Despite my being a tulku—or perhaps because of it—I was a terror as a child. Tibetans sometimes say that tulkus are wild and willful as children, but that this same energy propels them toward spiritual accomplishment if it is properly harnessed. To this high purpose, Tibetans spare no effort with the rod. My mother and I lived in Tromt’har until I was three. I retain wisps of pleasurable childhood memories—nestling inside my mother’s sheepskin coat and holding on to her back as we rode on a horse; watching my grandmother’s servants churning milk into butter by shaking it in a yak skin; my beautiful auntie with her pink cheeks, turquoise ornaments and belt made of pierced silver coins—but these memories are as tenuous as a half-remembered dream.

More tenacious and vivid are the memories of my childhood dramas of sorrow and conflict, the incidents that were grist for my development and training. Tibet is in the flyway of migrating birds, and in the fall countless varieties flocked in the meadows there. Fascinated, I wanted to capture one and keep it for a pet. The older children told me how a bird could be trapped, and with this method in mind, I set out with a basket, a stick, a bit of string and a handful of barley. After many failed attempts, I finally trapped a swallow under the basket. I reached in carefully and caught it in my hand. Stroking its feathers delighted me, and I coached it to eat a few kernels of grain. When I showed the adults my new pet, however, their reaction spoiled my pleasure.

“You must let it go, T’hubga. A wild bird won’t survive unless it can fly free. It isn’t like a dog or a lamb. You can’t make it a pet.” Their admonishments only provoked my fierce will. I loved my little bird. It was mine and I would care for it; their words couldn’t wrest it from me. Instead of releasing it, I slipped it into my chuba, the wraparound robe that Tibetans wear as an outer garment. That night before I fell asleep, I cradled my cherished pet in my hand one more time and gently tucked it back into my chuba. In the morning it was dead. I cried bitterly, inconsolably. This was the first great loss I ever experienced.

I was always very protective of children smaller or younger than I, though I would take on anyone else. This meant I was frequently engaged in battles. One day my maternal grandmother intervened in a fight between me and another child, and pinioned my arms. “Now all of you teach him not to fight!” she commanded. She held me as five or six children jumped on me, pummeling me with their fists. Sobbing and furious, I felt as if I would suffocate under the pile. Suddenly I found my hand on my little knife. Yanking it from its sheath, I stabbed blindly. One of my cousins, an older girl, emitted a piercing scream. The children scrambled off me and stared in stunned silence as my cousin, wailing in pain and indignation, revealed her wound. Since she, like all of us, wore a tough sheepskin chuba, my knife thrust had not done much damage. Still, it had punctured her side and caused enough bleeding that everyone was shocked. The children would never play with me again, and made a game of scattering and shouting fearfully whenever I approached. I became very lonely, but in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing, I was sullen and truculent, as I fully expected an unmerciful beating.

The beating never came, probably because of the intervention of the girl’s mother, my beautiful auntie, who was always gentle and calm. My own mother must not have been home, because I cannot imagine her allowing me to go unpunished. There were days when she would beat me not once, but three or four times. Each time my anger would escalate, I would yell more abusively, and when she released me, I would repeat whatever I had been doing wrong with more fervor. It was an immense and exhausting clash of wills, but in her compassion my mother could not let me grow up wild and ungovernable. Although eventually I would experience deep regret that I had inflicted so much trouble on my mother, so much suffering on one who was an emanation of Tara, there was no residue of bitterness between us. Sometimes, as soon as she had punished me, we would embrace and the conflict would dissolve. For my grandmother, though, I harbored a grudge that lasted for almost two decades. Its origin was not in her setting me up to be trounced by the other children, but in her not sharing evenhandedly a little nub of sausage.

One day I and several other children were in our family tent while my grandmother was eating a large link sausage. At the end of it was a balloon where the sausage casing had expanded in the hot fat. Each child coveted this end piece, and each begged for it. “Please, Amala, please give it to me!”

