The Prince and the Zombie: Tibetan Tales of Karma
Author: Tenzin Wangmo
Date: 2015-04-07 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Mythology; Buddhism; Asia; Religion
Description: In this series of tales, a prince must capture and bring back to his country a zombie who is endowed with magical powers—but in order to succeed he must keep himself from speaking even one word to the zombie. The zombie is wily, and during the long journey he recounts fascinating tales to the prince, who is carrying him in a sack on his back. Spellbound by the stories, the prince is drawn into making some comment on them. But the very moment he opens his mouth, the zombie escapes, and the prince has to go back to India to catch the zombie all over again. This same scenario occurs over and over
Publisher: Shambhala
Rights: ©2012 by Infolio Editions

ABOUT THE BOOK

In this series of tales, a prince must capture and bring back to his country a zombie who is endowed with magical powers—but in order to succeed he must keep himself from speaking even one word to the zombie. The zombie is wily, and during the long journey he recounts fascinating tales to the prince, who is carrying him in a sack on his back. Spellbound by the stories, the prince is drawn into making some comment on them. But the very moment he opens his mouth, the zombie escapes, and the prince has to go back to India to catch the zombie all over again. This same scenario occurs over and over, tale after tale, journey after journey—until the prince truly learns his lesson.

These zombie stories, known as the Vetalapancavimsati in Sanskrit, are engrossing teaching tales that originated in ancient India but have become popular in the Buddhist culture of Tibet, as well as in other Asian cultures. This Tibetan version of the stories conveys the values of Buddhism, particularly those related to karma (the laws of cause and effect), happiness, and suffering. Through these tales, the reader learns that Buddhism is a path of knowledge that leads to liberation from suffering.

TENZIN WANGMO was born in India in 1962 and was educated in Tibetan Buddhism. She grew up in Germany and has lived in Switzerland since 1974, first as a secondary school teacher and now as an advanced-level coach specializing in social integration, adult tutoring, and consultation to organizations in the process of undergoing major changes. She is also a lecturer and a Tibetan storyteller.

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The Prince and the Zombie

TIBETAN TALES OF KARMA

Tenzin Wangmo

With a foreword by Matthieu Ricard

Translated by Sherab Chödzin Kohn

SHAMBHALA
Boston & London
2015

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.shambhala.com

Previously published as Les contes tibétains du Karma,

© 2012 by Infolio Editions

English translation © 2015 by Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Cover art: Tibetan banner used courtesy of The Wellcome Library, London.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tenzin Wangmo, 1962–.

[Contes tibétains du Karma. English]

The prince and the zombie: Tibetan tales of karma / by Tenzin Wangmo;
with a foreword by Matthieu Ricard; translated by

Sherab Chödzin Kohn.—First edition.

pages cm
eISBN 978-0-8348-0078-6

ISBN 978-1-61180-206-1 (paperback: alk. paper)

1. Buddhist literature, Tibetan—Translations into English.

I. Vetalapañcavimsati. II. Title.

PK3798.V2E5 2015

895′.43—dc23

2014029311

For my dear mother, Sonam Dolkar; for my dear father, Losang Namdol; and for my venerable teacher Lama Tönzang

You belong to the generation of Tibetans who have grown up in exile. You should take an interest in spirituality, culture, and also Tibetan history. You should seek the knowledge of your elders.

—HIS HOLINESS THE FOURTEENTH DALAI LAMA

Lausanne, Switzerland

2009

Contents

Foreword by Matthieu Ricard

Introduction

1.  The Prince’s Obsessive Desire

2.  An Unexpected Encounter

3.  Hunting Down the Zombie

4.  The Traveling Guitar Player

5.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

6.  The Guitar Player and the Quality of Vigilance

7.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

8.  The Traveling Guitar Player and the Power of Friendship

9.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

10.  The Crafty Beggar

11.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

12.  The Beggar and His Friends

13.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

14.  The Beggar Gets Married

15.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

16.  Justice Is Served

17.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

18.  The Beggar Is Reunited with His Friends

19.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

20.  The Darpo Brothers

21.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

22.  The Darpo Brothers and the Sick King

23.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

24.  Nana the Tiger

25.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

26.  The Horse Handler Who Never Lied

27.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

28.  The Three Sisters

29.  Hunting Down the Zombie Again

30.  The King of Pearls

Epilogue

Afterword

The Buddhist Path

Glossary

Acknowledgments

About the Author

E-mail Sign-Up

Foreword

From time immemorial and in all cultures, didactic tales have transmitted basic values. The story form is one that is inspiring for simple people and at the same time conveys profound ideas. Through the medium of a captivating narrative, such tales provide lessons that can help us to improve the way we lead our lives and to relate more harmoniously with others.

So it is with the “zombie” stories (Vetalapancavimsati in Sanskrit). While the tradition of these tales goes back to ancient India, they have become popular in the Buddhist culture of Tibet as well as in other Asian cultures.

Many variants exist. Usually they are twenty-five in number. The basic story is that the hero has to bring back to his country a zombie endowed with magical powers, and to succeed in doing this he must keep himself from speaking to the zombie so much as a single word. But the zombie is very cunning. During the long journey it recounts fascinating tales to the hero, who is carrying it on his back. Spellbound by the stories, the hero is drawn into making some comment on them. Alas, the very moment he opens his mouth, the zombie escapes. The hero is obliged to go back to India to catch the zombie again. The hero continuously fails to learn the lesson of his failures, which occur again and again, tale after tale, journey after journey.

But as it should be, all’s well that ends well.

There are several Sanskrit versions of the Vetalapancavimsati. One of them was compiled in written form in the eleventh century by Somadeva on the basis of older oral versions. Introduction of the tales into Tibet, also in the eleventh century, is attributed to the great Indian pandit Atisha. The tales went on to be translated into Mongol, Kalmuk, and other Asiatic languages. In the twentieth century, various versions of them, either written or derived from oral tradition, were translated into Western languages.

The Tibetan versions convey the values of Buddhism, particularly those related to karma—the laws of cause and effect linked with the mechanisms of happiness and suffering. Buddhism can be looked at as a path of knowledge that leads to liberation from suffering. The enlightenment in which this path culminates is at once a state of wisdom based on an accurate understanding of reality and an emancipation from the disruptive emotions and veils arising from ignorance.

Buddhism emphasizes that human life is extremely precious, that the disenchantment that sometimes comes upon us does not signify that life is not worth living, but rather that we have not yet identified what it is that could give life meaning. “The question is not knowing whether or not life has meaning but how each one of us can give it one,” says the Dalai Lama. Extremely precious though it already is, our life would be even more precious if we could actualize the potential for transformation that exists within us.

As with attaining any goal, you can’t go about putting an end to suffering and arriving at enlightenment just any old way. If we throw a stone up into the air, we should not be surprised if it falls on our head. In the same way, when we commit any act, whatever it may be, we can only expect that sooner or later it will produce an effect. Thus it is logical that if we want to free ourselves from suffering, we have to perform certain actions and refrain from certain others. The law of the causality of actions is the very foundation of the teaching of the Buddha, who proclaimed:

Avoid the least harmful act,

Perfectly accomplish the good,

And master your mind.

That is the teaching of the Buddha.

Phenomena condition each other mutually in a vast and creative process in which, however, nothing occurs arbitrarily and the law of causality operates ineluctably. Karma, which describes at one and the same time actions and their effects, is a particular aspect of this law of causality. It is karma that determines our lot, whether it be happiness or suffering. In other words, we are subject to the consequences of our past behavior and at the same time we are the architects of our future lives.

The term “action” refers not only to physical behavior but also to speech and thoughts, which can also be beneficial, neutral, or harmful. Good and evil are not absolute values. A mode of conduct is considered either good or evil on the basis of the intention behind it, on whether it is altruistic or malevolent, as well as on its consequences—its benefit or harm for oneself and others. At every moment of our lives, we reap the consequences of our past life and fashion our future through our thoughts, words, and further actions. These are like seeds, which once sown produce the fruit, either beneficial or harmful, that corresponds to them.

In this fine version of the zombie tales, Tenzin Wangmo has been able to capture in a lively and engaging manner the oral version she heard from her parents. In this way she has made a contribution to the preservation of the precious cultural heritage of Tibet, which these days is so threatened by the Sinicization that hangs over the Land of Snows.

Is the Tibetan culture in danger of perishing? Let us keep our hopes alive through the inspiration provided by the words of the great Gandhian democrat Jayaprakash Narayan: “Tibet will not die, because the human spirit does not die.”

—MATTHIEU RICARD

Introduction

In Tibet, generation after generation, tales and legends of all kinds have been passed down orally within families or through traveling storytellers. Having been obliged to flee Tibet and find a home in Europe, my parents carried on this tradition by telling stories to us, their own children, as well as to the twelve other children who were placed under their care by the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.

As these tales were being told, I let myself be carried away by the inner images that arose in me of the distant country that was my country but that nevertheless I did not know. These moments were filled with wonder and magic. I remember the joy I felt in listening to the tales and how each time I heard them I would ask for more and more details. The ro dung (literally “zombie tales” in the Tibetan) were the ones I enjoyed the most, so much so that I now want to set them down in writing.

Much as in The Thousand and One Nights, these ro dung have an overall story that frames them. The framing tale here tells of the life of a Tibetan prince and his encounter with a very cunning zombie who tells the prince many entrancing stories in order to get him to lose his vigilance. Many variants of the ro dung exist, because every teller of the tales embellishes them in accordance with his or her own imagination and creative powers—but without changing the underlying story, which contains a message essentially connected with the Buddhist tradition.

The country in which the ro dung originated is India. From there, the tales made their way to Tibet at a time when Buddhism was spreading there on the Roof of the World. The beautiful stories told by the zombie convey the profound values of the teaching of the Buddha. They quickly garnered appreciation throughout Tibet, which prior to 1959 had about six million inhabitants. In the course of time, the Indian background of the stories was replaced by the local realities of Tibet. Nevertheless, the place called Silwaytsal (Skt. Sitavana), where the zombie in question was to be found, stayed in India. We also encounter the great Indian spiritual master Nagarjuna under the Tibetan name Gömpo Ludrup.

From the time of the Chinese invasion of 1949, followed by the occupation of Tibet by its powerful neighbor in 1959, a Tibetan government in exile was formed in India, which increasingly included democratic principles in its constitution. Tibetan communities were formed and organized all over the world. Second and third generations of Tibetans, which includes my brothers, my sisters, and myself, grew up entirely in exile, with the result that each passing day far away from our country distances us further from our cultural identity. Here I am thinking in particular of Tibetan language and writing, which are a part of the richness of the cultural heritage of this world. I am thinking also of our unique tales and legends. The present—very personal—compilation represents my modest contribution toward preventing these stories from sinking forever into oblivion.

I hope that the children, young people, and adults who read these tales will enjoy discovering them as much as I did myself—as did all the previous generations who came before me.

Tashi delek—with all my best wishes.

TENZIN WANGMO

Bottens, Switzerland

2012

1

The Prince’s Obsessive Desire

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a Tibetan prince named Dechö Zangpo, “He Who Enjoys Well-Being.” The king and the queen, his parents, adored their only son and were very proud of him. All who met the prince were charmed by him. Some said, “Oh, he is so kind to the poor!” Others exclaimed, “How respectful he is toward older people!” Still others declared, “How intelligent he is. Wouldn’t he make a wonderful king!”

Word of the prince spread through the kingdom with the speed of lightning, and very soon there was not a single person who had not heard of Prince Dechö Zangpo. Even the Tibetan nomads in the most remote regions were to be heard exclaiming, “What a joy, this prince!” and “Long may he live!”—all the while repeating over and over OM MANI PADME HUM, the mantra of Avalokiteshvara, the buddha of compassion.

One fine day, Prince Dechö Zangpo learned of the existence of seven brother magicians who lived in the most inaccessible mountain region in the kingdom. His curiosity was immediately aroused, and he felt an intense desire to learn the secrets of these magicians. His numerous attempts to find out more about them, however, were unsuccessful. This had the effect of increasing his curiosity still further—to the point where his desire to find out about the brothers’ highly secretive discipline turned into an obsession. So one night, without telling his parents, the king and queen, who certainly would have prevented his departure, he set out to look for the seven brothers. In order to avoid being betrayed by his rich princely garb, he disguised himself as a simple pilgrim. Traveling incognito in this way, in the course of many long months he traveled through the entire kingdom on foot, his ears always open for anything he might hear that might lead him to discovering the dwelling place of the seven brother magicians.

At the end of the seventh month, the prince arrived in the most mountainous part of his kingdom. There, very soon, he lost his way. With the high rock mountains for his only traveling companions and above him only the vast sky, he became tired and discouraged and was on the verge of abandoning his quest. But then suddenly, as he came to the top of one of the many mountain passes he’d had to climb, a small hidden valley appeared before his eyes. To his great joy, at the very end of this valley he saw a house. The closer he got to it, the more the surroundings and the house itself seemed to resemble the descriptions he had received from some Tibetan nomads who had discovered the dwelling place of the seven brothers one day when they were out looking for stray yaks.

Prince Dechö Zangpo approached the cabin and began calling out loudly, “Hello! Hello! Is there anyone at home? Hello! Hello!” But no one answered him. Even the stable was empty. There was nothing he could do but wait, so the prince disguised as a pilgrim lay down on the hard ground in front of the cabin. When the sun set behind the high peaks of the mountains surrounding the little valley, he fell into a deep sleep.

Late at night, he was awakened by the owners of the house, who were very surprised to find a pilgrim asleep on their doorstep. Finally Prince Dechö Zangpo was getting to meet the seven brother magicians! And in order to be able to stay with them for a period of time, he pretended he was ill and not able at the moment to continue with his pilgrimage to Mount Kailash. After conferring with each other the seven brother magicians informed him that he could stay for seven days and sleep in the stable. Exhausted by his long journey on foot but very happy that he had finally found what he had been looking for after months of searching, he fell asleep on a heap of straw in a sheltered corner.

The following morning he woke up late, and leaving the stable, he found the place as deserted as it had been on his arrival the previous day. Again he cried out, “Halloo, halloo, is there anyone at home? Halloo, halloo!” He listened attentively but there was no one in the place to be heard. Intrigued by the absence of his hosts during the entire day, Prince Dechö Zangpo thought hard about what means he might employ to learn the magic with which he was so obsessed. He could not come up with a solution. In the evening, tired out by all of his fruitless thinking, he lay down again in a corner of the stable. That night, he tried not to fall asleep. His idea was to wait for the return of his hosts and somehow secretly get their knowledge from them.

But despite his intentions, once again he fell into a deep sleep and did not wake up until the following day after the seven brothers had gone off again. “What an idiot I am!” he cried out, in a fury with himself for not having been able to stay awake in order to spy on whatever magical practices might have been going on during the night. He decided to go back to sleep for the rest of the day so that he would be able to wake up at nightfall and stay awake. This would already be the third night.

