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(Narrated by: Bluefriend, Canada)
Listen to the audio narration of Chapter 4:
https://lobsangrampa.org/media/en/The%20Third%20Eye/The%20Third%20Eye%20Chapter%204.mp3
Chapter Four
At the temple gates
The road led straight ahead to Chakpori Lamasery, the Temple of Tibetan Medicine. A hard school, this! I walked the miles as the day grew lighter and at the gate leading to the entrance compound I met two others, who also desired admission. We warily looked each other over, and I think that none of us was much impressed by what we saw in the others. We decided that we would have to be sociable if we were going to endure the same training.
For some time we knocked timidly, and nothing happened. Then one of the others stooped and picked up a large stone and really did make enough noise to attract attention. A monk appeared, waving a stick which to our frightened eyes looked as large as a young tree. “What do you young devils want?” he exclaimed. “Do you think that I have nothing better to do than answer the door to such as you?” “We want to be monks,” I replied. “You look more like monkeys to me,” he said. “Wait there and do not move, the Master of the Acolytes will see you when he is ready.” The door slammed shut, nearly knocking one of the other boys flat on his back, he having moved incautiously near. We sat upon the ground, our legs were tired with standing. People came to the lamasery, and went. The pleasant smell of food was wafted to us through a small window, tantalising us with the thought of satisfying our growing hunger. Food, so near, yet so utterly unattainable.
At last the door was flung open with violence, and a tall, skinny man appeared in the opening. “Well!” he roared. “And what do you miserable scamps want?” “We want to be monks,” we said. “Goodness me,” he exclaimed. “What garbage is coming to the lamasery nowadays!” He beckoned us to enter the vast walled enclosure which was the perimeter of the lamasery grounds. He asked us what we were, who we were, even why we were! We gathered, without difficulty, that he was not at all impressed with us. To one, the son of a herdsman, he said: “Enter quickly, if you can pass your tests you can stay.” To the next: “You, boy. What did you say? Son of a butcher? A cutter-up of flesh? A transgressor of the Laws of Buddha? And you come here? Be off with you, quickly, or I will have you flogged round the road.” The poor wretched boy forgot his tiredness in a sudden burst of speed as the monk lunged at him. Wheeling in a flash he leaped forward, leaving little scuffs of disturbed dust as his feet touched the ground in his hurry.
Now I was left, alone on my seventh birthday. The gaunt monk turned his fierce gaze in my direction, almost causing me to shrivel on the spot with fright. He twitched his stick menacingly “And you? What have we here? Oho! A young prince who wants to turn religious. We must see what you are made of first, my fine fellow. See what kind of stuffing you have; this is not the place for soft and pampered princelings. Take forty paces backwards and sit in the attitude of contemplation until I tell you otherwise, and do not move an eyelash!” With that he turned abruptly and went away. Sadly I picked up my pathetic little bundle, and took the forty steps back. On my knees I went, then sat cross-legged as commanded. So I sat throughout the day. Unmoving. The dust blew against me, forming little mounds in the clips of my upturned hands, piling on my shoulders and lodging in my hair. As the sun began to fade my hunger increased and my throat was wracked with the harshness of thirst, for I had had no food or drink since the first fight of dawn. Passing monks, and there were many, took no heed. Wandering dogs paused a while to sniff curiously, then they too went away. A gang of small boys came past. One idly flipped a stone in my direction. It struck the side of my head and caused the blood to flow. But I did not stir. I was afraid to. If I failed my endurance test my father would not allow me to enter what had been my home. There was nowhere for me to go. Nothing that I could do. I could only remain motionless, aching in every muscle, stiff in every joint.
The sun hid behind the mountains and the sky became dark. The stars shone bright against the blackness of the sky. From the lamasery windows thousands of little butter lamps flickered into flame. A chill wind, the leaves of the willows hissed and rattled, and about me there were all the faint sounds which go to make the strange noises of the night.