“No! To me!”
“To me! To me!”
“Please, Amala . . .”

The innocence and single-mindedness of our desire made us extremely vulnerable to her decision, and when my grandmother gave the balloon to her favorite child, perhaps each of the other children felt as I did—deprived and unloved. I proceeded to make myself more unlovable by saying terrible things to her and later, when my mother and I lived in a different region, by stationing myself by the road and throwing rocks at her horse as she arrived to visit with my mother.

The special affection children usually feel for their grandparents I reserved for my great aunt. She was a wonderful meditator who seldom lay down to sleep. I would come and nestle against her, and as she murmured her mantras, I would drift off in her lap. She radiated warmth, peace and the deep comfort I longed for as I chafed against the obstacles in my childish mind. When dinner was brought to us, I fed her from my bowl and she fed me from hers, and she would stroke my head.

WHEN I WAS three years old, a delegation of monks from Chagdud Gonpa arrived in Tromt’har to search for the reincarnation of Tanpai Gyaltsan, the previous Chagdud Tulku. They had consulted a number of high lamas, who had indicated that his incarnation had been born in the Tromge clan as the son of Dawa Drolma.

In addition, there had been the monk from Chagdud Gonpa who had witnessed the singular exchange between Dawa Drolma and Tanpai Gyaltsan and the gift of the reliquary. Thus, when the delegation arrived, there was little doubt about where to look for the child; the suspense lay in whether the child—that is, whether I—could pass rigorous tests verifying that I was the incarnation, the tulku, of the abbot of Chagdud Gonpa. Without hesitation I identified the objects that had been Tanpai Gyaltsan’s, and when a monk who had been close to Tanpai Gyaltsan came in, I greeted him by name. Nevertheless, a dilemma arose, because my mother was not home and my grandfather had to receive the delegation and accept the recognition that I was Chagdud Tulku. Not to accept, according to Tibetan custom, might create obstacles to the fulfillment of my life’s purpose. To accept, however, traditionally meant that I would be returned to my monastery to be trained. My grandfather took the middle course. He accepted a set of monk’s clothes, but he made no agreement about my return to Chagdud Gonpa.

My Tromge relatives rejoiced in my being formally recognized as Chagdud Tulku, and although there may have been those among them who looked forward to my being sent away to the monastery, they thought my grandfather had been adroit in his handling of the situation. Everyone was amazed, therefore, when my mother returned home and became enraged when she was told what had occurred. She berated her father fiercely. “Are you tired of feeding my son and me? Are you tired of providing our clothes? Or is it that your home has become too small for us? Never mind, for soon you will be free of us.”

She began making preparations to leave. My grandfather, a fine, vital man, had no means to counter her arguments because in any ordinary sense they were irrational. He came to me with tears in his eyes. “You always have a home with me,” he said, “and you needn’t worry about food and clothing as long as I have anything at all.” I knew what he said was true, and I loved him very much.
To say my mother’s behavior was inexplicable and irrational is not to say it was egotistical or wrong. Her awareness was beyond the limitations of time, space and apparent circumstances, and her actions arose spontaneously from wisdom. Later the family would understand that it was necessary for her to leave them in order to fulfill an aspect of her destiny that had been prophesied long before, that she should stabilize the health and life of Tulku Gyurmed Namchag Dorje, a very old, frail lama who was the abbot of Tenp’hel Gonpa. This had been foretold by Padmasambhava himself. Whatever else necessitated her furious stance in regard to my recognition as a tulku, her break with Tromt’har and her move to Tenp’hel Gonpa cannot be ascertained now, more than fifty years later. Perhaps by exiting from the center of fiery conflict she caused her father less heartache; perhaps the conflict arose from the need to protect me. My grandfather visited us at Tenp’hel Gonpa soon after we moved there, and my mother and he were completely reconciled.