His plan worked beautifully, and when the masters of the house returned on their horses, he pretended to be sound asleep. Having not the slightest suspicion regarding the slumbering pilgrim, the brothers put their seven white horses in the stable and went up to the second floor of their house, where they began performing their nighttime activities in the main room by the light of the fire in the hearth. Dechö Zangpo rose from his sleeping place and got hold of a wooden ladder, which he leaned against one of the walls of the house. Slowly and without making noise, he climbed up until he reached a little window that had no glass in it. Balancing on the ladder, he could clearly see what was going on in the main room. With great curiosity, the prince noted even the most minute actions and movements that were taking place inside the house. Despite his boldness, his heart was beating so loud in his breast that he was afraid it would be heard.

The magicians, sitting in a circle on the ground around the hearth, were going on and on chanting magic formulas as though performing a ritual. The whole night long, Dechö Zangpo watched very attentively through the window, without paying any heed to the frigid wind of the high valleys of Tibet. Nothing escaped his eye, not a movement, not a word of importance. Above all, he fixed in his mind the spot where the seven brothers kept their secret texts hidden. At dawn, without having slept a single minute, the magicians departed again on horseback in order to gather the ingredients indispensable for their work. Discreetly, the prince climbed down and went back to sleep in his corner of the stable, very happy at having been able secretly to take his first lesson in magic.

During the days that were left to him at the magicians’ house, he slept soundly in the morning, then spent the rest of the day studying magic formulas. When his hosts came back, he pretended to be slumbering deeply. But each night he returned again to his vantage point at the window.

2

An Unexpected Encounter

ON THE SEVENTH DAY, the magicians returned home before sunset. They meant to tell the pilgrim, who had had plenty of rest in the meantime, that the following morning he should resume his journey, as had been agreed. But when they got home, they caught him as he was covertly studying their texts on magical practices.

Crazed with anger at having been tricked and betrayed in this manner, they threw themselves on this stealer of spells with the intention of taking him captive. But Dechö Zangpo had learned his lesson well. He immediately performed a feat of magic. He turned himself into a white horse and took off at a lively pace for the stable where the other horses were. His arrival spooked the other horses. They bolted out of the stable and began galloping away with the prince hidden among them. But this did not fool the seven magician brothers, who saw right away which of the horses was the fake, and they took off after them in hot pursuit. Soon the horses were running along the bank of a river. The prince dove into the water, turned himself into a fish, and took cover in a school of fish that was swimming quietly along in the frigid mountain waters. But again, the brothers were quick to spot him. Using their magic powers, they transformed themselves into otters, hoping to catch the phony fish. Just when they thought they were about to seize their prey, the prince turned himself into a bird and concealed himself in a flock of birds flying in the direction of the high rock mountains.

At once the magicians turned themselves into savage falcons, eager to catch the fake bird, which had disappeared into one of the many caves in the area. Sure of having at last trapped the prince, the magicians entered the cavern after him. To their great surprise, they came upon a hermit who was doing his retreat of three years, three months, and three days. It was none other than the guru Gömpo Ludrup, a great Tibetan scholar. Immediately the magicians spotted the prince, who had changed into one of the beads in the rosary the guru was holding in his right hand. They quickly changed themselves into false pilgrims who had come seeking the venerable old man’s blessing. They prostrated themselves to the guru. When they were close enough to him, with a sudden move, they ripped the rosary out of his hand. It immediately broke, and the hundred and eight beads were sent rolling around on the ground. Instantly the prince transformed all the beads, including himself, into ants, which began trying to hide themselves in various cracks in the wall of the cave. But before the false ant could escape, the magicians spotted it. They at once turned themselves into hens who could speedily peck up the ants and devour them. Then the prince, in a last transformation, turned himself into a cook equipped with a well-sharpened knife. He threw himself on the seven amazed hens and quickly slit their throats. The guru’s meditation cave was now covered in blood and resembled a slaughterhouse.

A hush fell. The prince, who in the meantime had become himself again, was feeling elated. “Now it is I who am the greatest magician in Tibet!” he said to himself, full of pride. However, strangely enough, this victory did not bring him a real feeling of happiness. There was no one there in the cave to admire him or applaud. There was no one except the sage, sitting in meditation. Very troubled and upset about what was going on within him, the prince, feeling rather lost, turned to the old man. For the first time, the sage opened his eyes, directed his gaze, full of compassion, toward the prince, and said:

“Whatever we do, say, or think each moment leaves a karmic imprint on this present life and on all our lives to come. The positive imprints cause positive experiences for us, and the negative imprints result in negative experiences. That is the law of cause and effect. My dear Prince Dechö Zangpo, in order to learn magic, you ran away from the palace and caused your parents, the king and queen, and also your people much grief. You disguised yourself as a poor pilgrim, and many believers shared with you the little bit of food that they had. Through these highly negative acts, you have created for yourself very bad karma for this life and many lives to come.”

The stern voice, the penetrating gaze filled with compassion, and the words of wisdom of the guru had an indescribable effect on the prince. It was as though suddenly a bolt of lightning had cut through the depths of night. His inner veils of obscuration were swept aside all at once, yielding to an extremely clear and vivid vision of the course of his life. In a fraction of a second, his entire life and all the people who had been close to him—his parents, his people, the magician brothers, and the sage—passed before his eyes. “How much suffering I have caused!” he said in a tortured and barely audible voice. The prince realized the gravity of his actions with brutal clarity. Shocked, he sank into a state of profound despair that lasted for days and nights. Incapable of movement, he lay curled up on the floor in a corner of the cave. He completely lost his sense of time. After countless days and nights, a great movement of sadness and remorse took place in him. Two big warm tears formed in his eyes, and then soon a river of salt tears poured down his cheeks; the tears spread over the floor of the cave, purifying it and washing away the zombies of the magicians. This torrent of tears flowed for three days and three nights. The whole body of the prince shook with powerful sobs that echoed against the walls of the cave. Finally the flood of tears subsided. Deeply afflicted, the prince raised his eyes to the great meditator Gömpo Ludrup and asked for his help.

“Great teacher, I beg of you, tell me how I can purify myself from this terrible burden of negative karma. I will do anything in my power, no matter how hard it is, to bring about this purification.”

A very long silence followed, during which the prince kept his attention fixed on the guru so that he would not miss a movement or a word from him. Moved by the profound remorse of the young noble who had been led by the power of his obsessions to stray from the path, the old man finally spoke. With a voice seeming to come from another world, he uttered these words of aid:

“Dear prince, very far from here, in a neighboring country called India, the people bring their dead to a place called Silwaytsal. There they either burn or bury them. In that place, there is a zombie named Ngödrup Dorje. His name means ‘He Who Fulfills All Dreams.’ He is very cunning. If you succeed in capturing him and bringing him back here to me, which is an extremely difficult task, you will be completely purified of your negative karma, because at the very moment you succeed in bringing him here, the four hundred and twenty-four diseases in the world that have remained incurable until now will be conquered. In that way, millions of lives will be saved and you will accumulate incalculable merit.”

Deeply touched by the compassion and boundless benevolence of the guru toward the nasty man he had become, the prince resolved to find Ngödrup Dorje, to take him prisoner, and to bring him back to this cave.

Before the prince left, the old man gave him some essential advice: “Once you have captured this very cunning zombie, he will talk to you unceasingly, trying to get you to drop your guard; but above all, you must never reply to him, because if you utter a single word he will escape.”

The old man also provided the prince with four implements endowed with special powers: a small cone-shaped object, red like sandalwood; an ax so sharp it could cut down a tree with one blow; a rope that could be made long enough to tie up anything; and lastly, a sack capable of containing a limitless number of items.

Prince Dechö Zangpo was very excited about this mission, and he was firmly resolved to succeed at it by making use of all the inner resources that he had been able to develop in his past and that he had found produced the hoped-for results: his intelligence, his courage, and his perseverance. But this time he was devoting himself to a greater and more noble mission than ever before, one that could benefit all beings. Armed with his four precious implements and the guru’s good advice, the young prince set off with great determination on the road to India to find the dwelling place of the zombie.

3

Hunting Down the Zombie

PRINCE DECHÖ ZANGPO once again traveled across the whole breadth of the kingdom. His destination this time was India, the place in that country called Silwaytsal described by the old guru, the dwelling place of the dead. He had hardly arrived there when he was surrounded by large numbers of dead beings elbowing each other and all calling out at the same time: “Halala!” and “Hululu!” “I am the one you are looking for. Take me! Take me!”

At this point the prince remembered the first magical object that Guru Ludrup had given him. Following the teacher’s instructions, he touched the heads of the dead beings with the cone-shaped red object, repeating over and over, “You are not the one. You are not the one.” This caused them to flee immediately.

After a short time, as he looked around him, he realized that a single dead being was not behaving in the same way as the others and had a very different appearance. The top of him was gold, the bottom of him was silver, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. As the guru had predicted, this one fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, saying, “I am not the right one! I am not the right one!” The prince knew for sure that this was Ngödrup Dorje, “He Who Fulfills All Dreams.” He took hold of the second object the guru had given him, the ax, with which he lightly touched the tree. This simple action made the top of the tree tremble, and the prince began speaking to Ngödrup Dorje: “Come down to the ground. If you don’t, I will cut down this sandalwood tree.”

Very cunning and sure of being invincible, the spirit replied, “Poor prince—cutting down the tree, you will tire yourself out. Therefore I will be the one to make the effort, and I’ll come down to you.”

The prince grabbed him and put him in the sack, which immediately adjusted to the size of its captive. Then at once the prince tied the sack up with the magic rope. Because the prince was still carrying the red cone in his hand, the other dead beings did not approach again. Well content, the prince started out on the return journey with the intention of placing his precious burden before the guru as quickly as possible.

On the third day, the prince reached a great barren plain that had to be crossed. It was at that point that Ngödrup Dorje, sly fellow that he was, began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

The prince, who was very much on his guard, did not utter a word, and so the zombie began to relate to him one of his quite excellent stories.

4

The Traveling Guitar Player

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a traveling guitar player named Dranyen Tsikshipa, “The Four-String Guitar.” He was endowed with great virtuosity, and on top of that, he had a great deal of compassion for suffering beings. Thanks to the merit he had accumulated in former lives, he made a good living and never lacked for anything. He liked to make others happy through his music and traveled far and wide doing so, crossing mountains and valleys. He played for the hardworking tillers of the fields, stone masons, lowland nomads, the merchants whose caravans traveled for weeks on end over the high uninhabited plateaus. He was invited to play for wedding parties, village fairs, and New Year’s celebrations; and he gave open-air concerts during the market season.

One beautiful sunny morning, as Dranyen Tsikshipa was walking along the bank of a stream, he ran across a man who was attempting to kill a white snake with his knife. Filled with compassion for the animal, which was very frightened, the young guitar player cried out, “Nyingje! [Compassion!]—don’t hurt this creature. Please, let it go its way.”

“Mind your own business! I have a herd of goats to protect, and this poisonous snake is a big danger to me and my animals,” said the pitiless man.

So the guitar player took a piece of gold out of the big breast pocket of his chuba and offered it to the man in exchange for the life of the white snake. Surprised and happy with this bargain, the goatherd freed the creature, which quickly glided away into the river. Well content with his piece of gold, the man returned to his herd.

The young guitar player continued on his way. Around noon, as he was approaching a village, he met an old man who was striking a dog blow after blow without letting up. This violence toward the poor animal upset the young guitar player, who shouted out, “Nyingje! Do not harm this creature. Please, please, let it live.”

“Mind your own business! I am the village elder, and this vicious dog is a big danger to my people,” the old man replied pitilessly.

Once again the young guitar player took a gold piece out of his breast pocket and offered it to the old man in exchange for the life of the dog. The aggressive man, very happy with this advantageous bargain, did not have to think long. He accepted this exceptional sum and went back home. Dranyen Tsikshipa, his heart light within him, resumed his journey.

That evening he arrived in another village and encountered a man who was about to kill a cat. Filled again with compassion, Dranyen Tsikshipa cried out, “Nyingje! Do not harm this creature. Please let it live.”

“Mind your own business. I am a merchant and I need this extraordinarily beautiful cat’s fur. I’ll get a good price for it in the market,” said the man without pity. As he had the previous times, the young guitar player made a bargain to save the life of the mortally endangered animal. When the merchant saw the piece of gold, he did not hesitate long before taking the money. Thus the cat was saved and it quickly ran off into the wild.

“What a strange day,” thought Dranyen Tsikshipa, continuing down the road at a lively pace. He was very happy because he had been able to save the lives of three poor animals and at the same time prevent three men from committing an irreparable deed and thus accumulating bad karma.

After some time, he had the unpleasant feeling that he was being watched and followed by someone. To his great surprise, he saw that it was the same cat and the same dog whose lives he had saved.

“Woof, woof!” “Meow, meow!” they said. The two animals wanted no more than just to accompany him on his wanderings through the country. Touched, he accepted them as his traveling companions.

Night fell and they came to a vast empty plain. Little by little, they began to feel tired and hungry. Near a small rock, they decided to stop and eat a little tsampa and dried yak meat, which they divided three ways. After this small, typically Tibetan meal, they fell asleep at once, bundled against each other to keep warm. Fortunately, the musician had with him a coat of fur-lined yak leather that held the heat well.

Early the following morning, the rising sun woke the three friends, and they were about to resume their journey when they spied an immense palace, very splendid, rising in the middle of this vast plain, which the previous evening had appeared totally uninhabited. Before they could recover from their amazement, they saw a group of richly dressed young men and women coming out of the palace’s majestic portal. The group moved in the direction of the small rock where the three friends were standing, their mouths gaping with disbelief. Very respectfully the group of young people approached them, and one of them, with great courtesy, addressed Dranyen Tsikshipa in the pure Tibetan of Lhasa: “Highly honorable guitarist, the omnipotent and splendid princess of this palace has sent us to welcome you into her country and to invite you to share with her her midday meal. Kindly grant her the honor of your presence and that of your two friends.”

The prince, unable to grasp what was happening, believing himself to be in the middle of a beautiful dream, could not utter a single word, but he soon found himself following the group into the palace, accompanied by his two faithful friends. Inside, they saw other people still more beautifully and richly dressed and adorned than the group that had come to meet them.

At last, in a great, splendidly decorated hall, they set eyes upon a young woman of unreal beauty, surpassing in splendor and richness all others in the hall. At this moment, this almost magical apparition addressed the musician in a very sweet voice:

“I am the princess of the naga people, protectors of nature. I have the custom of transforming myself into a white serpent when I rove through the countryside. In a moment of inattention, I was captured and almost killed by the herdsman of a flock of goats. Filled with compassion, you saved my life. Therefore I am inviting you to have a seat at my table with your friends and share a meal with me.”