I still remained motionless for the strongest of reasons. I was too frightened to move and I was very stiff. Presently came the soft sush-sush of approaching monks’ sandals slithering over the gritty way; the steps of an old man feeling his way in the darkness. A form loomed up before me, the form of an old monk bent and gnarled with the passage of austere years. His hands shook with age, a matter of some concern to me when I saw that he was spilling the tea he was carrying in one hand. In the other hand he held a small bowl of tsampa. He passed them to me. At first I made no move to take them. Divining my thoughts, he said: “Take them, my son, for you can move during the hours of darkness.” So I drank the tea and transferred the tsampa to my own bowl. The old monk said, “Now sleep, but at the first rays of the sun take your stance here in the same position, for this is a test, and is not the wanton cruelty which you may now consider it to be. Only those who pass this test can aspire to the higher ranks of our Order.” With that he gathered up the cup and the bowl and went away. I stood and stretched my legs, then lay upon my side and finished the tsampa. Now I was really tired, so scooping a depression in the ground to accommodate my hip bone, and placing my spare robe beneath my head, I lay down.
My seven years had not been easy years. At all times father had been strict, frightfully strict, but even so this was my first night away from home and the whole day had been spent in one position, hungry, thirsty, and motionless. I had no idea of what the morrow would bring, or what more would be demanded of me. But now I had to sleep alone beneath the frosty sky, alone with my terror of the darkness, alone with my terrors of the days to come.
It seemed that I had hardly closed my eyes before the sound of a trumpet awakened me. Opening my eyes, I saw that it was the false dawn, with the first light of the approaching day reflected against the skies behind the mountains. Hurriedly I sat up and resumed the posture of contemplation. Gradually the lamasery ahead of me awoke to life. First there had been the air of a sleeping town, a dead, inert hulk. Next, a gentle sighing, as of a sleeper awakening. It grew to a murmur and developed to a deep hum, like the drone of bees on a hot summer’s day. Occasionally there was the call of a trumpet, like the muted chirp of a distant bird, and the deep growl of a conch, like a bullfrog calling in a marsh. As the light increased, little groups of shaven heads passed and repassed behind the open windows, windows which in the earlier pre-dawn light had looked like the empty eye-sockets of a clean-picked skull.
The day grew older, and I grew stiffer, but I dared not move; I dared not fall asleep, for if I moved and failed my test, then I had nowhere to go. Father had made it very clear that if the lamasery did not want me, then nor did he. Little groups of monks came out of the various buildings, going about their mysterious businesses. Small boys wandered around, sometimes kicking a shower of dust and small stones in my direction, or making ribald remarks. As there was no response from me they soon tired of the abortive sport and went away in search of more co-operative victims. Gradually, as the light at eventide began to fail, the little butter-lamps again flickered into life within the lamasery buildings. Soon the darkness was relieved merely by the faint star-glow, for this was the time when the moon rose late. In our saying, the moon was now young and could not travel fast.
I became sick with apprehension; was I forgotten? Was this another test, one in which I had to be deprived of all food? Throughout the long day I had not stirred, and now I was faint with hunger. Suddenly hope flared in me, and I almost jumped to my feet. There was a shuffling noise and a dark outline approached. Then I saw that it was a very large black mastiff dragging something along. He took no notice of me, but went on his nocturnal mission quite uncaring of my plight. My hopes fell; I could have wept. To prevent myself being so weak I reminded myself that only girls and women were as stupid as that.
At last I heard the old man approaching. This time he gazed more benignly upon me and said: “Food and drink, my son, but the end is not yet. There is still the morrow, so take care that you do not move, for so very many fail at the eleventh hour.” With those words he turned and went away. While he was speaking I had drunk the tea, and again transferred the tsampa to my own bowl. Again I lay down, certainly no happier than the night before. As I lay there I wondered at the injustice of it; I did not want to be a monk of any sect, shape, or size. I had no more choice than a pack animal being driven over a mountain pass. And so I fell asleep.