For me the move to Tenp’hel Gonpa, about a week away on horseback, marked the beginning of my formal training as a lama. For the next seven years, until I went into three-year retreat at the age of eleven, my life would alternate between periods of strict discipline in which my every move would be under the surveillance of my tutors and interludes in which my suppressed energy would explode. Throughout, I had many visions, many clairvoyant experiences, many extraordinary dreams, and within these, I sometimes had glimpses of absolute open awareness. My mother and my teachers took note of these as indications of special abilities I had developed in previous lifetimes, but they never wavered from their intention that I should go through the rigors of Buddhist training in this lifetime, or from their certainty that only through effort would I reestablish the effortless realization I had attained previously.

IN THE DREAM I was playing inside the stone fence of my mother’s front yard. A dog came and slowly transformed into a deer. The deer transformed into a lama, and the lama into a dragon. Wondrously, I beheld the dragon as it rose, took flight and disappeared into the clouds. I could hear its roar echoing in the vault of the sky. When I asked a lama about it, he said, “I think it was a dream about your own life, which you have begun as a very naughty child.”

TEN’PHEL GONPA is northeast of Tromt’har, on the other side of a towering mountain range. It is in the region of the kingdom of Gesar, the epic warrior of Tibet, and it is clear why Gesar saw this land, with its rolling hills, grassy meadows and sparkling rivers, as well worth winning and defending. The elevation is more than twelve thousand feet, but the landscape is gentle and expansive.

Tenp’hel Gonpa itself was a monastery surrounded by a complex of houses for the monks. This monastic community was situated along a river, and nomads often set up camp on the other side. Sometimes they came to graze their herds; at other times they gathered for an event at the monastery. There were a number of other monasteries in the region, the nearest an hour away on horseback. News traveled rapidly and was traded like currency, the most sought after being anecdotes about the lamas. My mother’s house was beautifully located on a high bluff overlooking a valley that forked into the valley of Tenp’hel Gonpa, and was about a half hour’s walk away from the monastery.

One day, when I was about four, a nun arrived at the door. She had made the long journey from Lhasa at the request of my father, Sera Kharto Tulku, and she was there to teach me how to meditate. She gave me no instructions regarding what to contemplate or how to hold my mind, but she was an expert in enforcing proper meditation posture. She made me sit with my back absolutely straight and rigid, my legs crossed and my feet resting soles-up on my thighs, my hands on my knees, my chin tucked in and my tongue curled back to the roof of my mouth. Some days she made me close my eyes, and if I opened them, she thumped me on the forehead and said, “Meditate.” Some days my eyes had to be open in an immovable gaze. If I dozed, she thumped me. “Meditate.” This went on from the moment I awoke until bedtime, for weeks or perhaps months. In the excruciating pain and boredom, I lost track of time. There were no breaks; our meals were brought to us. My only reprieve was to go out to urinate, so I went many times a day. When the nun saw I was abusing this privilege, she refused to let me go at all. There were accidents and she beat me for disgracing myself.

One day it was absolutely necessary for me to go out. Knowing what the nun’s answer would be if I asked permission, I simply jumped up and ran past her. She lashed out at me with her mala, which was made of very large, hard beads. They cracked against my shaven monk’s head and raised a series of bumps. Blinded by pain and tears, I ran to the arms of my mother and sobbed uncontrollably. After comforting me, my mother summoned the nun. “This is my only son,” she said. “Perhaps he does not learn well, but surely his life should not be taken. At least while he has life, there is hope.” Then she sent the nun away.

SOON AFTER the nun’s departure, my mother went to the family treasurer and requested that he sit with me each day. Lama Tse Gon’s tactics for training me were completely different from the nun’s. If I learned to read certain lines or memorize certain passages, he allowed me to play for a short time. I usually could not go out and play with other children, but I could put my books down and play for a while near him. Even this was an incentive to accomplish my studies quickly. When I studied especially well, he rewarded me with little toys he made himself. With a scrap of cloth, a bit of wood and some string, he fashioned a tiny tent held up by posts, lines and stakes. He carved toy people and miniature animals, and he taught me how to carve. He had a very good hand, and he was a source of my artistic ability in later years. During this time I had a recurring dream of a pot of melted butter cooking together with freshly pounded quartz dust and of myself eating this slightly gritty mixture quite naturally. Lama Tse Gon thought the dream meant that I was beginning to digest what I was reading. I responded to Lama Tse Gon’s kindness and warmth, and over time I came to consider him as my gegan, the teacher with whom I had a true bond. Affectionately I called him gegan-la.