Still thinking he was dreaming, Dranyen Tsikshipa took his seat at the table and did full justice to the sumptuous array of dishes he found there. The dog, who was a gregarious type with a ready palate, did not need to be asked twice and ate until he almost fell asleep on one of the tables. The cat, who had a more timid temperament, looked at all the good things set out on the immense and groaning board, and felt a little embarrassed to be seen taking too many helpings. But all three of them ate their fill and enjoyed the most wonderful moments of their lives.

At the end of this lavish meal, the princess announced: “And now I would very much like to fulfill the most dearly held wish of my rescuer. What would you like?”

The musician, surprised by this offer and not knowing what to say, did not even dare to look at the princess, so he lowered his eyes. In so doing, his gaze fell upon a beautiful jewel on the finger of his benefactress. So he said, “Nothing more than that simple ring on your finger would be the joy of my life.”

Suddenly very ill at ease, the princess replied, “You can have any of the riches of the world, but not this ring. It is the very source of my life force.”

But the artist stubbornly stuck to his idea, and in the end the princess yielded, telling herself that, after all, he had saved her life and she could refuse him nothing. But she set this condition: “I beg of you, this ring should not be worn by anyone beside yourself, and you must at no time let it fall into anyone else’s hands.”

The guitar player, whose heart was pure, gave her his solemn promise. The princess added that in case of difficulty, her people and she herself would come to his aid if only he scratched the ring a little.

Thus it was that the three friends took leave of this marvelous company and set forth once more on their journey.

After having gone a certain distance, the artist and his friends turned around to have a last look at the palace, but to their great astonishment, it had disappeared and the vast plain appeared as deserted as before. The three friends almost thought that they had dreamed the whole adventure, but Dranyen Tsikshipa felt the princess’s ring on his finger—the precious proof of what he had just experienced.

Carried away by the sly spirit’s magnificent tale, Prince Dechö Zangpo’s vigilance lapsed and he let the following words escape his lips: “Oh, how I would love, once in my life, to lay eyes on this beautiful naga princess!”

Instantly the sack on the prince’s back opened all by itself and released its prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here is the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

Too late, the prince realized his fatal error. He was left all alone in this desolate region with an immense feeling of remorse and failure. “Nga kugpa! What an idiot I am!” he cried, full of anger toward himself. But neither his anger nor the tears that followed changed the situation in the least. Finally the prince regained his composure, took a firm hold on his courage, and decided to continue with the mission he had been given by the guru Gömpo Ludrup. The next time, he firmly resolved, he would be more vigilant.

5

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

SO IT WAS that Prince Dechö Zangpo once again traveled across the whole breadth of the kingdom in order to return to India to the place described by the spiritual master, the dwelling place of the dead. He had hardly arrived there when he was surrounded by large numbers of dead beings elbowing each other and all calling out at the same time: “Halala!” and “Hululu!” “I am the one you are looking for. Take me! Take me!”

Again, following the teacher’s instructions, he touched the heads of the dead beings with the cone-shaped red object, repeating over and over, “You are not the one. You are not the one.” This caused them to flee immediately.

Looking around, he saw a dead being who had a very singular appearance. The top of him was gold, the bottom of him was silver, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. As the guru had predicted, this one fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, saying, “I am not the right one! I am not the right one!” Having successfully located the zombie Ngödrup Dorje, “He Who Fulfills All Dreams,” the prince took up the second object the guru had given him, the ax, with which he lightly touched the sandalwood tree. This simple action alone made the top of the tree tremble, and the prince began to speak to Ngödrup Dorje: “Come down to the ground. If you don’t, I will cut down this sandalwood tree.”

Very cunning and sure of being invincible, the spirit replied, “Poor prince, you will tire yourself out. Therefore I will be the one to make the effort, and I’ll come down to where you are.”

The prince grabbed him and put him in the sack, which immediately adjusted to the size of its captive. Then at once the prince tied the sack up with the magic rope. Because the prince was still carrying the red cone in his hand, the other dead beings did not approach again. Well content, the prince started out on the return journey with the intention of placing his precious burden before the guru as quickly as possible.

On the sixth day, when the prince again was crossing the great barren plain, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice: “In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

The prince, who was very much on his guard, did not utter a word, and so the zombie picked up where he had left off telling the adventures of the guitar player and his friends.

6

The Guitar Player and the Quality of Vigilance

AS THEY WENT ALONG their way, the three friends met a merchant who pretended to enjoy the music of the guitar player very much and invited them to come to his house for tea. On the high Tibetan plateau, also called the Roof of the World, it is important to drink tea with salted butter regularly, from morning till night. This national drink is more than just ordinary tea—it is a rich brew based on black tea that is very comforting and provides lots of physical force.

Not hesitating, the friends blithely accepted this invitation. After the meal, the musician allowed himself to be drawn into a game of sho, a dice game that is traditional in Tibet and is played for hours at a time with two, three, or four players. The merchant had gotten around a great deal in his life; he had certainly spotted the special ring on the musician’s finger, and he intended to get it away from the young man by any means. Deviously, he cheated at the game of dice. Little by little, the musician lost all the money and gold pieces he had earned through his music. Then, without regret, because he was not very attached to wealth, he prepared to leave with his two friends, who were bored stiff. However, exercising his considerable powers of persuasion, his cunning host succeeded in getting the musician to stay for a final game of sho, in which the merchant declared he would stake all the money and gold pieces he had won against the musician’s ring. The warnings of his two four-footed friends were of no avail, for the guitar player had drunk not only tea but also a few bowls of chang, a beer made with barley very much appreciated by many Tibetans. Under the influence of the alcohol, he had become quite reckless and readily consented to a final game. But the merchant cheated, and the unfortunate young man lost yet again. This time it was the precious gift of the naga princess that changed hands. The worst had occurred. All of a sudden, the musician realized what had taken place—that he had stupidly allowed his dishonest host to get him drunk and rob him. But it was too late! As friendly and hospitable as the merchant had been at the beginning, that is how hard and malevolent he became the moment that his ends had been achieved. With the help of his hired henchmen and his formidable guard dog, a mastiff bred by Tibetan nomads, he threw all three of the friends out onto the street.

Sad and at the same time furious with himself, the musician departed along with his friends. The three of them together gave the impression of a funeral procession as they walked in silence one behind the other, heads down and with a downcast air. The cat, unable to bear seeing his friend in such a state of despair, began thinking how he might be able to remedy the situation. Then he remembered a very old and good friend of his, a mouse with a lively mind who had the ability to deal with any circumstances. Without mentioning it to anyone, the cat got in touch with his old friend, told him what had happened, and asked him what they might be able to do to recover the ring taken by the dishonest merchant. The mouse had an excellent idea. It snuck into the thief’s house—right under the nose of the guard dog, who saw nothing but a brief flicker—and found the bedroom where the merchant was snoring away. The whole room smelled from chang. Apparently, the culprit had celebrated his victory with plenty of drink. His heavy slumber facilitated the little mouse’s job. It was easily able to take back the ring, which the merchant had left on his night table. Fortunately for the naga princess, the ring had been too small for his finger, and he had set it to the side, hoping to get a tidy sum for it.

Thanks to his speed and skill, the little mouse recovered the precious object, and now he quickly made good his escape and set off to give it back to the cat. Happy and proud, the musician’s four-footed friends were able to return the ring to the young man as soon as he woke up. His surprise was so great he thought he was dreaming. As a way of thanking his cat friend and the mouse as well, the guitar player played his most beautiful songs. He surpassed himself and played so well that his music not only filled his friends with wonder but also did the same for everyone they met as they continued their journey through the high plateaus of Tibet. Through his talent, the musician quickly earned back as much money and as many gold pieces as he had had before, and he and his three friends were able to lead a good life. One day, the mouse decided to part from the company and go back to his numerous family. The goodbyes were long and sad, but they all promised each other that they would stay in touch.

At this moment, still beside himself with the thought of the musician’s lapse in awareness, the prince let his own vigilance slip and let the following words escape his lips: “What luck to have gotten the precious ring back with the help of his faithful friends!”

Immediately, the sack on the prince’s back opened up all by itself and released its prisoner, the zombie Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

Too late, the prince realized his fatal error. He was left all alone with an immense feeling of remorse and failure. “Nga kugpa! What an idiot I am!” he cried, full of anger toward himself. But neither his anger nor the tears that followed changed the situation in the least. Finally the prince regained his composure, took a firm hold on his courage, and decided to continue with the mission he had been given by the guru Gömpo Ludrup. With the firm resolve to remain more vigilant the next time, the prince went back to India.

7

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

SO IT WAS that Prince Dechö Zangpo once again traveled across the whole breadth of the kingdom and at last arrived again at Silwaytsal. He had hardly arrived there when he was surrounded by large numbers of dead beings elbowing each other and all calling out at the same time: “Halala!” and “Hululu!” “I am the one you are looking for. Take me! Take me!”

Again, following the teacher’s instructions, he touched the heads of the dead beings with the cone-shaped red object, repeating over and over, “You are not the one. You are not the one.” This caused them to flee immediately.

Looking around, he saw a dead being who had a very singular appearance. The top of him was gold, the bottom of him was silver, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. As the guru had predicted, this one fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, saying, “I am not the right one! I am not the right one!” Having found the zombie Ngödrup Dorje, “He Who Fulfills All Dreams,” the prince took up the second object the guru had given him, the ax, with which he lightly touched the sandalwood tree. This simple action made the top of the tree tremble, and the prince began to speak to Ngödrup Dorje: “Come down to the ground. If you don’t, I will cut down this sandalwood tree.”

Very cunning and sure of being invincible, the spirit replied, “Poor prince, you will tire yourself out. Therefore I will be the one to make the effort, and I’ll come down to you.”

The prince grabbed him and put him in the sack, which immediately adjusted to the size of its captive. Then at once the prince tied the sack up with the magic rope. Because the prince was still carrying the red cone in his hand, the other dead beings did not approach again. Well content, the prince started out on the return journey with the intention of placing his precious burden before the guru as quickly as possible.

On the ninth day, when the prince was again in the midst of crossing the great barren plain, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

The prince, who was very much on his guard, did not utter a word, and so the zombie picked up where he had left off telling the adventures of the guitar player and his friends.

8

The Traveling Guitar Player and the Power of Friendship

AFTER HOURS OF WALKING, the guitar player, the cat, and the dog stopped on the bank of a broad and deep river that they would have to cross somehow in order to reach the next village. The dog, who was the only one who knew how to swim, proposed swimming across the river with the cat on his back and pulling the musician behind, holding fast to his tail. Being the one good swimmer among them, the dog also proposed to keep the precious ring, the gift of the naga princess, in safe keeping during the crossing. The musician, relieved, consented to this, and to his surprise, the dog quite simply stuck the ring in his mouth.

Proceeding according to plan, the three friends were doing fine until they got to the middle of the river. That is when the cat saw that the dog had a little bit of dried yak meat stuck to his muzzle. Suddenly experiencing a big empty feeling in its stomach, the cat could not resist licking its friend’s muzzle to get that little bit of leftover meat. “Ah ah ah choo!” went the dog, sneezing hard. At once the precious ring shot out of its mouth and fell into the deepest waters of the river. Hardly believing what had happened, the three friends tried their best to catch a glimpse of it, but to no avail.

The cat and the prince were unable to swim and the dog was getting weaker and weaker; it had to keep swimming if it were to get to the far shore. Once the dangerous crossing was over, the prince got angry at his two friends.

“It’s your fault that we’ve lost the princess’s precious gift. Oh, how awful! Poor me, poor me!”

Still completely out of breath, the dog tried to console its friend.

“Woof, woof! The lucky part is that the life of the princess is not in danger because the river is part of the realm of the nagas. So the ring will soon end up back on the princess’s finger.”

But the cat, who was filled with remorse for what it had done, said in a very small voice, “Meow, meow. Dear friends, I am terribly sorry. My hunger pushed me to give in to temptation. I never thought it could have such consequences. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

Seeing the cat’s sadness and his big tears, the guitar player forgave it.

“Since the ring has surely returned to its owner, the princess of the nagas, her life is not in danger. Let’s forget what has happened and continue on our way.”

Very happy that the musician had forgiven them, his two four-footed friends nevertheless expressed their wish to return to their respective families. The goodbyes were long and sad, but the three promised to stay in touch.

Moved by this touching friendship, Prince Dechö Zangpo once again let his attention lapse, and the following words escaped his lips: “What a strong friendship!”

Instantly, the sack on the prince’s back opened up all by itself and released its prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

Too late, the prince realized his fatal error. For the third time, he was left all alone in that desolate place with an immense feeling of remorse and failure. “Nga kugpa! What an idiot I am!” he cried, full of anger toward himself. But neither his anger nor the tears that followed changed the situation in the least. Finally the prince regained his composure, took a firm hold on his courage, and decided to continue with the mission he had been given by the guru Gömpo Ludrup. He firmly resolved to be more vigilant the next time.

9

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

SO PRINCE DECHÖ ZANGPO once again traveled across the whole breadth of the kingdom in order to get back to India, to the place in that country that was the dwelling place of the dead. He had hardly arrived there when he was surrounded by large numbers of dead beings elbowing each other and all calling out at the same time: “Halala!” and “Hululu!” “I am the one you are looking for. Take me! Take me!”

At that point the prince remembered the first magical object that Guru Ludrup had given him. Following the teacher’s instructions, he touched the heads of the dead beings with the cone-shaped red object, repeating over and over, “You are not the one. You are not the one.” This caused them to flee immediately.

After a short time, as he looked around him he saw one being with a very singular appearance. The top of the being was gold, the bottom of him was silver, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. This one fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, saying, “I am not the right one! I am not the right one!” Having once again found the zombie Ngödrup Dorje, “He Who Fulfills All Dreams,” the prince took up the second object the guru had given him, the ax, with which he lightly touched the tree. This simple action made the top of the tree tremble, and the prince began to speak to Ngödrup Dorje: “Come down to the ground. If you don’t, I will cut down this sandalwood tree.”

Very cunning and sure of being invincible, the spirit replied, “Poor prince—cutting down the tree, you will tire yourself out. Therefore I will be the one to make the effort, and I’ll come down to where you are.”

The prince grabbed him and put him in the sack, which immediately adjusted to the size of its captive. Then at once the prince tied the sack up with the magic rope. Because the prince was still carrying the red cone in his hand, the other dead beings did not approach again. Well content, the prince started out on the return journey with the intention of placing his precious burden before the guru as quickly as possible.

On the twelfth day, as the prince was once again crossing the great barren plain, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

The prince, who was more than ever on his guard, did not utter a word, and so the zombie began telling him a new story even more beautiful than the one before.

10

The Crafty Beggar

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a beggar. One day he ran into some children who were in the midst of quarreling over a plain old hat. Intrigued, he stopped to ask them why this was such a coveted object. He learned from them that this hat had magical powers. Whoever put it on his head at once became invisible. This aroused the beggar’s own interest in this exceptional article, and he decided to find some tricky way of acquiring it.

“My dear children,” he said, “as a neutral party, I can help you find a solution to your quarrel. You are all going to take part in a big footrace. The hat will belong to the fastest one among you.”