The next day, the third day, as I sat in my attitude of contemplation, I could feel myself becoming weaker, and giddy. The lamasery seemed to swim in a miasma compounded of buildings, bright coloured lights, purple patches, with mountains and monks liberally interspersed. With a determined effort I managed to shake off this attack of vertigo. It really frightened me to think that I might fail now, after all the suffering I had had. By now the stones beneath me seemed to have grown knife edges which chafed me in inconvenient places. In one of my lighter moments I thought how glad I was that I was not a hen hatching eggs, and compelled to sit even longer than I.
The sun seemed to stand still; the day appeared endless, but at long last the light began to fail, and the evening wind commenced to play with a feather dropped by a passing bird. Once again the little lights appeared in the windows, one by one. “Hope I die tonight,” I thought; “can’t stick any more of this.” Just then the tall figure of the Master of the Acolytes appeared in the distant doorway. “Boy, come here!” he called. Trying to rise with my stiffened legs, I pitched forward on to my face. “Boy, if you want a rest you can stay there another night. I shall not wait longer.” Hastily I grabbed my bundle and tottered towards him. “Enter,” he said, “and attend evening service, then see me in the morning.”
It was warm inside, and there was the comforting smell of incense. My hunger-sharpened senses told me there was food quite near, so I followed a crowd moving to the right. Food—tsampa, buttered tea. I edged my way to the front row as if I had had a lifetime of practice. Monks made ineffectual grabs at my pigtail as I scrambled between their legs, but I was after food and nothing was going to stop me now.
Feeling a little better with some food inside me, I followed the crowd to the inner temple and the evening service. I was too tired to know anything about it, but no one took any notice of me. As the monks filed out I slipped behind a giant pillar, and stretched out on the stone floor, with my bundle beneath my head. I slept.
A stunning crash—I thought my head had split—and the sound of voices. “New boy. One of the high-born. Come on, let’s scrag him!” One of the crowd of acolytes was waving my spare robe, which he had pulled from under my head, another had my felt boots. A soft, squashy mass of tsampa caught me in the face. Blows and kicks were rained upon me, but I did not resist, thinking it might be part of the test, to see if I obeyed the sixteenth of the Laws, which ordered: Bear suffering and distress with patience and meekness. There was a sudden loud bellow: “What’s going on here?” A frightened whisper: “Oh! It’s old Rattlebones on the prowl.” As I clawed the tsampa from my eyes the Master of the Acolytes reached down and dragged me to my feet by my pigtail. “Softly! Weakling! You one of the future leaders? Bah! Take that, and that!” Blows, hard ones, absolutely showered upon me. “Worthless weakling, can’t even defend yourself!” The blows seemed non-ending. I fancied I heard Old Tzu’s farewell saying: “Acquit yourself well, remember all I have taught you.” Unthinkingly I turned and applied a little pressure as Tzu had taught me. The Master was caught by surprise and with a gasp of pain he flew over my head, hit the stone floor, and skidded along on his nose, taking all the skin off, and coming to rest when his head hit a stone pillar with a loud ‘onk!’ “Death for me,” I thought, “this is the end of all my worries.” The world seemed to stand still. The other boys were holding their breath. With a loud roar the tall, bony monk leaped to his feet, blood streaming from his nose. He was roaring all right, roaring with laughter. “Young gamecock, eh? Or cornered rat; which? Ah, that’s what we must find out!” Turning and pointing to a tall, ungainly boy of fourteen, he said: “You, Ngawang, you are the biggest bully in this lamasery; see if the son of a yak-driver is better than the son of a prince when it comes to fighting.”
For the first time I was grateful to Tzu, the old police monk. In his younger days he had been a champion judo* expert of Kham. He had taught me—as he said—“all he knew”. I had had to fight with fully grown men, and in this science, where strength or age does not count, I had become very proficient indeed. Now that I knew that my future depended on the result of this fight, I was at last quite happy.
*The Tibetan system is different and more advanced, but I shall call it ‘judo’ in this book as the Tibetan name would convey nothing to Western readers.