I WAS VERY SICK, and for five days I had been in bed, vomiting and enduring a severe headache. That fifth night, as I lay in a state between waking and sleeping, a vision swirled before me in the vortex of a huge tornado. Monstrous, it had the body of a human and the head of a bird. In one hand, it held a lasso of intestines; in the other, an enormous, bloated stomach that it hurled like a lightning bolt. Then it swirled away, casting a last glance at me over its shoulder. Immediately a woman came, calling me, “Son! Son! Take care!” She had a pale blue complexion, very long blue hair that hung almost to her feet, and she rode a dancing blue lion. Flowers were strewn all around her. She handed me a bow and arrow and said, “O Son! Now do it well!”

The stomach exuded a violet stream that resembled incense smoke. This smoke wafted over two persons from our area, a monk named Norgay and a young woman named Yungdrung. As I took the bow and arrow, a song arose spontaneously to my lips:

draw the bow of the unborn, free of elaboration.
I pull back the arrow of unceasing, inherent great-minded compassion.
I send it forth with the power of unhindered enlightened activity.
I hit the target of those without realization who lead astray.

At that moment, I shot the arrow directly into the stomach. It flew with the sound of “Hung!” which resonated like the roar of a dragon. Flames engulfed the stomach until nothing remained.

Lama Tse Gon lay in his bed beside mine. His expression was grave when I described all that had happened. “You have no understanding of these things, nor have you ever heard words like these. This experience shows that you have a strong habit from past lives that carries over into this life. It also indicates that you are being protected and will recover from your sickness, and because you destroyed the stomach, which is a bag of disease, our region will not be subject to an epidemic. However, those two persons who were touched by the smoke may fall ill. Say nothing about this, for if you speak of it, obstacles to your life could arise. If you keep it secret, your visionary powers will grow stronger and clearer.”

I took all he said to heart and never chattered about my visionary experiences. As Lama Tse Gon predicted, they became more frequent and more lucid, until now not ten days pass without my having such an experience.

Also as Lama Tse Gon foresaw, the monk Norgay and the woman Yungdrung became ill and died soon after.

IT WAS TIME for me to receive an empowerment and to do Manjushri practice. The deity Manjushri is the full, spontaneous expression of all qualities of intelligence and transcendent knowledge, and Manjushri practice removes obstacles to learning. A high lama, Khanpo Ngagwang Nyandrag, gave me the empowerment and teachings for Manjushri meditation and prepared me for a fourteen-day Manjushri retreat, which would be my first retreat. During those two weeks I could not eat certain substances such as meat, onions and garlic. With deep faith, I began practice by invoking the blessings of the wisdom beings and praying that my own qualities of intelligence and wisdom would come to full fruition. These are the spontaneous qualities of mind’s true nature, but they are obscured by the habits and delusion of the egocentric mind.

Lama Tse Gon helped me set up a shrine, and we placed on it a beautiful little cup with a pill made of special substances that were to be saturated with the blessings of Manjushri through my practice. The signs were very good. I had a dream about finding a long sword—the sword that cuts off dualistic concepts—as well as several direct visions of Manjushri. Throughout the seven days of meditation the blessings of Manjushri were absorbed into the pill, empowering it. I swallowed it on the seventh day. That day I visited the khanpo. Whenever I went to see him, he gave me a little treat, such as a piece of rock candy, dried fruit or meat jerky. As he was rummaging around looking for something to give me, he said, “I don’t have any candy today, and I can’t give you meat because of your Manjushri practice. What should I give you?”