The children liked this idea, and the beggar gave them the signal to start. But before the children could get back to where he was, he donned the hat and at once became invisible. He quickly left the region, taking with him his highly interesting bit of booty.

A few days later, he came to another region where a lot of nomads lived. Two of them were having an argument over a plain old sack. Intrigued once again, the beggar stopped to ask why this was such a coveted object. The nomads explained to him that this article had magical powers. The possessor of it could draw from inside it whatever he might want—food in plenty, drink, clothes, or anything else the heart might desire.

Being very crafty, the beggar said, “Listen here. Instead of arguing with each other like that, let me suggest that the two of you have a race. As a neutral party, I will be glad to function as the referee. The sack will belong to the one of you who gets back first to where I am standing.”

The nomads liked his advice, and the beggar gave them the signal to start the race. But before the two naive nomads caught on to the fact that they had been duped, the beggar put the magic hat on his head. He instantly became invisible and quickly left the region, taking along with him the magic sack as booty.

A little while later, the beggar saw two peasants standing in a field arguing over a plain old stick. Intrigued once again, he stopped to find out more about what was happening. The two men explained to him that this object had magical powers. Whoever possessed it could make it carry him in no time at all to any place at all, and moreover, it would allow him to defeat his enemies, no matter how numerous they were.

Of course the beggar very much wanted to possess this unique object, so he said to them, “Listen to me. As a neutral party, I will act as the referee of a footrace. The magical stick will belong to the first one of you two to get back to where I’m standing.” The peasants liked his idea, and the beggar gave them the signal to start the race. But before they could realize they had been duped, the false referee put the hat on his head. Becoming instantly invisible, he quickly left the region, taking the magical stick with him as booty.

Thus in a very short time, he had handily acquired three precious objects that could make his life more enjoyable, and he was very happy about it.

Wrapped up in this story, Prince Dechö Zangpo, in spite of all his vigilance, let his awareness lapse and, beside himself, cried out, “It’s unbelievable how easily people let themselves get fooled!”

Instantly, the sack on the prince’s back opened up all by itself and released its prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

Too late, the prince realized his fatal error. Once again he was left all alone in this deserted region. He experienced an immense feeling of remorse and failure. “Nga kugpa! What an idiot I am!” he cried, full of anger toward himself. But neither his anger nor the tears that followed changed the situation in the least. After quite a while, Prince Dechö Zangpo regained his composure, took a firm hold on his courage, and decided to continue with the mission he had been given by the guru Gömpo Ludrup. After forming a strong resolve to keep a firm hold on his attention and remain vigilant the next time, he went back to take “He Who Fulfills All Dreams” captive.

11

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

SO IT WAS THAT Prince Dechö Zangpo yet once again traveled across the whole breadth of the kingdom in order to get back to India, to the place in that country that was the dwelling place of the dead. He had hardly arrived there when he was surrounded by large numbers of dead beings elbowing each other and all calling out at the same time: “Halala!” and “Hululu!” “I am the one you are looking for. Take me! Take me!”

At that point, as he had done several times before, he touched their heads with the cone-shaped red object given him by the guru, repeating over and over, “You are not the one. You are not the one.” This caused them to flee immediately.

Looking around him he saw a dead being with a very singular appearance. The top of this being was gold, the bottom of him was silver, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. This one fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, saying, “I am not the right one! I am not the right one!” Using his usual tricks, the prince got hold of the zombie Ngödrup Dorje—because of course it was him—and, well content, he set off on the return journey so he could place his precious burden before his guru.

On the fifteenth day, as the prince was once again crossing the great barren plain, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a spot the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

Without waiting for an answer from the prince, the zombie began telling him of the further adventures of the beggar and his magical objects.

12

The Beggar and His Friends

WELL, THEN, the beggar continued on his way toward the high plateaus of Tibet. One day he met a poor orphan who absolutely wanted to join up with him. The beggar told him, “Listen, my life is not an easy one at all. I haven’t got any money and I don’t have a roof over my head. I eat if somebody decides to give me something edible and I stay hungry if they don’t. I always have to sleep outdoors, even when it’s very cold.”

These arguments did nothing to change the orphan’s mind, and so it was that the beggar took him on as a traveling companion.

Sometime later, the two friends met a handsome young man, the son of a wealthy family who had run away from home. Becoming acquainted with the beggar and the orphan and learning what a free and unconstrained life they led, he asked them if they would let him join up with them, saying how much he would enjoy their company. The beggar put forward all kinds of arguments to dissuade him, just as he had done before with the orphan. But to no avail! The son of a wealthy family absolutely wanted to join them. So the beggar took him on, and together the companions continued on their way.

In another place, the beggar and his two friends met the son of a king who had no interest whatever in wealth and power but instead was looking for freedom and adventure.

“Please, take me with you,” he insistently asked the beggar. Again, just as before, the beggar put forth all the arguments he could muster to discourage the lad from coming with them. But the young noble was determined, and in the end the beggar accepted him and took him along. Thus they continued their journey as a foursome. They were very happy to be together and they became good friends.

One fine day they came to a village where the news of the arrival of the four faithful friends spread rapidly. They were generously provided with tsampa to eat. The most beautiful young woman in the village fell head over heels in love with the prince. The beggar duly informed the family of the young woman that her friend was of noble family and had a very good character. The family decided to accept the young prince as a husband for their daughter. The friends were invited to remain with the family for three months, the time it would take to prepare for the wedding, which was going to last seven whole days. This turned out to be a very fine feast, celebrated with the entire village. The family seemed to be a very good one, and the young woman was beautiful. Reassured by this, the friends finally took their leave and continued on their way. The goodbyes were very hard, but everybody was happy and content with the prince’s good karma.

The three remaining friends came to another village, where again, very quickly, talk spread of their great friendship and mutual loyalty. The most beautiful young woman saw the son of the wealthy family and fell head over heels in love with him. She talked this over with her mother, and the mother at once went to consult the beggar to find out more about the young man. She accepted him as her son-in-law, and a great wedding feast was celebrated with the entire village. Reassured by the knowledge that their friend was set up with a good family, the beggar and the orphan decided to carry on with their travels. The leave-taking was hard, but everyone was happy and content with the young man’s good karma.

The two last remaining friends came to another village, where, there too, positive comments about their great friendship and mutual loyalty very quickly made the rounds. The most beautiful young woman in the village saw the orphan and recognized his good character. She fell head over heels in love with him. She soon told her mother, and her mother at once consulted the beggar to find out more about the young man. The mother readily consented to accept the orphan as her son-in-law and a great feast was celebrated along with the beggar and the entire village. Reassured that his last friend was now placed with a good family, the beggar decided to resume his journey. The goodbyes were hard, but everyone was happy and content with the orphan’s good karma. Only the beggar felt a certain loneliness deep in his heart.

“It’s true that it is not always easy to face being alone!” imprudently remarked Prince Dechö Zangpo, being full of sympathy for the beggar. He bit his tongue, but it was too late. The sack on the prince’s back was already opening up and releasing its prisoner, the zombie Ngödrup Dorje. With great pleasure, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

Once again the prince was left all alone in this desolate place, experiencing an immense feeling of remorse and failure. But neither his anger nor his tears could change the situation in the least. At last Prince Dechö Zangpo regained his composure, took a firm hold on his courage, and decided to continue with the mission he had been given by the guru Gömpo Ludrup. With the firm intention to remain vigilant the next time, he set off again to capture “He Who Fulfills All Dreams.”

13

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

NOW ONCE AGAIN Prince Dechö Zangpo traveled across the whole breadth of the kingdom in order to get back to India and the dwelling place of the dead. He had hardly arrived there when he was surrounded by large numbers of dead beings elbowing each other and all calling out at the same time: “Halala!” and “Hululu!” “I am the one you are looking for. Take me! Take me!”

Without giving in to his fatigue and again following the guru’s instructions, he touched their heads with the cone-shaped red object the guru had given him, repeating over and over, “You are not the one. You are not the one.” This caused them to flee immediately.

After a moment, looking around him he spotted the quite distinctive body of Ngödrup Dorje. The top of the zombie was gold, the bottom of him was silver, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. Strangely, this zombie fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, saying, “I am not the right one! I am not the right one!” But the prince, just as he had the previous times, touched the trunk of the tree with the magic ax. The zombie came down of his own free will, then the prince shut him up in the sack, carefully tied it up with the magic rope, and rapidly left the place. He was in a hurry to place his burden before the guru, and for several days he kept walking in complete silence, the sack quite heavy on his back.

But then, on the eighteenth day, as the prince was crossing the great barren plain that by now was so familiar, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

The prince successfully refrained from saying anything, and without delay the zombie began telling him of the beggar’s further adventures.

14

The Beggar Gets Married

AGAIN ALONE, the beggar traveled from village to village and continued to lead a life of total freedom. In spite of the new powers he possessed owing to the objects he had taken away from the very naive people he had met along his way, his lifestyle remained simple and modest.

One afternoon, he was passing through a beautiful green valley where a small river ran. All along the banks of this river, very pretty red and yellow flowers were growing. Since it was getting hotter and hotter, he stopped for a while in this pleasant place and drank directly from the very clear and refreshing waters of the river. Being somewhat tired, he stretched out on the ground and closed his eyes so he could take a little rest. Suddenly he heard the wing beats of two crows, who landed near the river where there were always plenty of insects for them. As they pecked around here and there, the birds began to tell each other their little secrets. One of them said to the other, “Human beings don’t know this, but if you touch somebody with one of these red flowers, he will immediately be changed into a monkey.”

The other, in his turn, shared his secret: “Nobody knows this, but in order to change the monkey back into a human being, all you have to do is touch it with this yellow flower.”

“Right you are,” replied the first crow, “and these things will remain forever secret.”

Having had enough to eat, the crows flew away.

The beggar had heard and understood every word. He was very excited and happy about what he had just heard, and he picked a red flower and a yellow flower and took them with him.

And so he continued on his path across the high Tibetan plateau until he came to a village where the only daughter of a well-to-do family fell madly in love with this young beggar who led such a carefree and adventurous life. In spite of the great sorrow they felt at parting with the apple of their eye, the parents could refuse their daughter nothing. After a big wedding feast celebrated with the whole village, a feast that lasted seven days and seven nights, the beggar promised his young bride to take her somewhere far away. In fact he promised to take her to a magnificent uninhabited island whose shores were washed by the sea.

One evening he had her climb with him onto the magic stick, and almost instantly they arrived at the promised island. The young woman was quite intrigued and very curious about their mode of travel and she asked her husband a lot of questions, but he restrained himself from revealing his secret. In this place, they led a very good life, because they lacked for nothing. They always had enough to eat and drink, whatever they might want. To keep his wife from getting bored, the beggar regularly brought her beautiful new clothes.

One day, the wife began again to ask questions: “My dear husband, what secret are you hiding from me? Where does all of our wealth come from, and what are the powers of the magic stick?”

On his guard, her husband told her nothing then and there, but faced with his wife’s insistence, he promised he would share his secret with her at the right moment.

Then the wife became pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful little girl. The former beggar was very happy and proud of his beautiful baby, and he became careless. His wife took advantage of this to pry from him his secrets about the powers of the stick and the sack. But a small inner voice warned the young man to say nothing about the hat that brought invisibility or about the two magical flowers.

One sad day when he had gone out, his wife stole the sack, mounted on the stick with their little girl, and returned to her home village, leaving her husband all alone on the uninhabited island. Coming back home, the former beggar found the house empty and realized that his wife had fled with their daughter, taking the stick and the sack with her. All the regrets he felt about revealing his secret to his wife and all his anger toward her and toward himself accomplished nothing. He remained alone, very alone, on this uninhabited island in the middle of the sea. He was profoundly unhappy at having been so brazenly deceived by his beloved.

He pondered and pondered how he might leave the island, but no solution presented itself, not even an idea. He was devastated. He lost all hope and thought of ending his life. He climbed up to a high point on top of the cliffs from where he could throw himself into the sea. Suddenly he heard the anguished cries of newly hatched birds coming from just below him. The cries were coming from a nest built into the rocky cliff face. At the same moment he saw a big snake who was about to attack the little ones and devour them. Forgetting his despair, the former beggar could think of nothing else but how he might be able to help these poor little defenseless creatures. He picked up a big stone and threw it hard. He was on the mark! He hit the snake and the force of his throw pitched it out into space. It tumbled into the deep waters below.

The former beggar was relieved and happy that he had managed to protect the little birds. But then he heard a strange noise in the sky, and the next thing he knew a huge bird was attacking him viciously with its claws. What a shock! His heart almost stopped beating. This creature must be the mother, who had mistakenly presumed that he was the one who had threatened her babies.

“Mama, Mama, leave that man alone! He was the one who saved us. He killed the wicked snake who was trying to eat us!” the little ones cried out all together. The mother bird quickly calmed down and went and perched by her young ones, the better to listen to their account of the snake attack. In the end she understood what had taken place and flew back to the young man, who was still in a state of shock. The mother bird asked his forgiveness for the mistake she had made and thanked him profusely. As a proof of her profound gratitude, she promised to fulfill his dearest wish. The young man, victimized by his unfaithful wife, did not take long to think of what his wish should be. He asked to be taken to the region where his parents-in-law lived. That is where he fully expected to find his wife and daughter.

He had barely finished expressing his wish when the bird took her babies’ savior on her back and rose majestically up into the air. In no time at all, she had crossed the sea and reached their destination. Before leaving the young man, the bird gave him several of her beautiful feathers with the following words: “My dear friend, if someday you find yourself in great peril, all you have to do is burn one of these feathers and I will immediately fly to your rescue.”

Deeply touched, he accepted this gift, and thus the two separated on very good terms.

The young man put the magic hat on his head, and having become invisible, he entered his in-laws’ house. There he saw his faithless wife. Without delay, he touched her with the red flower and without the slightest compunction transformed her into a monkey. Then he departed, still invisible. Terrified by what had happened to her, the young woman who had become a monkey cried horribly, jumped all around the house, and in a rampage broke everything she came across and even injured some members of her family. She was soon shut up in a cage to prevent further ravages.

“Oh, what a cruel revenge!” the prince cried out, so taken with this incredible story that yet again he had thrown all restraint to the winds.

Alas, the sack on the prince’s back opened up by itself and released its prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

The prince was left all alone in this desolate place with an immense feeling of remorse and failure. “Nga kugpa! What an idiot I am!” he cried out, filled with anger toward himself. But neither his anger nor his tears could change the situation in the least. After a long time he regained his composure, took a firm hold on his courage, and decided to continue with the mission he had been given by the guru Gömpo Ludrup. With the firm resolve never to let his vigilance lapse again, he returned to Silwaytsal to capture “He Who Fulfills All Dreams.”

