have come to Dragpa if it hadn’t been for you, lama,” said Lobsang with feeling. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“It is my honour,” responded Lama Sonam, ever-modest. After a while, however, he began chuckling.
“What?”
“I don’t think you gave me much choice. Remember that first time you came to see me?”
Lobsang smiled sheepishly.
“You practically demanded I take you on as a novice and bestow Yogi Pema’s mala on you.”
“I was very enthusiastic,” confessed Lobsang. Then after a pause, “And I believed that the mala was magical.”
“Whereas now?” prompted Lama Sonam.
“Now I know that it isn’t inherently magical. But it is magical if you have the mind to perceive it as so.”
“Good boy.”
There was another pause before Lobsang asked, “That first time we met, and another time, you said that I had two qualities most useful to a spiritual seeker.”
Lama Sonam nodded.
“Can you tell me what those are?”
His mentor fixed him with a droll expression, “You don’t want to guess?”
They’d often discussed the importance of Lobsang working things out for himself, instead of having all the answers spoon-fed. The deeper insight that arose from personal breakthroughs instead of simply being told how to think.
Lobsang rolled his eyes, before pondering.
“I’ll give you a hint,” smiled the monk. “You’re doing one of them now.”
“What?” said Lobsang. Then with a self-conscious smile, “Asking questions?”
“Curiosity,” confirmed the lama. “To be a spiritual seeker, you must keep asking questions until you reach a final answer. Why is a mala magical? And if it isn’t why do people believe it to be so? Where is the magic coming from? Is the magic valid? You have always been the questioning kind, Lobsang.”
The newly-minted monk nodded, because it was true.
“The other quality I won’t force you to guess because it is your ordination day. Special privilege,” beamed Lama Sonam. “That second important quality is imagination.”
Lobsang looked surprised.
“I thought you were going to say being energetic.”
The monk shook his head.
“The inner journey is one we make with our minds and hearts. Concepts can only ever be pointers to non-conceptual experiences. Unless we have tasted sweetness, we cannot truly know what the word ‘sweet’ really means. If that is true of such a basic experience, like taste, how much more difficult is it to guess at what is meant by phrases like the great bliss of nirvana? How can we be inspired by such things unless we can at least begin to imagine them?!”
Up on his rock overlooking the valley, Lobsang would smile as he recollected Lama Sonam’s expression. Realising how very perceptive the lama had been about the young boy in front of him, the very first time that they’d met. And knowing that what he said was true. For even on the darkest nights up on the mountain above Narjey, when cloud concealed every star in the sky, and large swathes of the valley were cast into pitch blackness, even when there was no possibility of reflected light from the moon or the stars, if he looked down at the hand in which he was holding Yogi Pema’s mala, he needed only the slightest shift in perspective to see a glow of luminosity spilling from between his fingers.
“In a modern psychological sense, these three stages can be seen as three steps in consciousness: (1) simple consciousness; (2) complex consciousness; (3) divine or illumined consciousness.”
Robert A. Johnson, Balancing Heaven and Earth
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At times my mind wandered & needed to be drawn back into the dialogue. I need to read it again to appreciate it all the more. Thanks David. Your writing seems effortless. Simply wonderful reading.
There are so many levels to this story, and it has touched and intrigued me on many levels. Just what I needed to learn today