“Oh,” I lied, “I already ate meat today.”
He was surprised. “You are not supposed to have meat until you complete the practice seven days from now.”
“I did have meat today, though.”
“Well, I guess if you are not keeping that commitment it is all right if you have some more.” He sliced a piece off his slab of dried meat and I ate it.

A few days later the khanpo came to visit Lama Tse Gon and they discussed my practice. Both were pleased with my signs, but the khanpo remarked to Lama Tse Gon, “You know, he’s not supposed to be eating any meat.” It was Lama Tse Gon’s turn to be surprised. “Of course, not! What makes you think he is eating meat?”

The khanpo and Lama Tse Gon both looked at me. I tried to avoid their gaze. Then we all laughed. I had fibbed and they had caught me, but they didn’t punish me.

LAMA TSE GON began to incorporate formal meditation practice into my daily schedule. After he awakened me in the morning, we would do some Manjushri practice, and he taught me to use a bell and small hand drum. I would study all day; then in the evening we would do a practice to invoke the blessings of the dharma protectors, those who safeguard practitioners on the path to enlightenment by shielding them from nonvirtue. Lama Tse Gon taught me how to use cymbals and a large drum in connection with this practice. His informal teachings during the same period were quite wonderful. Once, when he heard that I and the other children had been teasing an old beggar woman who often harassed us, he admonished me, “It is acceptable to confront those who are your equals if they mistreat you, but if you are abused by those of low stature, it is improper to strike back. They are caught in degraded circumstances because they have not generated virtue in the past, and actually they are quite powerless. Their predicament is cause for compassion. You undermine your own noble mind if you are aggressive toward or mistreat them in any way, no matter what they have done to you.” His words made me recognize my wrongdoing, and I left the beggar woman alone.

WE WERE SITTING on the porch, Lama Tse Gon, the khanpo, several monks and I. Lama Tse Gon was sewing, as he often did for my mother and me because he was an excellent tailor. Unexpectedly, I saw his brother riding up on a horse. The horse suddenly stumbled, and both rider and horse crashed to the ground. I jumped up, threw out my arms and shouted, “Oh, no! They have fallen!”

“What’s wrong?” Lama Tse Gon asked. I realized then that the scene I had witnessed had taken place only in my mind’s eye. I described it, but thought I had been confused.

A couple of hours later Lama Tse Gon's brother actually did ride up. Lama Tse Gon asked him how his journey had been, and he replied, “A little difficult. My horse stepped in a hole and we both fell.” My clairvoyant abilities were not reliable, however. Usually when people came and asked me questions, I did not see anything. I couldn’t see on demand; I saw spontaneously when something broke through my ordinary consciousness.

Lama Tse Gon had to leave for some months to perform death ceremonies for my mother’s herdsman. Suddenly released from strict discipline and constant supervision, I created general havoc, then capped it off with one of the blackest incidents of my childhood.