15

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

THUS IT WAS that Prince Dechö Zangpo yet again traveled across the whole breadth of the kingdom and finally arrived in India at the dwelling place of the dead. Making use of the cone-shaped red object given him by the guru, he continually forced aside the numerous dead beings who were attempting to speak to him until the moment he finally saw a zombie different from all the others. The top of the zombie was gold, the bottom of him was silver, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. This zombie fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, but the prince, employing the persuasive power of the magic ax, easily managed to get hold of the zombie Ngödrup Dorje—because it was indeed him. This time the prince had resolutely determined to hold his tongue the entire length of the return journey no matter what story the sly spirit might relate to him.

The twenty-first day, as the prince, with his burden on his back, was crossing in silence the great barren plain, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, a living being, will tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

The prince was completely on the alert and did not breathe a word. Thus the zombie began telling him of the beggar’s further adventures.

16

Justice Is Served

WELL, THEN, the family of the young man’s in-laws and everyone in the village were terrified by what had happened to the beautiful young woman. No one could calm the monkey down or think of a way to change it back into a woman. The young man let three long months go by in order to punish his wife. Finally he disguised himself as a great spiritual master, burned one of the giant bird’s feathers to get the bird to return, and had himself carried on its back above his parents-in-law’s village. Everyone in the region thought they were seeing a miracle. At the sight of the young man being carried about in the sky, they thought that the Buddha himself had descended from the heavens. The people prostrated to this phenomenon and recited a great number of mantras.

The false master had himself put down on the roof of the house of his parents-in-law and was received with extreme devotion by the family, who did not recognize him at all. Honored by this high-level visit and full of hope that they might receive some precious help for their daughter, the family showed this grand master the monkey shut up in the cage and related what had transpired. The false master played his role to the hilt, and after a long silence he said: “Hmm! I see that your daughter has an extremely worthy husband to whom she has caused great harm. She stole some special objects from him. If you do not do what is necessary for these things to be returned to him at once, you will all also be transformed into monkeys!”

These words had a powerful effect on the family, who were terrified. The parents-in-law pondered hard trying to remember what their daughter had had with her when she had returned home.

“We didn’t see anything in her hands but a stick and a sack,” they said.

Happy to hear this news, the former beggar disguised as a great master asked that these objects be brought to him, and said, “Yes, indeed, it seems to me these are the things in question. Now you can stop worrying—I can help you. Let me have the monkey. I will take her with me and change her back into a human being!”

Overjoyed, the family accepted this proposal and let him take the monkey away with him. When they had reached a sufficient distance from the village, the false master touched the monkey with the yellow flower, and it became once again the young woman he had married.

Beside herself with happiness, the young woman threw herself down at the great master’s feet, wept tears of joy, and thanked him from the bottom of her heart. As she was doing this, the former beggar removed his disguise so as to reveal to her his true identity. When the young woman again got to her feet, how great was her amazement and shame to find herself thus standing before the husband she had so coldly abused! With great remorse, she begged a thousand pardons.

He was concerned now to learn the whereabouts of their daughter. Trembling from head to toe, his wife told him that in the course of their voyage on the stick, the little one had slipped from her mother’s hands. She had tumbled into space and perished on the spot. Infinitely saddened by this irreparable loss and very angry with his wife, who was responsible for the death of their daughter, he had the magic stick beat her. In spite of that, his wife said to him, “My dear one, I regret very much what has happened and I ask you to forgive me. I beg of you, take me with you again. It is no longer possible for me to stay in my parents’ home, where I would only live in pain and suffering.”

The young man answered her thus:

“I took you with me at your own request, because you wanted to live a free and adventurous life. You robbed me, you deceived me, and you left me of your own free will to go back to your parents. I can only conclude that you prefer suffering to happiness. Count on me no longer. I want nothing to do with you!”

At this moment, the zombie made a long, well-calculated pause, and, caught up in the story, the prince lost his attention for a moment and cried out: “What a stupid woman! She has no idea what she—” He broke off sharply but too late.

Yet once more the sack opened to allow its prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje, to escape. Gloating hugely, the zombie said, “There you have the humiliating blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

Dechö Zangpo was left all alone in this desolate place with an immense feeling of remorse and failure. But neither his anger nor his tears could change the situation in the least. In the end he regained his composure, took a firm hold on his courage, and decided to continue with the mission he had been given by the guru Gömpo Ludrup. With the firmest possible resolve never to let his vigilance lapse again, he went back again to capture “He Who Fulfills All Dreams.”

17

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

SO IT WAS that the determined prince Dechö Zangpo traveled across the entire kingdom again until he reached the place called Silwaytsal, where the dead dwelled. Forcing aside the numerous dead beings who crowded around him, by touching their heads with the cone-shaped red object, he finally caught a glimpse of the object of his hunt, the zombie Ngödrup Dorje. The zombie was gold on the top, silver on the bottom, and had a mane of pure turquoise. As soon as he was seen, the zombie fled into the top of a sandalwood tree, saying, “I am not the right one! I am not the right one!” But once again, being very sure of himself, he finally came down from the tree and ended up in the prince’s magic sack, which the prince tied up securely with his magic rope.

The twenty-fourth day, when the prince was once again in the process of crossing the great barren plain, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you know very well you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, a living being, will tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

The prince, sorely tried but more than ever on his guard, did not answer a word, and the zombie resumed where he had left off telling him the story of the beggar.

18

The Beggar Is Reunited with His Friends

RID OF HIS perfidious wife, the young man set off again on his journey across the high Tibetan plateau. One day, he felt an irresistible desire to see once again the three friends he had left behind in different villages after their respective weddings.

So it was that he came first to the region where he had parted from the son of the king. From a distance he saw a flock of sheep with their shepherd, and he decided to have a chat with the man in the hope of getting some information about his friend. As he was speaking with the shepherd, he discovered with surprise that this herdsman himself was no one else but the king’s son. His complexion had been darkened by the sun and his body, formerly so strong and resilient, had become feeble and sickly because of the bad food he was being given. He had changed so much that the young beggar had not even recognized him!

The beggar learned that at the beginning of his marriage, the king’s son had lacked for nothing and had lived a happy life in the bosom of a good family. But as time went on, the family had shown him less and less respect, had given him terrible food, and had taken away his royal raiment, exchanging it for a herdsman’s clothes. At last they had cast him out of the house and made him stay outdoors with his herd.

It was with great joy and indescribable happiness that the shepherd, who had had to endure so much suffering in the meantime, laid eyes on the beggar again. The beggar promised he would find a strategy to help him. He warned him, above all, not to mention anything about their meeting to anyone and not to be surprised by anything that happened.

In order to provide his starving friend with some decent nourishment, the young beggar took out his magic sack and drew out of it a feast of eighteen courses, each one more succulent than the last. The two ate their fill and fell asleep together, surrounded by the sheep. That night the shepherd had the impression that the sky was more illuminated than usual by all the stars and by the thousand buddhas who were smiling down on him from up there.

Very early the following morning, the two separated and proceeded as though their meeting had never occurred. When the beggar arrived at the village, he put on his hat, and invisible to all eyes, he entered the house of his friend’s in-laws. As he had done with his own wife, he touched his friend’s wife with the red flower, which transformed her instantly into a monkey. She was terrified and began jumping about in every direction. She broke everything in the house that she touched and injured everyone who crossed her path. The family was shocked and did not know what to do. They could find no solution but to shut her up in a cage for her own safety and the safety of everyone else.

The beggar, still invisible thanks to the magic hat, left the house and, by burning another feather, summoned his friend the mother bird to his aid. Disguised as a great spiritual master, the young man mounted on the bird’s back and flew over the village. Everyone thought that the Buddha himself had descended from the sky. They burned sticks of incense, prayed fervently, and prostrated on the ground. The bird alit on the roof of the house of the shepherd’s in-laws, and the false master climbed down into the house, where he was received with great deference. The family did not recognize him at all.

Honored by this dignitary’s visit and full of hope for his precious aid, the family showed the great spiritual master the monkey shut up in its cage and told him what had transpired. The false master played his role with skill. After a long silence, he said:

“Hmm! I see that your daughter has an extremely worthy husband to whom your whole family has caused great harm. That is why the local deities have punished your daughter and have changed her into a monkey. If you do not ask your son-in-law’s forgiveness and do not accord him his legitimate, respected place in the family as before, you are all in peril of being turned into monkeys sooner or later.”

This had a major effect. The family was terrified and summoned the shepherd. They returned to him his royal garments of old and asked his forgiveness. They pledged to honor him and treat him as they had at the beginning of the marriage.

Then the false master kept his word, and secretly, using the yellow flower, he transformed the monkey back into a woman. She was very happy to have regained her original form and promised to love and honor her husband. Delighted at having been able to help his friend, the beggar took his leave and resumed his travels. Though it was difficult to for them to say goodbye, the two friends were glad their strong friendship had remained intact.

While on the road, the young beggar began wondering what had become of his friend, the son of the wealthy family. So he decided to go and pay him a visit. But when he arrived in the area where this friend lived, he found a situation analogous to the previous one. This friend had also been maltreated by his wife’s family. Starting quite soon after the wedding, he had had to endure a great deal of suffering. The beggar promised to come to his aid and restore the situation to how it had initially been. He went about it in the same way as he had with his own wife and the wife of the king’s son. He made himself invisible using the hat, entered the house, and transformed the wicked wife into a monkey by touching her with the red flower.

Once again the beggar then appeared in the guise of a spiritual master in the midst of a family in a state of shock. And as before, he promised to save the young woman if she and her family treated her husband properly. Thus it was that after the young man had regained his respected place, the false spiritual master used the yellow flower to turn the monkey back into a woman. The woman, overjoyed, thereafter treated her husband with due honor and respect. Despite a difficult leave-taking, the two men separated very pleased with their deep friendship.

The beggar removed his disguise and departed in search of his third friend, the orphan. But he also had suffered the same treatment as the others. After a short period of happiness in the bosom of his family, he had been forced to tend the asses, had received little to eat, and had been obliged to dress in miserable rags. When the friends were reunited, the beggar promised to devise a trick that would help him. Exactly the same things happened as the previous times, and soon enough the orphan had regained his status in the family as well as a wife who was prepared to accord him due honor and respect.

The beggar had been able to help his three friends. Using his clever tricks and with the power of his magical objects, he had been able to restore their honor as well as make peace within their respective families. Feeling well satisfied with all of this, the beggar set off as before on his travels across the high Tibetan plateau.

Under the spell of the beggar’s personality, yet again the prince let all caution fall and cried out: “But this beggar is a true bodhisattva!”

The moment he said this he bit his lip—but it was already too late.

Instantly, the sack on the prince’s back opened by itself and released its prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

The prince was very discouraged with himself, but he knew that neither anger nor tears could change a thing. Without a pause, he set forth once again for India, for the place called Silwaytsal, to capture “He Who Fulfills All Dreams.”

19

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

ONCE AGAIN Prince Dechö Zangpo, filled with a sense of perseverance and determined to get Ngödrup Dorje back, traveled across the entire kingdom until he finally reached the place in India where the dead dwelled. Very soon he spotted the zombie that was quite different from all the others who were crowding around him. The zombie was gold on the top, silver on the bottom, and had a mane of pure turquoise.

Ngödrup Dorje did try to take refuge in the top of a sandalwood tree, but Dechö Zangpo, using his ax, quickly convinced him to come down. He caught the zombie, put him in the sack, and tied it securely closed with the magic rope.

On the twenty-seventh day, the prince was crossing the great barren plain. He was exhausted and feeling pain all over when Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, a living being, will tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

He knew that the prince, being very much on his guard, would not reply, so without waiting he began telling him another one of his very beautiful and amazing stories.

20

The Darpo Brothers

ONCE UPON A TIME in a remote corner of Tibet, there was a very poor peasant family with many children, among which were two sons, both named Darpo. One of them had been born in the summer and the other one had been born in the winter. The two Darpo brothers got along very well, and their particularly close relationship was most clearly noticeable when they were playing. If you saw one of them playing, the other could not be far away.

One day their mother died in childbirth. Alas, shortly thereafter, the father also died as a result of a terrible accident that occurred while he was working. The younger brothers and sisters were taken in by their uncles and aunts, but the two Darpos were already grown up, so they were obliged to fend for themselves. As they were rather talented at entertaining people as storytellers and singers, they left their home village and took to the road, where they could offer their services in exchange for food, lodging, and a modest fee.

One very hot summer day, the two brothers stopped on their journey not far from a small village. As usual, they sought out the village well so they could refresh themselves by drinking a little water. But the Darpo who was born in the summer, rushing to the edge of the deep well, lost his balance and fell all the way to the bottom. His brother, totally stunned and extremely agitated, could not think of any way to save him.

Darpo Born-in-Winter tried all kinds of ways over the next hours to get his brother out. He was without success. The well was much too deep for any ladder to be of help. After some time, Darpo Born-in-Summer shouted up from the well that he was hungry and asked his brother to get something down to him that he could eat. Not having money to buy food from the market, Darpo Born-in-Winter looked around him and saw some apricot trees not far away. He hurried over to them and was able to gather a large number of apricots. Taking half for himself, he threw the other half down the well so that his brother would not die of hunger. Weeks and then months passed, and the Darpo brothers remained inseparable: one at the bottom of the well and the other one, keeping his brother supplied with food, never far away.

At length it happened that a pit from one of the many apricots that had been thrown down the well sprouted. It grew so fast one could see it growing, until it became a very tall apricot tree. This was quite a miracle, but Darpo Born-in-Summer had been at the bottom of the well so long that he did not stop to ask questions. Overjoyed by this miracle of nature, he gathered all his courage and all his strength and climbed the tree, higher and higher. In this way, after all this long time he was able to get out of the well. He was saved. Above, his brother Darpo Born-in-Winter, who had been waiting impatiently, hugged him in his arms. The two brothers laughed and wept at the same time for joy and happiness. At last they decided to continue on their travels. On the road they recounted and sang about what had befallen them in their lives to whomever they met, and in exchange for this entertainment, they were lodged, fed, and given a bit of money.

Naturally, Prince Dechö Zangpo, who was an only child, experienced strong feelings listening to the story of the Darpo brothers, and without stopping to think, he said, “Oh, how touching it is to hear about that kind of strong love between brothers.”

Then the sack on his back released its loquacious prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

The prince was about to be seized by a fit of anger, but taking into account the experiences he had had, he restrained his temper and immediately set off again on the way back to India to recapture Ngödrup Dorje, “He Who Fulfills All Dreams.”

21

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

HARDLY HAD HE arrived at Silwaytsal, the place where the Indians leave their dead, when the prince was surrounded by numerous dead beings who crowded around all talking at the same time, crying, “Halala!” and “Hululu!” and saying, “I’m the one you’re looking for. Take me! Take me!” But he quickly forced them aside with the help of the red cone-shaped object, all the while scanning the area for Ngödrup Dorje. Spotting a body that was quite different from the others, he recognized the zombie he had to capture—gold on the top, silver on the bottom, and with a mane of pure turquoise. The prince tried to approach him, but Ngödrup Dorje fled into the top of a sandalwood tree, exclaiming, “I am not the right one! I am not the right one!”