Ngawang was a strong and well-built boy, but very ungainly in his movements. I could see that he was used to rough-and-tumble fighting, where his strength was in his favour. He rushed at me, intending to grip me and make me helpless. I was not frightened now, thanks to Tzu and his, at times, brutal training. As Ngawang rushed, I moved aside and lightly twisted his arm. His feet skidded from under him, he turned a half-circle and landed on his head. For a moment he lay groaning, then sprang to his feet and leapt at me. I sank to the ground and twisted a leg as he passed over me. This time he spun around and landed on his left shoulder. Still he was not satisfied. He circled warily, then jumped aside and grasped a heavy incense burner which he swung at me by its chains. Such a weapon is slow, cumbersome, and very easy to avoid. I stepped beneath his flailing arms, and lightly stabbed a finger to the base of his neck, as Tzu had so often showed me. Down he went, like a rock on a mountainside, his nerveless fingers relinquishing their grip on the chains, and causing the censer to plummet like a slingshot at the group of watching boys and monks.
Ngawang was unconscious for about half an hour. That special ‘touch’ is often used to free the spirit from the body for astral travelling and similar purposes.
The Master of the Acolytes stepped forward to me, gave me a slap on the back which almost sent me flat on my face, and made the somewhat contradictory statement: “Boy, you are a man!” My greatly daring reply was: “Then have I earned some food, sir, please? I have had very little of late.” “My boy, eat and drink your fill, then tell one of these hooligans—you are their master now—to show you to me.”
The old monk who had brought me food before I entered the lamasery came and spoke to me: “My son, you have done well, Ngawang was the bully of the acolytes. Now you take his place and control with kindness and compassion. You have been taught well, see that your knowledge is used well, and does not fall into the wrong hands. Now come with me and I will get you food and drink.”
The Master of the Acolytes greeted me amiably when I went to his room. “Sit, boy, sit. I am going to see if your educational prowess is as good as your physical. I am going to try to catch you, boy, so watch out!” He asked me an amazing number of questions, some oral, some written. For six hours we sat opposite each other on our cushions, then he expressed himself as satisfied. I felt like a badly tanned yak-hide, soggy and limp. He stood up. “Boy,” he said, “follow me. I am going to take you to the Lord Abbot. An unusual honour, but you will learn why. Come.”
Through the wide corridors I followed him, past the religious offices, past the inner temples, and the school rooms. Up the stairs, through more winding corridors, past the Halls of the Gods, and the storage places of herbs. Up more stairs, until, at last, we emerged on the flat roof and walked towards the Lord Abbot’s house which was built upon it. Then through the gold-panelled doorway, past the golden Buddha, round by the Symbol of Medicine, and into the Lord Abbot’s private room. “Bow, boy, bow, and do as I do. Lord, here is the boy Tuesday Lobsang Rampa.” With that, the Master of the Acolytes bowed three times, then prostrated himself upon the floor. I did the same, panting with eagerness to do the right thing in the right way. The impassive Lord Abbot looked at us and said: “Sit.” We sat upon cushions, cross-legged, in the Tibetan way.
For a long time the Lord Abbot remained looking at me, but not speaking. Then he said: “Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, I know all about you, all that has been predicted. Your trial of endurance has been harsh but with good reason. That reason you will know in later years. Know now that of every thousand monks, only one is fitted for higher things, for higher development. The others drift, and do their daily task. They are the manual workers, those who turn the prayer-wheels without wondering why. We are not short of them, we are short of those who will carry on our knowledge when later our country is under an alien cloud. You will be specially trained, intensively trained, and in a few short years you will be given more knowledge than a lama normally acquires in a long lifetime. The Way will be hard, and often it will be painful. To force clairvoyance is painful, and to travel in the astral planes requires nerves that nothing can shatter, and a determination as hard as the rocks.”