Most people were either tolerant of or carefully patient with me, mainly out of respect for my mother but also for me as a tulku who occasionally displayed extraordinary abilities. There were, however, exceptions to this forbearance. My mother, for example, beat me almost daily, and her friend Bidema lodged complaint after complaint with my mother each time she saw me doing anything wrong.
During this time my mother had a servant named Tashi who was thirteen years old and helped with the cooking. She always gave me the skim off the boiled milk, and she played with me and told stories whenever she had time. Though she knew only three or four stories, she told them well and I loved hearing them again and again. Tashi was also a bit of a thief. My mother was not careful about picking up the offerings people gave her, so Tashi pocketed some of them. She took enough to be noticed but not to worry about, and certainly I never reported her, any more than she reported my misdeeds. In our unspoken complicity, we got along very well.
One day I was tossing stones off the rock outcrop in my mother’s yard. Some visitors were coming up the road below, and a rock almost hit one of them. I had not seen the visitors so this was an accident, but Bidema had seen me and assumed I was up to my usual mischief. She went straight to my mother, who was furious and who struck me again and again.
I was furious, too, full of righteous indignation at being, for once, falsely accused. As soon as my mother released me, I went storming to Bidema’s tent and flung open the tent flaps. No one was there. A pale shaft of light from the smoke hole illuminated a clay pot on the fire containing boiling sweet potato soup. A mortar and pestle were next to the stove. Without pausing to think, I picked up the pestle and smashed the pot. Soup, shards, steam and ashes exploded. I threw the pestle into the rubble and fled, brushing off the ashes that had dusted me like snow.
In the safety of my own yard, I resumed my play guiltlessly, and this is how my mother found me. She was a manifestation of total wrath as she jerked me up and began to shake and whip me with a small riding crop. Bidema came out of our house to scold me and goad my mother; her rage and frustration knew no bounds, and she wept as she made bitter denunciations. My own anger welled up and suddenly the word “thief” sprang to my lips. Bidema immediately protested, but I continued relentlessly. “Thief! Thief! Where is the coral bead you took from my mother? Where is the silver clasp?” Item by item I named the things I had seen Tashi pocket. The more vehemently Bidema protested, the more firmly I persevered in my lie.
At first my mother didn’t believe me and threatened to whip me yet again, but then she stopped and let me go. I don’t think I convinced her and certainly she didn’t turn against Bidema even slightly. Probably the whole incident could have been dropped right there in our yard except that Bidema took her grievances against me to other people, and some of them gave credence to my accusation. This damaged her reputation and eventually she moved away.
I was delighted. I should have been remorseful over the trouble my lying tongue brought her, but instead I was glad to be free of the trouble her tattling tongue brought me. Nevertheless, I did not escape the karmic repercussions of my false accusations. In later life there would be times when others would accuse me—falsely, but perhaps not unjustly.

MY BELOVED gegan-la, Lama Tse Gon, had still not returned from his journey, and my mother’s patience with my wild, unruly behavior was finished. She decided my vacation should be terminated and my training should resume immediately, despite Lama Tse Gon’s absence. To supervise my training she selected one of the most formidable lamas in the Tenp’hel Gonpa region, Lama Wanga.
The word wang means “powerful,” and Lama Wanga lived up to his name. If monks and lamas were engaged in casual conversation and someone happened to see him coming, those who could slipped away, and the rest stopped their chatter and sat very still and straight until he passed by. He said nothing to them, but his scowl seemed to activate their consciences. Sitting in the same room with him made people nervous and uncomfortable. He never joked, rarely smiled and never violated his own strict discipline.

My mother arranged for a monk to accompany me to Lama Wanga’s house, loaded with an enormous leg of dried yak meat, a large bag of tsampa and a big ball of butter. Wanga lived about half a mile away, between my mother’s house and Tenp’hel Gonpa. His house was very small, a retreat hut really, with room for his bed, a shrine, a tiny kitchen and storage. A little bed was made for me by the shrine.

From the first day I was integrated into Lama Wanga’s schedule. At the first crow of the rooster, he sat up, lit a butterlamp and began his practice. At dawn he woke me up and I recited Manjushri mantra, counting the beads of my mala. Then his sister, who was a nun, brought us tea, butter and tsampa. We didn’t get up to eat; everything was brought to us.

Between breakfast and lunch I read my assigned texts aloud to him. He recited his mantra continuously and kept his prayer wheel revolving, but his ear was open and he detected the slightest mistake. If I made two or three in a row, he said in a heavy tone, “Your teacher has been lax. You are making too many mistakes.” Then he reached over and pinched me hard on the thigh. A bruise would be evident several days later. Beyond that he applied no other discipline, but the menacing possibility was unmistakable.

I was not allowed to play, but I could go out to relieve myself as necessary. I could walk, I didn’t have to run out and back, but I didn’t test the repercussions of dallying.