All the prince had to do to convince the zombie to come down was to touch the tree with his ax. It came down quickly and the prince nimbly caught it and put it in his sack, which he tied up securely with his magic rope.

On the thirtieth day, when the prince was once again crossing the same immense barren plain in silence, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, will tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

Confronted by the prince’s silence, the extremely sly zombie began telling him what had become of the Darpos, the brothers linked by profound fraternal love.

22

The Darpo Brothers and the Sick King

ONCE UPON A TIME in a distant country there was a king who continually suffered from terrible, barely tolerable headaches. No doctor or shaman in his country had succeeded in curing him. The king had tried all means available to him to find a cure, but to no avail.

In despair, the king resorted to having his men put up thousands of little notices in all of his towns and villages—on tree trunks, in the marketplaces, and in places that merchant caravans passed by. The words on these notices were always the same: “The person who succeeds in curing the king’s headaches will receive half of his kingdom as a reward.”

Reading this notice, scores of people coming from different countries thronged the court hoping to be presented to the king so they could cure him. Among these people were renowned doctors and healers, but also magicians and a great number of charlatans. Everyone wanted to try his hand.

Weeks and months passed without any improvement in the king’s condition. On the contrary, the headaches got worse and worse, and the king thought he would soon die.

One day the Darpo brothers, who had traveled through many a country, also heard of the sick king’s offer. And this is what happened to them as they were passing through a dense forest: Darpo Born-in-Summer heard a voice that seemed to be coming from the top of a tree. Fascinated, the two brothers stopped and looked closely to see just where this strange voice was coming from. Darpo Born-in-Summer discovered to his great surprise that he was able to understand everything being said by a large crow perched on the top of the tree:

“It is a great pity that nobody understands me, because I know the answer to the enigma of the king’s illness. In his head, a poisonous spider is hidden. There is an effective method for getting it to come out. The king has to lay one of his ears down on a piece of cloth that is green like a lawn. Then somebody has to imitate the sound of thunder by turning a stone grinding wheel very close to his other ear. To imitate lightning, all that is necessary is to light an incense stick and move it back and forth near one of his ears. Next a wet branch has to be shaken near one of his ears to imitate a heavy rain. As a result of these tricks, the spider will think that a powerful summer storm is in progress, and all by herself she will crawl out of the king’s head. But because human beings don’t understand the language of crows, I can’t help them. What a shame! What a shame!”

And the crow flew off into the distance, leaving behind a perplexed Darpo Born-in-Summer, who had heard and understood everything.

Excitedly he told his brother everything. His brother looked at him somewhat incredulously. Yes, he thought, it was quite possible that living through a long period in darkness at the bottom of a well could have produced a transformation in Darpo Born-in-Summer’s perception, even to the point where he now possessed special powers. Without delay, the brothers made their appearance before the king, pretending to be powerful shamans from a very remote corner of Tibet. In spite of his many disappointments—because to this day no method had succeeded in helping him—the king was impressed by the persuasive words, the charm, and the singing of the two Darpo brothers, and his hope was revived. Thus he commanded that everything be brought and set up very exactly in accordance with the strange instructions of the two brothers, who themselves were following to the letter the indications of the big crow. And so indeed it happened that the spider came out of the king’s head, and in no time at all his headaches disappeared. After three days the king, once again completely himself and infinitely grateful, kept his word and gave half his kingdom to the two Darpo brothers as a reward. And that is not all! The king had two very beautiful daughters whom he gave to the Darpo brothers as brides.

Having become rich and noble, the brothers decided to continue to live together under the same roof. And when the old king died, they peacefully divided the kingdom between them. And they became a source of inspiration for all of their subjects.

“What good luck the Darpo brothers had in the midst of their bad luck!” Prince Dechö Zangpo exclaimed without thinking, spellbound as he was by this excellent story. Hardly had his words been said—he didn’t even have time to regret them—when, presto! the sack on his back opened up and released its prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

With a heavy heart and with a conscience heavily afflicted by this renewed failure of his, yet with a strong sense of perseverance, the prince turned on his heels and started back on the road to Silwaytsal. He promised never to let himself fall into the zombie’s trap again.

23

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

PRINCE DECHÖ ZANGPO once again traveled across the whole breadth of the kingdom to reach India and the dwelling place of the dead. He had hardly arrived there when he was again surrounded by large numbers of dead beings elbowing each other and all calling out at the same time: “Halala!” and “Hululu!” “I am the one you are looking for. Take me! Take me!”

At that point the prince followed the guru’s instructions and forced them away with the help of the cone-shaped red object, repeating over and over, “You are not the one. You are not the one.” This caused them to flee immediately.

Having done that, he saw that one among them was not behaving like the others and had a very different kind of body. The top of the odd one was gold, the bottom of him was silver, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. This one fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, saying, “I am not the right one! I am not the right one!” The prince knew for sure that this was Ngödrup Dorje, “He Who Fulfills All Dreams.” He took hold of the second object the guru had given him, the ax, with which he lightly touched the tree. This simple action made the top of the tree tremble, and the prince began to speak to Ngödrup Dorje: “Come down to the ground. If you don’t, I will cut down this sandalwood tree.”

You can guess what happened next. The prince used the magic ax to persuade the zombie to come down and let itself get captured in the sack, which was securely tied up with the magic rope. And so it was that the prince took his prisoner on his back and set off once again on the long road to the guru.

On the thirty-third day, as the prince was crossing that so-very-barren plain, weakened by thirst and hunger, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you a new story.”

The prince, who knew what to expect if he opened his mouth, restrained himself from replying, and the zombie recounted another tale yet more compelling than the previous ones.

24

Nana the Tiger

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a man who one day was pursued by a ferocious tiger named Nana. To escape from him, the man climbed as fast as he could into the nearest tree. Showing no pity, the tiger tried to catch hold of the man’s right foot, which was resting on a broken branch. With a horrendous aggressive roar, he bounded into the air toward his prey. The man immediately drew up his right foot and, with his last strength, climbed up a little bit farther toward the top of the tree. The mouth of the tiger, gaping wide, instead of biting the man’s foot, closed down on the broken branch. The tiger couldn’t get loose. A sharp and unbearable pain spread through his mouth. The more he twisted and turned trying to free himself, the more deeply he hooked himself on the point of the broken branch. Blood began flowing from his mouth, down along his muscular neck, and down along his empty belly.

Nana shrieked with pain and begged the man to help him. Seeing such a noble beast suffering so horribly, the man felt his heart fill with a feeling of compassion that replaced his terror. He quickly climbed down out of the tree and lifted up Nana the tiger as best he could in an effort to get his mouth off the hook of the pointed branch. At last free, the tiger regained his spirits and jumped on the man again with the intention of devouring him. The man, stunned, cried out, “I just saved your life. Could it be that you are so wicked and ungrateful that you want to eat me?”

Nana knew nothing but the law of the strongest. He knew nothing of gratitude and nothing of compassion. He expressed his way of seeing things, and the man shouted and expressed his regret for his act of kindness. They had been arguing a good while when a hare came along and heard them. Curious, the hare approached and asked them what it was they were arguing about. Glad to have somebody willing to listen to him, the man readily recounted to the hare what had happened. Very slyly the long-eared animal pretended not to fully understand the situation. He told them that he could help them determine which of them was right, but he would have to gain a better understanding of the situation. He asked them to show him what position each one of them had been in so he could sort out their disagreement. Right away the man, who had understood the hare’s plan, climbed back up the tree, and Nana, who was without doubt ferocious but also stupid, leaped up as he had before, his mouth open, and once again got himself hooked on the broken branch. Once again the beast shrieked with pain and begged the man for help. At this moment, the sly hare calmly said, “So there you have it. The situation is back the way it was before your argument. Now you have a second chance to think over carefully just what it is you want to do.”

“Well, that’s the end of Nana the tiger!” cried Prince Dechö Zangpo recklessly, having once again entirely dropped his vigilance. Immediately the sack on his back opened up and released its prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

So there Prince Dechö Zangpo was, alone again. Full of regret but also of courage, he quickly got a grip on himself and, feeling both perseverance and patience, resolved to go back to Silwaytsal. He promised himself that this time he would catch “He Who Fulfills All Dreams” and then hold his tongue all the way to the end of the long journey back to the guru’s cave.

25

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

CHEWING AND re-chewing his thoughts and reliving his failures again and again, Prince Dechö Zangpo at last reached India and the place called Silwaytsal. He did not waste more time than he had to getting rid of the dead beings who tried to attract his attention, and he quickly caught the zombie, Ngödrup Dorje, who was taunting him from the top of the sandalwood tree.

He shut him up in the sack and closed it firmly—as firmly, he thought, as he would keep his mouth closed this time, no matter what happened—and set out in the direction of the cave in Tibet, impatient to deposit his heavy burden at the feet of his venerated guru.

But the thirty-sixth day, as he was in the process of crossing the immense empty plain, feeling physically exhausted, Ngödrup Dorje began speaking in a very sweet and soothing voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you a new story.”

The prince held his tongue and the zombie quite gaily began telling him a very beautiful and spellbinding story.

26

The Horse Handler Who Never Lied

ONCE UPON A TIME in the high mountains of the Himalaya, there were two clans that were constantly keeping watch on each other to see which of the two had the greatest number of horses, cattle, sheep, and other wealth, and which of the two had the most courageous and strongest men. They never behaved badly toward each other. There was never a time when their good relations deteriorated. They remained like a pine tree, ever green in both summer and winter. Thus the two clans lived in peace for generations.

However, one day the chief of the highland clan had a bad thought. The subject of the thought was how he might go about acquiring all the possessions and wealth of the lowland clan. This thought took over his mind and became attached to it the way a shadow is attached to a body. Shortly after this thought took possession of him, without any obvious reason, he paid a visit the lowland clan. He spent a good while with the lowlanders and drank a good number of glasses in their company. His hidden purpose was to find out whatever he could about the other clan’s possessions.

One evening, when he had had too much to drink, he said to the lowland chief that he felt it was important for the two clans to get to know each other better. He then recounted to the lowlander how rich he had become and asked to be told in turn the extent of the riches of the lowland clan. The lowland chief replied with pride and pleasure that he possessed an extraordinary horse who had the eyes of a garuda—a sacred mythical vulture. This horse was the cousin of the king of the nagas. When mounted upon, he was as fast as the wind. His chest was as powerful as a tidal wave.

“On top of that,” said the lowland chief, “I have a horse handler who never lies.”

Incredulous, the chief of the highland clan replied, “Amazing. Sure it’s possible that you might have an unusual horse, but that you have a handler who never lies—who would believe that!?”

In the end, the chief of the highland clan issued a challenge, saying:

“I’ll make you a bet about the honesty of your horse handler. If he really and truly does not lie, I’d be ready to give you half my land, half my horses, my possessions, my wealth, my sheep, and my serving men. But if the contrary is the case, it’s you who will owe me half of everything you own.”

And the two chiefs went on to sign a document confirming this challenge in the presence of the two clans and all of their neighbors.

It so happened that the horse handler in question was at that time keeping the horses in his care in a pen belonging to some nomads. One night a very beautiful woman came to see him in his mountain meadow. She told him she had lost her way and asked him for shelter for the night. The horse handler, as generous as he was honest, offered her hospitality for three or four nights. Little by little she proved herself so helpful to her host that she became indispensable to him. She helped him pitch a black nomad tent woven from yak hair, took the cattle to pasture in the morning, and then, returning in the evening, did the cooking and a goodly number of other routine chores. She no longer talked about leaving. Never in his life had the horse handler known such happiness. That is why he finally decided to keep the beautiful, sweet woman with him. From this time on, every moment of his life was filled with joy. It was like having the New Year celebration all year long.

A long time went by. One night, as they were sleeping in their black tent, the horse handler saw that the beautiful woman was tossing and turning and suffering badly. Filled with compassion, he asked her what he could do to help her, what remedy he could go and find to cure her sickness. Hesitantly she replied that there was indeed a remedy, but he would certainly not be able to get it for her. The horse handler was ready for anything. He begged her to let him know what he had to do. He said that he would be willing to cut off a piece of his own flesh if that is what was needed to help his beautiful friend. She revealed then that the only remedy that would save her would be to eat the heart and liver of the horse with the garuda eyes. After having made this dire confession, she went back to bemoaning her pain.

Very shocked by what he had heard, the horse handler did not know what to do. He felt he could not touch this horse, because it was an animal that was extremely precious in this world. But the woman’s mysterious illness got worse from day to day, and he had to witness her intolerable suffering. His head felt like water was boiling inside it. He could no longer sleep.

One night he went out to the horse pen and lay down next to that horse that was so out of the ordinary. It was very cold out, and he rolled himself up in a fur blanket. His heart was heavy and he shed many tears. Suddenly he heard a voice very close to him that said, “Do not be so sad for me. I heard everything the woman told you. Now listen closely to what I have to say. Take me tomorrow to the herd of mares so that I can mount them and guarantee that my lineage will continue. After that, do not hesitate to kill me so you can save the woman.”

The horse handler was so stunned, so astonished to hear the divine horse talking in human language, that he was even less able to imagine killing him than before. Nonetheless, the following morning he did exactly as the horse with the garuda eyes had asked him. He took him to the mares. That evening he went to fetch him but could not make up his mind to kill him. The divine horse became impatient. Vehemently pawing the ground with his hooves, he asked the horse handler to kill him on the spot. With his heart extremely heavy, thinking of the terrible suffering the woman was undergoing, trembling in every limb, the horse handler killed the divine horse. Then he gave the heart and liver, still warm and fresh, to the gravely ill beauty. The woman was instantly healed, and the next day, when he went to take his herd of horses out to pasture, the woman left at the same time, and she never returned again.

In fact she had returned to the house of her own husband, who was waiting for her impatiently. Her husband was none other than the chief of the highland clan, who had sent her to the horse handler with a secret mission. Once back, she showed her husband the heart and liver of the divine horse whom she had had killed. Very much satisfied, the chief of the highland clan did not waste a moment. His evidence in hand, he went to the house of the chief of the lowland clan so he could announce to him that his own horse handler had killed his divine horse.

As soon as the lowland chief saw the horse’s heart and liver, he sent a messenger to go and find the horse handler. The horse handler hastened to obey the summons of his chief. On the road, he did a lot of thinking, because he had little doubt that his chief knew what he had done. He expected to be seriously punished. He realized that since that fateful day when he had killed the horse, he had not known a single day of joy or happiness. His heart was filled with sadness and great regret for having killed the magnificent divine horse with the garuda eyes. Thus he took pleasure in the idea that he could ease his conscience by telling his chief the whole truth, thus ridding himself of the heavy burden that rested on his shoulders.