I listened hard, taking it all in. It all seemed too difficult to me. I was not that energetic! He went on: “You will be trained here in medicine and in astrology. You will be given every assistance which we can render. You will also be trained in the esoteric arts. Your Path is mapped for you, Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. Although you are but seven years of age, I speak to you as a man, for thus you have been brought up.” He inclined his head, and the Master of the Acolytes rose and bowed deeply. I did the same, and together we made our way out. Not until we were again in the Master’s room did he break the silence. “Boy, you will have to work hard all the time. But we will help you all we can. Now I will have you taken to get your head shaved.” In Tibet, when a boy enters the priesthood, his head is shaved with the exception of one lock. This lock is removed when the boy is given the ‘priest-name’, and his former name is discarded, but more of that a little further on.
The Master of the Acolytes led me through winding ways to a small room, the ‘barber shop’. Here I was told to sit on the floor. “Tam-chö,” the Master said, “shave this boy’s head. Remove the name lock as well, for he is being given his name immediately.” Tam-chö stepped forward, grasped my pigtail in his right hand and lifted it straight up. “Ah! my boy. Lovely pigtail, well buttered, well cared for. A pleasure to saw it off.” From somewhere he produced a huge pair of shears—the sort our servants used for cutting plants. “Tishe,” he roared, “come and hold up this end of rope.” Tishe, the assistant, came running forward and held up my pigtail so tightly that I was almost lifted off the ground. With his tongue protruding, and with many little grunts, Tam-chö manipulated those deplorably blunt shears, until my pigtail was severed. This was just the start. The assistant brought a bowl of hot water, so hot that I jumped off the floor in anguish when it was poured on my head. “What’s the matter, boy? Being boiled?” I replied that I was, and he said: “Never mind that, it makes the hair easier to remove!” He took up a three-sided razor, very like the thing we had at home for scraping floors. Eventually, after an eternity, it seemed to me, my head was denuded of hair.
“Come with me,” said the Master. He led me to his room and produced a big book. “Now, what are we to call you?” He went on mumbling to himself, then, “Ah! here we are: from now on you will be called Yza-mig-dmar Lah-lu.” For this book, however, I shall continue to use the name of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, as it is easier for the reader.
Feeling as naked as a new-laid egg, I was taken to a class. Having had such a good education at home, I was considered to know more than the average, so was put in the class of the seventeen-year-old acolytes. I felt like a dwarf among giants. The others had seen how I had handled Ngawang, so I had no trouble except for the incident of one big, stupid boy. He came up behind me and put his dirty great hands on my very sore pate. It was just a matter of reaching up and jabbing my fingers into the ends of his elbows to send him away screaming with pain. Try knocking two ‘funny bones’ at once, and see! Tzu really taught me well. The judo instructors whom I was to meet later in the week all knew Tzu; all said he was the finest ‘judo adept’ in the whole of Tibet. I had no more trouble from boys. Our teacher, who had had his back turned when the boy put his hands on my head, had soon noticed what was happening. He laughed so much at the result that he let us go early.
It was now about eight-thirty in the evening, so we had about three-quarters of an hour to spare before temple service at nine-fifteen. My joy was short-lived; as we were leaving the room a lama beckoned to me. I went to him and he said: “Come with me.” I followed him, wondering what fresh trouble was in store. He turned into a music room where there were about twenty boys whom I knew to be entrants like myself. Three musicians sat at their instruments, one at a drum, one had a conch, and the other a silver trumpet. The lama said: “We will sing so that I may test your voices for the choir,” The musicians started, playing a very well-known air which everyone could sing. We raised our voices. The Music Master raised his eyebrows. The puzzled look on his face was replaced by one of real pain. Up went his two hands in protest. “Stop! Stop!” he shouted, “even the Gods must writhe at this. Now start again and do it properly.” We started again. Again we were stopped. This time the Music Master came straight to me. “Dolt,” he exclaimed, “you are trying to make fun of me. We will have the musicians play, and you sing alone as you will not sing in company!” Once again the music started. Once again I raised my voice in song. But not for long. The Music Master waved to me in a frenzy. “Tuesday Lobsang, your talents do not include music. Never in my fifty-five years here have I heard such an off key voice. Off key? It is no key at all! Boy, you will not sing again. In the singing sessions you will study other things. In the temple services you will not sing, or your disharmony will ruin all. Now go, you unmusical vandal!” I went.