Visitors came by occasionally, but Lama Wanga wasn’t hospitable. He greeted them and answered their questions, and they left. In this respect Lama Wanga was the opposite of Lama Tse Gon, who enjoyed company and conversation. When people came to my mother’s house, Lama Tse Gon didn’t want me sing-songing the alphabet in the background, so he would send me out to play, sometimes for an hour or two until the visit was over.

Each afternoon Lama Wanga rolled up his little carpet, tucked it under his arm and walked with me to a high meadow. When we reached our spot, he unrolled the carpet for me to sit on while he sat on the ground. The view overlooked the monastery, and it seemed we could gaze out across the whole world. We never chatted, but instead sustained an unbroken chain of mantra recitation, accompanied by the monotonous click-click of his prayer wheel revolving. In the evening we would be served more tsampa and tea, and then we would continue to sit and practice until bedtime. Day after day passed—for three months—with no interruption in this routine. I longed for the return of Lama Tse Gon, my affectionate gegan-la, and the relative freedom he gave me. I had derived indisputable benefit from my stay with Lama Wanga, however. My reading had improved more in three months with him than it had in two years with Lama Tse Gon and I had experienced an extended period of disciplined practice.

IN THE DREAM I was playing on an island with five or six other children when the ground began to tremble and boil. This turbulent soil suddenly broke open and revealed a huge snakelike animal with a massive head and bulging eyes that glared straight at me. It swayed before me, hideous beyond belief, infected with oozing, bleeding sores.

My first reaction was overwhelming fear, but when I saw the creature’s anguish, my fear melted into compassion. Awareness of its suffering lifted me off the ground into flight. A vase appeared in my hand, and from it I poured orange nectar over the animal’s body, flooding the surface. The relief of the creature, a kind of supernatural animal called naga, was immediate.

A sense of subtle pride rippled through me as I surveyed the benefit I had accomplished for the naga. Instantaneously, steam sprayed from it and condensed on my body, just as if I had broken out in a feverish sweat. My whole body felt numb, and as this feeling increased, all I could think to do was call out to my mother, “Ama! Ama!” Out of the sky riding a white vulture came a woman holding a mirror. She looked like a beautiful Tibetan woman with jet black hair, white skin and rosy cheeks and lips. She wore a red skirt, flowers were entwined in her crown and her body was adorned with garland necklaces, bracelets and anklets. As the vulture swooped toward me, the woman held up the mirror and offered me an omniscient view of the whole universe. A dazzling array of prophetic events passed before my eyes. A vision of a cremation foreshadowed the cremation of my mother five years later. All kinds of strange animals, moving in odd, inexplicable ways, I would recognize decades later as cars, cranes and heavy machinery, which were unknown in Tibet in the l930s. I saw many other things, but I could not understand their meaning as prophecies. Then the woman spoke to me:

Excellent, how excellent!
The black naga demon below
and the small boy with love and compassion—
how excellent is this unpremeditated intention.
The meadows, trees and flowers below
and the fine, sweet rain from on high—
how excellent is this unpremeditated intention.
The blessings of the Three Jewels on high
and the faith and samaya of those below—
how excellent is this unpremeditated intention.
Images of joy and sorrow,
movements of the dance, adroitly shifting—
see these as teachers of impermanence, of illusion . . .

Saying this, the woman disappeared and the dream ended. When I related these dreams to Lama Tse Gon, he made a list of them and said, “It seems that you are troubled by some slight harm from nagas. The omens that arose in the mirror indicate that you would be free of these obstacles if you undertook intensive retreats on Tara, Hayagriva and Vajra-kilaya. It also seems that you will not stay for long in any one place. Even if I live a long life, I probably will not see you in my old age.” At this, he looked sad.

DURING MY CHILDHOOD there was so little time to be with my mother, and so much of the time we had together was spent in stormy conflicts of will. For this reason there is a profound tenderness in my recollection of certain simple moments we shared. I remember her chopping some meat, frying it in butter and giving it to me. This fragile, intimate moment is suspended timelessly in my memory.