With these thoughts in mind, he ran fast—with a lighter and lighter step—until at last he arrived before the chief, who was in his tent with many people around him. In front of everyone, the chief of the lowland clan asked him how his care of the divine horse with the garuda eyes had been going. The honest horse handler replied in all candor that he had been obliged to kill the horse in order to cure a beautiful woman from a mysterious illness. Full of remorse, he asked to be brought before a judge so he could be condemned for this crime. The chief of the highland clan and his wife were both witness to the faultless honesty of the horse handler of the lowland clan. They were completely dumbstruck, as though a deafening clap of thunder had sounded, yet there was not a cloud in the sky, except for one very small one the size of a mouse’s head.

“No! No!” were the sole words that escaped their lips.

It was only at this moment that the horse handler realized that the beautiful woman was the wife of the chief of the highland clan and that he had just had his honesty put on trial without his knowing it. After this incontestable proof of the integrity of the horse handler of the lowland clan, the highland chief had no choice but to honor his written pledge and give the lowland chief half of all his possessions and half his wealth. As a reward, the lowland chief gave a large part of his newfound gain to his brave horse handler, who thereafter lived for many years in joy and happiness.

At this moment, despite all of his vigilance, the following words escaped the lips of Prince Dechö Zangpo, who had been entirely captivated by the story: “I wonder how many foals the divine horse produced just before he died.”

At this, the sack on his back opened by itself and released its prisoner, the formidable Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

Too late! Prince Dechö Zangpo was left alone in that desolate place with a great feeling of remorse and failure. But he was well aware that nothing would change the situation and that there was only one thing for him to do. Showing enormous patience, courage, and perseverance, he returned to India.

27

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

AFTER A LONG and dangerous journey, Prince Dechö Zangpo finally arrived again at Silwaytsal. Hardly had he arrived when he was once again surrounded by many dead beings, who elbowed each other to get closer, all calling out at the same time: “Halala!” and “Hululu!” “It’s me you’re looking for. Take me! Take me!” Taking out of his pocket the red cone-shaped object that Guru Ludrup had given him, he touched their heads with it, repeating over and over, “You’re not the right one! You’re not the right one!” This made them flee immediately. After a while, looking around he saw one dead being who was not behaving like the others and who had a very different body. He was gold on top, silver on the bottom, and he had a mane of pure turquoise. That one fled to the top of a sandalwood tree, crying, “I’m not the one! I’m not the one!”

But the prince used his magic ax, and Ngödrup Dorje came down from the tree without needing to be asked. Quickly the prince got hold of him and imprisoned him in the magic sack, which he carefully secured with the rope. Then he joyfully set off on the road to liberation again, telling himself in his head over and over again this time not to let the slightest sound escape his lips no matter what happened in the course of the long journey to the cave.

The thirty-ninth day, as the prince was painfully trudging across the great barren plain, the very sweet and soothing voice of Ngödrup Dorje came from the sack:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a place the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

The prince, on his guard, did not utter a word, and so the zombie began telling him a story that was still more compelling than the ones he had told before.

28

The Three Sisters

A VERY LONG TIME AGO, in a high and very remote valley, there lived three sisters, the daughters of a peasant. The eldest was called Serso Kye, “Born with Gold Teeth.” The middle one was called Ngulso Kye, “Born with Silver Teeth.” As to the youngest, she was named Dungso Kye, “Born with Pearl Teeth.” As often used to happen in the villages in the old days, hardly had the first baby girl been born when the mother became pregnant with the second. And the same thing happened after the birth of the second one—the mother immediately became pregnant with the third. This could have gone on for years if there had not been complications with the birth of the third daughter, Dungso Kye, as a result of which the mother died.

So the sisters grew up with their father, who had become a widower too young and who never recovered from the grief caused by the death of his beloved wife. When the eldest daughter reached marriage age, he suddenly died of heart failure. The whole village joined together in helping the three orphans to organize the funeral ceremony in accordance with tradition. As the family had only very modest resources, only a few monks were invited from the local monastery to watch over the deceased, a process that, in accordance with Tibetan tradition, lasted for three days and three nights. The prayers of the monks accompanied the father’s spirit in the difficult journey through the bardo, an intermediate state in which the dead person wanders for a maximum of forty-nine days. The three orphans observed a mourning period of one year. They refrained from singing and dancing and did not participate in any festive events. But the people of the village were very considerate toward them and were a big help to them in getting through this difficult period.

One day they learned of the existence of a prince named Yunna Relpa, “He Whose Forehead Is Adorned with Turquoise.” He lived in a big castle on the mountain. The villagers gave out that he was a very handsome young man who was also intelligent and of good character—and that he was searching throughout the region for a wife.

The oldest of the three orphans, Serso Kye, decided to try her luck. One fine morning she set off into the mountains to try to meet and seduce Yunna Relpa. Traveling on the only road to the castle, she reached a place that was extremely narrow and dangerous. It had a high rock wall on one side and a sheer precipice on the other. There Serso Kye saw a man lying on the ground blocking the passage. She went right up to him and shouted, “Hey there, get up and let me pass!”

The man did not respond, and she gave him a kick to see if he was still alive. That was when the man replied to her in a sleepy voice, “Try to go around me if you can. If you can’t, then climb over me and get by that way.”

Serso Kye was very impatient and quite angry with this sort of drunken lout who was blocking her way, so she did not think the matter over long. She climbed first onto and then over him, swearing in a vile manner all the while, and went swiftly on her way, without even looking back. The man then easily got to his feet. It was Prince Yunna Relpa disguised as a simple man of the people. He said to himself, “That girl is certainly not one with whom I have shared karma in the past, and she is certainly not the one to whom I now would want to make offerings of jewels and rich brocade gowns!”

After having been away for a long time, Serso Kye returned to the village without having had any success. Resentfully, she recounted to her sisters how she had not been able even to see Prince Yunna Relpa despite her assiduous efforts.

So then Ngulso Kye, the second sister, announced that now she also wanted to try her luck. One fine morning she set off for the mountains to try to meet and seduce Prince Yunna Relpa. Traveling on the only road that led to his castle, just like her elder sister before her, she reached a place that was extremely narrow and dangerous, with a high rock wall on one side and a sheer precipice on the other. There Ngulso Kye saw a man lying on the ground entirely blocking the passage. She went right up to him and shouted, “Hey there! Get up and let me pass by!”

Since the man did not move, she gave him a kick to see if he was still alive. It was at that point that the man replied in a sleepy voice, “Try to go around me if you can. If you can’t, climb over me!”

Impatient and very angry at having this drunken fellow blocking her path, Ngulso Kye did not think the matter over long. She climbed over him, swearing in a vile manner all the while, and went swiftly on her way, not even favoring him with a backward glance. The man got easily to his feet. It was, of course, Prince Yunna Relpa disguised as a simple man of the people. He said to himself, “This girl and I have no karma in common! It’s certainly not her to whom I am inclined to make offerings of jewels and rich brocade gowns.”

After a long while away, Ngulso Kye returned to the house. She too had been unsuccessful. She recounted to her sisters that she had not been able even to catch a glimpse of the prince in spite of having tried quite hard.

Dungso Kye, the youngest of the three sisters, highly intrigued by everything she had heard from her two sisters, decided to try her luck at just setting her eyes on the legendary prince, Yunna Relpa. One fine morning, in her turn, she left for the mountains. On the one road that led to the castle, she came upon the same extremely narrow and dangerous spot, with a high rock wall on one side and a sheer precipice on the other. There, just like her two sisters before her, Dungso Kye saw a man lying on the ground blocking the way. She went up to him and said, “Hey, there! Get up and let me pass by!”

When the man did not move, she bent over and shook him very gently to see if he was still alive. At that point, the man replied to her, saying, “Try to go around me if you can. If you can’t, climb over me!”

Surprised, Dungso Kye thought for a moment about what she should do. Finally, she said, “I don’t see how I could get by going around you, and, being a respectable girl, I would never climb over a man’s body. So I’m going to wait patiently until you get up and then I’ll be on my way.”

“Where are you going?” asked the man.

Dungso Kye politely replied:

“I’m going up the mountain to see the young prince Yunna Relpa, of whom I have heard tell. People say that his wealth and power are without equal as are both his outer and inner beauty. For that reason I would simply like to see him for myself just once. So I am on my way to the castle on the mountain.”

Of course the man lying on the ground was none other than Prince Yunna Relpa, whose wish was to marry a young woman of excellent character, a respectable girl with a good heart. In order not to be recognized, he had been disguising himself as a simple man of the people and subjecting the young women he met to this small trial. When he heard the response of the third young woman, he felt an immense joy, which for the moment he kept hidden. Without revealing his identity, he simply told her that he had gotten enough rest for now and had to be on his way. He quickly disappeared into the distance on his way back to the castle.

Glad that her path was no longer blocked, Dungso Kye continued her climb to the castle. All of a sudden she heard loud barking and saw in the distance a large dog with a terrifying appearance. She was very frightened, because she knew the dogs kept by the nomads were fierce guard dogs who allowed no one to approach either their masters’ tents or their cattle. For that reason, Dungso Kye was quite relieved, when she got closer to the dog, to see that it was tied up. But at the same moment, she saw some torn-up clothing lying on the ground. She recognized with horror that these dust-laden clothes were those of the man who had lain blocking her path just a little while ago. She immediately assumed that the huge beast had attacked and probably killed the poor fellow. In shock and overcome by great sadness, she began to pray and recite mantras for the unfortunate victim in the hope this would help him attain a good reincarnation. As she continued on her way, she shed a great many tears for this unknown person.

When Dungso Kye finally arrived at the castle, she was still in tears. She ran across a sympathetic servant, who was really Prince Yunna Relpa again in a different disguise. Before returning to his castle, he had torn up the clothes he was wearing and thrown them away on the road so that he could dress up as a servant. When he saw Dungso Kye in such grief, he asked what had befallen her. Without recognizing him, she recounted the story of why she had left home and what strange and sad things had happened to her on her way. Once again, the prince was able to see clearly what a beautiful soul his karma had caused him to encounter—finally, after searching in vain for such a long time. He felt great happiness, but still hid his feelings, because the moment had not yet come to reveal to the young woman who he was.

In an attempt to draw Dungso Kye out of her deep grieving, he told her that, in a past life, this poor man had doubtless accumulated bad karma with the guard dog, as a result of which the dog was bound to kill him in this life. And indeed, these wise words from the mouth of a simple servant caused Dungso Kye to reflect a great deal, and she stopped crying.

“Tomorrow, the whole castle will be celebrating. Many guests will be invited from countries far and wide, and you will have a chance to catch a glimpse of the prince, who of course will be there,” the prince told her. Then he added, “If you like, I could find you some beautiful clothes and some jewelry so that you can mingle easily with the other guests.”

Naturally this was great news for Dungso Kye, because it meant that she could at least see the prince she had heard so much about. Thus she would be able to recount the whole story in detail to her two sisters, who had not had her good luck. She was very excited and could hardly sleep that night. The following day, the servant lent her a brocade gown and some lovely jewelry. Thus she was able to blend in with the crowd of guests.

All at once, the arrival of the young prince Yunna Relpa was announced, and a band of wind instruments played a great fanfare. He was received by the people with all due respect and devotion. His magnificent brocade clothes and his ornaments of gold set with diamonds and turquoises and corals and pearls sparkled in the sun as he seated himself on his throne. With a graceful gesture, he gave the signal to begin the presentation of dancing and singing. Then he looked on with pleasure as athletes engaged in various competitions, such as stone lifting, archery, spear throwing, horse racing, and many other athletic contests.

Dungso Kye had eyes only for the handsome prince, Yunna Relpa, whom she did not recognize at all. Nothing else could capture her interest, and without even realizing it, she fell head over heels in love with him. At the end of the day, before the crowd dispersed, the prince rose from the throne and quickly withdrew. He changed back into his servant’s clothes so he could meet again with the very sweet and very beautiful Dungso Kye. He asked her if she had enjoyed the festivities and what had stood out most for her. With dreamy eyes, she told him that it had been the most wonderful day of her life, because she had been able to look upon the handsome and charming prince in all his splendor. The prince’s heart bounded in his breast, and he finally revealed himself to her, asking her on the spot for her hand in marriage. Wonderstruck and amazed at this incredible chain of events, Dungso Kye began again to cry, but this time for boundless happiness and joy.

“What good karma to have met such a sweet and beautiful woman as Dungso Kye,” sighed Prince Dechö Zangpo without thinking. Oh goodness—what had he said! Once more the sack on his back opened by itself and released its prisoner, Ngödrup Dorje. Gloating hugely, the zombie declared, “Here’s the blow you deserve for talking back!” and he disappeared in a puff of wind.

His heart heavy, Dechö Zangpo remained all alone in that desolate place with a great feeling of remorse and failure. But in spite of everything, he showed great patience with himself. Showing enormous resilience and great determination, he decided once and for all to carry out the mission that the guru Gömpo Ludrup had laid upon him. He pledged firmly not to let the cunning zombie escape again, and he turned his steps toward Silwaytsal, resolved to capture “He Who Fulfills All Dreams” and place him before the great sage in the cave.

29

Hunting Down the Zombie Again

ONCE AGAIN, Prince Dechö Zangpo crossed the whole breadth of the kingdom until he reached India and the place where the dead dwelled. Eager to get the job done, he kept forcing them to move aside by using the red cone-shaped object, looking around for that distinctive body that was gold on top, silver on the bottom, and had a mane of pure turquoise. He spotted it easily—the zombie in question had taken refuge in the top of a sandalwood tree. The prince took out his ax and touched the trunk of the tree lightly with it. He threatened the zombie, saying, “Come down to the ground; otherwise I’m going to cut down this sandalwood tree!”

Ngödrup Dorje, sure of not remaining a prisoner for very long, replied, “You poor prince, you are going to tire yourself out. Wait, I will be the one to make the effort. I will come down to where you are.”

Thus the prince caught the sly zombie without difficulty and once more put it in the magic sack, which he securely fastened.

On the forty-ninth day, the prince was in the process of crossing the great barren plain that had seen him so many times before, when Ngödrup Dorje began speaking to him in a spellbinding voice:

“In this desolate region, there are no people and you will not find a place to rest, not even a spot the size of a prairie-dog dropping. So to make this long journey a little more pleasant, I propose two solutions. Either you, who are a living being, tell me a story, or I, who am a dead being, will tell you one.”

The prince remained silent, and then the zombie began telling him another beautiful and incredible story.

30

The King of Pearls

ONCE IN A certain country there lived a king and queen who regularly had themselves entertained by their court fool. The fool was known as the King of Pearls, because every time he laughed he vomited a great number of exquisite pearls. With the intention of accumulating the greatest possible number of pearls, the king invited to his court many entertainers who were able to make the fool laugh. Now, one day at one of these events, though everyone else was laughing to the point of tears, the fool himself was not able to laugh. This made the king very angry, because he attributed this failure to some bad intention on the part of the King of Pearls. So he began thinking how to punish him.