I idled around until I heard the trumpets announcing that it was time to assemble for the last service. Last night—good gracious—was it only last night that I had entered the lamasery? It seemed ages. I felt that I was walking in my sleep, and I was hungry again. Perhaps that was just as well, if I had been full I should have dropped off to sleep. Someone grabbed my robe, and I was swung up in the air. A huge, friendly looking lama had hoisted me up to his broad shoulder. “Come on, boy, you will be late for service, and then you’ll catch it. You miss your supper, you know, if you are late, and you feel as empty as a drum.” He entered the temple still carrying me and took his place just at the back of the boys’ cushions. Carefully he placed me on a cushion in front of him. “Face me, boy, and make the same responses as I do, but when I sing, you—ha! ha!—keep quiet.” I was indeed grateful for his help, so few people had ever been kind to me; instruction I had had in the past had been yelled in one end, or knocked in the other.
I must have dozed, because I came to with a start to find that the service had ended and the big lama had carried me, asleep, to the refractory and put tea, tsampa, and some boiled vegetables in front of me. “Eat it up, boy, then get off to bed. I’ll show you where to sleep. For this night you can sleep until five in the morning, then come to me.” That is the last thing I heard until at five in the morning I was awakened, with difficulty, by a boy who had been friendly the day before. I saw that I was in a large room, and was resting on three cushions. “The Lama Mingyar Dondup told me to see that you were awakened at five.” Up I got and piled my cushions against a wall as I saw the others had done. The others were moving out, and the boy with me said: “We must hurry for breakfast, then I have to take you to the Lama Mingyar Dondup.” Now I was becoming more settled, not that I liked the place, or wanted to stay. But it did occur to me that as I had no choice whatever, I should be my own best friend if I settled without any fuss.
At breakfast, the Reader was droning out something from one of the hundred and twelve volumes of the Kan-gyur, the Buddhist Scriptures. He must have seen that I was thinking of something else, for he rapped out: “You, small new boy there, what did I say last? Quick” Like a flash, and quite without thinking, I replied: “Sir, you said ‘that boy is not listening, I’ll catch him’!” That certainly raised a laugh and saved me from a hiding for inattention. The Reader smiled—a rare event—and explained that he had asked for the text from the Scriptures, but I could “get away with it this time”.
At all meals Readers stand at a lectern and read from sacred books. Monks are not allowed to talk at meals, nor to think of food. They must ingest sacred knowledge with their food. We all sat on the floor, on cushions, and ate from a table which was about eighteen inches high. We were not permitted to make any noise at meal times, and we were absolutely banned from resting our elbows on the table.
The discipline at Chakpori was indeed iron. Chakpori means ‘Iron Mountain’. In most lamaseries there was little organised discipline or routine. Monks could work or laze as they pleased. Perhaps one in a thousand wanted to make progress, and they were the ones who became lamas, for lama means ‘superior one’ and is not applied to all and sundry. In our lamasery the discipline was strict, even fiercely so. We were going to be specialists, leaders of our class, and for us order and training was considered to be utterly essential. We boys were not allowed to use the normal white robes of an acolyte, but had to wear the russet of the accepted monk. We had domestic workers as well, but these monks were servant-monks who saw to the housekeeping side of the lamasery. We had to take turns at domestic work to make sure that we did not get exalted ideas. We always had to remember the old Buddhist saying: “Be yourself the example, do only good, and no harm, to others. This is the essence of Buddha’s teaching.” Our Lord Abbot, the Lama Cham-pa La, was as strict as my father, and demanded instant obedience. One of his sayings was: “Reading and writing are the gates of all qualities”, so we got plenty to do in that line.
~~~
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