What had really happened was that the previous evening, when the poor fool had come home, he caught his wife in the midst of deceiving him with another man. That put him in such a bad mood that nothing could make him laugh.

After the evening’s entertainment at which he had not been able even to smile, the fool, fearing the king’s wrath, was afraid to go home and decided to go spend the night in the stables. But strange noises there kept him from sleeping. Someone was banging against one of the posts in the stable with a wooden stick, and a male voice, impatient and furious, kept repeating over and over, “She’s still not here! She’s still not here!” The fool recognized the voice of the stable master. It was he who was carrying on in this very strange manner. But the explanation for his behavior was not long in coming. From his hiding place, the King of Pearls heard the hurried steps of a woman entering the stable. As soon as she spoke, he recognized the voice of the king’s wife. No matter what excuses she came up with for being late, her angry lover kept beating her and beating her. He beat the living daylights out of her. Then as though no such thing had happened, she yielded herself to the stable master and cheated on the king right before the fool’s eyes.

Upset by what he saw, the King of Pearls thought to himself that if even the king could be betrayed by his wife, the fool’s own situation of being betrayed by his wife was in fact not so unbearable. For that reason, that night he fell asleep quite peacefully on his pile of straw.

The following day at noon, he was taking his meal as usual at the royal table. He noticed that the queen was quite nervous. She was not able to eat keeping her chopsticks perfectly parallel in accordance with the etiquette of the Chinese court. After some time, she accidentally let her chopsticks cross, as though she were not accustomed to eating in the proper court manner. Noticing this trifle, the king lightly tapped his wife’s hands with his own chopsticks by way of reminding her of her manners. At once the queen began to cry and shout, accusing the king of having struck her. At this, the king’s fool was suddenly seized by a huge fit of laughter, which he was unable to stop. Everyone was amazed.

As he laughed, he vomited thousands and thousands of pearls, which all the courtiers avidly rushed to pick up. Nobody was in the least concerned about what had provoked the King of Pearls’ fit of laughter. The fact was that he found it just too funny that the queen had made such a fuss about the king’s mild tap to remind her of her manners, when the night before she had submitted to an avalanche of blows from the stick wielded by her lover and had then given herself to him despite the beating!

Finding all of this outrageous, Dechö Zangpo opened his mouth to say aloud what he was silently thinking: “What a hypocrite this queen was!” But the long period of hard training he had gone through and all the failures he had suffered had had the effect of making his vigilance advance to a very high state. Just in time, he remembered what would happen if he spoke. He bit his lips, clenched his teeth, and kept the words from coming out of his mouth. He continued peacefully on his way without listening to the cries and protestations of the zombie Ngödrup Dorje, who was feeling the power of his captor’s presence of mind. The excellent prince at last arrived before the cave of the great master Gömpo Ludrup. He felt tremendous relief at having at last succeeded in completing his great and difficult mission.

Epilogue

The tale has told us of the difficulty Prince Dechö Zangpo had in not allowing himself to be captivated by all the zombie’s wonderful stories. Because of that difficulty, he was obliged to go back to India again and again to recapture him. These stories were so beautiful and so compelling that they caused his vigilance to slip again and again, no matter how hard he tried to prevent it. A moment always came in which he forgot his commitment to silence and responded to the words of the cunning zombie. Thus the zombie was freed from his captivity time and again and was able to go back home to India.

Thus it is told that after eighteen (some say twenty-four) long and perilous journeys from Tibet to India, the prince finally succeeded in capturing the zombie and bringing him all the way back to the guru Gömpo Ludrup. After all the time he had spent on this very difficult task, it was with a feeling of immense relief that the prince laid his heavy burden down before the old sage.

“There, it’s done!” the prince allowed himself to say through sheer inattention. Instantly the sack opened and once again the triumphantly gloating zombie escaped to India. But the old sage of the cave was an extraordinary being possessed of a high level of intuition. He made a deft and rapid movement to catch hold of Ngödrup Dorje. But he failed! That is to say, he almost failed, because the guru was able to grasp three hairs from the renowned zombie’s mane. Making use of these, he was able to exterminate entirely several incurable diseases and save the lives of a great many people throughout the world. In this way the prince’s bad karma, after so much time and effort, was finally purified.

At last the prince was able to return home to his parents, the king and the queen. They had aged a great deal because of the grief they had suffered at the disappearance of their only son. Everyone had believed he was dead. But now the young prince had become a fine and handsome man, tall of stature and with a royal bearing. Once in his kingdom, despite his shabby traveling clothes, people immediately recognized him as he passed by and they followed him all the way to the palace. The news of his return spread like wildfire throughout the land, and word of it rapidly reached the king and queen. Still in disbelief, they waited for his arrival at the palace. Seeing him, they were beside themselves with happiness. They had really regained their beloved son. They prepared a great feast to which all the people were invited. It was a magnificent and joyful celebration that lasted seven weeks. The royal parents chose a bride for him, a bride worthy of their son—beautiful, intelligent, and with a big and noble heart. The marriage ceremony was performed—and on the same occasion, the prince was enthroned as the new king. This began an era of boundless happiness for the entire kingdom.

The royal couple had fourteen children, all beautiful, intelligent, and endowed with good hearts, like their parents. In spite of the heavy task of guiding the country on a path that would bring benefit to the people, the king saved some time for his wife and children. He regaled them with all the fine stories that the zombie Ngödrup Dorje had related to him during all those trips from India back to Tibet. Little by little, these stories became known throughout the palace, and then, in not so very long, they spread beyond it, so that in the end all the people of Tibet came to know them.

So it was that my grandmother learned them from her parents and told them to my father, who in his turn transmitted them to me during my childhood in Germany. I am very happy now to be able to share some of them with you through the present volume. I hope that as time goes by, you will tell them to those around you, and in this way the wonderful stories of the zombie Ngödrup Dorje will live forever.

Afterword

It was my wish through these tales to introduce you to the world of imagination of the Tibetan people as well as to some social, cultural, and spiritual aspects of Tibetan life. I also wanted to address a topic of current concern. I am referring to the psychological quality of obsessive attachment and its destructive consequences. Nowadays, what with the Internet and other new technologies, hardly a day passes when we do not learn of a variety of dreadful occurrences brought about by an obsessive attitude toward power, money, sex, passion, and various perversions in these different areas. These events clearly show us the high degree of ignorance that prevails in our world regarding the path toward happiness and lasting inner peace.

The framing story in our tale illustrates the point of view and practical approach of Buddhism with regard to attachment. In Buddhism, attachment is regarded as one of the three fundamental causes of suffering and the negative actions that bring about bad karma.

The Buddha taught that there is no self that exists independently of its environment. Nothing in this world exists independently in itself. We have been created and exist in an interdependent fashion. We and our world are the result of the coming together of various conditions. Thus the self exists on the level of relative reality but not on the level of ultimate reality. It is this relative self that we experience in everyday life. We assign it a proper name at the time of birth, and little by little we let ourselves be drawn into the illusion of an “I” existing by itself, without any link to its environment. This is an erroneous and dangerous approach, because it encourages belief in duality and in the total separation of self and other. Such an outlook results in the conflicting feelings of desire, attachment, and aversion—hatred toward people and things. In the opposite approach, the approach of Buddhism, our view is that all things form a unity and that the various phenomena of this world, self and other, though they appear to be separate, are in fact communicating vessels. Such a view should lead us to the thought that if I cause harm to others, I cause harm to myself—and if I do good to others, I do good to myself at the same time.

It is not my intention to pass judgment here. I would only like to point out what the framing story for the zombie’s tales shows so clearly: how deeply and how quickly every one of us can get caught up in a web of obsessive attachment, desire, greed, pride, jealousy, grief, or anger—to the point where we are no longer able to step back and analyze our situation accurately and no longer able to gauge the consequences of our actions.

In the story of Prince Dechö Zangpo, we learn that he was possessed of many skills and inner resources, which initially he used with destructive intent. After his meeting with the great master and his moment of realization, he managed to make significant use of these skills and inner resources on his path of transformation toward a more constructive and meaningful life. If we ourselves direct our awareness in the right direction, we will be able to see that the things that present themselves to us as problems are the very things that lead us to solutions. Thus the prince’s perseverance, his courage, ingenuity, creativity, intelligence, flexibility, and even vigilance, which he initially used to satisfy his obsession with magic, in the end led him to fulfill his mission and to purify himself of his bad karma. In the functioning of a human being, everything is useful, everything is recyclable, nothing needs to be thrown away, and nothing new has to be invented. Everything is there, in front of our eyes. This is a profoundly ecological vision. If we proceed to apply it, we will find that by wasting less energy, we can reach lasting solutions to our problems and come to a more fruitful level of development and greater inner peace in our lives. This approach is within everyone’s reach, regardless of ethnicity, religion, political views, or professional and social status. All we have to do to transform our weaknesses and strengths is to change our inner outlook toward things.

By constantly struggling against things—by practicing the mode of exclusion—we waste, energy, time, and money. It is not an efficient way of proceeding because it only reinforces the resistances we face. By using what we have, by contrast, we practice the mode of inclusion and we economize on energy, time, and money. For example, we can all agree that it would be stupid to refuse to use a knife because we had cut ourselves on it one day. By learning to use it properly, we go on beyond our first negative experience and we come to see its usefulness and efficiency. With such an approach we expand our horizons. All the same, there is a big difference between a simple object like a knife and a trait of human character. While an object deteriorates and wears out as it is used, a human trait develops and becomes more refined every time it is called upon. This is the way that our inner wealth and our confidence in ourselves increase.

The Buddhist Path

Buddhism is a therapeutic approach that aims at overcoming suffering. The Buddha said, “When a man is wounded by an arrow and he wants to find out the name and caste of the perpetrator, he puts himself in mortal danger. As for me, my teaching is to remove the arrow.”

On this path to liberation from all suffering, the Buddhist texts make very clear the importance of the quality of the connection that binds together a realized teacher and their disciple. Ultimately, it is this connection that enables the disciple to understand and integrate spiritual practice into their being. This was the case between Gömpo Ludrup and Prince Dechö Zangpo. Their solid and unfailing connection made it possible for the prince to transcend his faults over time and to free himself from his bad karma.

KARMA

“Karma” is a Sanskrit word. The Tibetan word is le (las), meaning “action.” An action can be performed by the body, through speech, or by mind. Karma is a universal law according to which our actions, whether they cause suffering or happiness, necessarily lead to analogous consequences for ourselves. This law is absolutely just and is a principle that brings both balance and development.

It is not the purpose of the law of karma to punish or reward human beings. By confronting us continually with the consequences of our own actions, this law makes us aware of the fact that we alone are responsible for what happens to us. Actions and their effects form an endless chain, because in their turn the effects cause further effects. Even our most insignificant actions have positive or negative repercussions on ourselves and on our environments. These repercussions are what determine the quality and conditions of our lives in the present and in the future.

According to the Buddhist point of view, there are two kinds of karma. There is the kind we have created in the recent past or in the course of previous incarnations, which is poised to come to fruition in the form of inevitable events in our present life. The second kind of karma is the kind we produce in every moment of our present action. Through our attitude toward ourselves and others, moment by moment we modify our present, determine our future, and repair our past.

We ourselves are the artisans and masters of our lives and our reincarnations. Our karmic potential ripens and is realized the very moment the right conditions for it come together. That might happen right away, in a few years, or after a number of lifetimes.

A prophecy by the great seventh-century master Guru Rinpoche, whose Sanskrit name is Padmasambhava (“Lotus Born”), tells us that the karmic law of cause and effect is operating faster and faster, and that sometime in the future it will produce its results almost instantly. Nowadays, in our everyday life, there are quite a number of tangible signs that indicate that we might reap in a very short time what we have sown by our actions of body, speech, and mind, the positive results as well as the negative ones.

THE SIX PARAMITAS:
THE TRANSCENDENT VIRTUES

The six transcendent virtues are the very heart of the training of the Great Vehicle, the Mahayana. They may be looked at successively, with one forming the basis that permits the next to develop. However, altogether they form an indivisible whole. They are interdependent, with each one being purified by the five others. Thus all of them develop simultaneously on the path of awakening.

Generosity, the Antidote to Greed

•  Cultivate the kind of generosity that is without attachment and is unconditional.

•  Give, and then abandon or let go of what you have given.

Ethics or Right Conduct, the Antidote to Lust

Right conduct is one of the aspects of the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism.

•  Maintain right speech: do not lie, do not spread discord or divisiveness, do not use coarse language, do not engage in idle chatter, conduct yourself properly (with regard to the Five Precepts).

•  Engage in right livelihood or a wholesome profession.

Patience, the Antidote to Anger

The practice of patience is one of the perfections or transcendent virtues in the Theravada and Mahayana schools of Buddhism.

•  Tolerate the ingratitude of others.

•  Gladly endure difficulties, trials, and privations as part of your spiritual practice.

Perseverance or Enthusiastic Energy, the Antidote to Laziness

Perseverance is one of the five controlling faculties, one of the five powers, and one of the five factors of enlightenment. It is identical to the element of right effort on the Noble Eightfold Path.

•  Practice difficult and sustained efforts in order to surmount giving in to incapacity.

Meditation, the Antidote to Distraction or Scattered Mind

The term “meditation” designates contemplation and various states of concentration.

•  One may choose one’s own breath or any other object or image as a support for meditation.

Wisdom, the Antidote to Ignorance

Wisdom is also called transcendent awareness. It is symbolized by a bell in Buddhist rituals and Buddhist spiritual imagery. It is regarded as feminine in nature. Only acute perception is capable of attaining “transcendent wisdom,” which, as its name indicates, transcends the individual mind or ego insofar as it is fragmented and fraught with dualistic projections, and in this way it makes possible a more accurate understanding of existence.

•  One should realize the non-existence of the individual self and also realize that all things are devoid of unconditioned existence; one must thus understand the interdependence of all phenomena.

QUESTIONS TO STIMULATE PERSONAL REFLECTION CONCERNING EACH OF THE SIX VIRTUES

1.  What do unconditional generosity, ethics, patience, perseverance, meditation, and wisdom, respectively, mean for me?

2.  How do I put each one of these into practice concretely?

3.  If I do not practice these, what is it that is preventing me from doing it?

4.  What are the practical advantages of practicing generosity, ethics, patience, perseverance, meditation, and wisdom?

5.  What are the difficulties of practicing generosity, ethics, patience, perseverance, meditation, and wisdom?

6.  What are the possible fruits of these practices?

Glossary

ACCUMULATION OF MERIT

In Tibetan, sonam kyi tsok. This is one of the two accumulations: (1) accumulation of merit; and (2) accumulation of wisdom. This first accumulation makes it possible, through generosity and other practices, to acquire favorable karma. It consists of generating in the mind, little by little, a positive flow, which later enables one to reap the good results of authentic practice and also facilitates the spiritual path.

AVALOKITESHVARA

This is a Sanskrit name. The Tibetan name is Chenrezi. Tibetans sometimes also simply call him Chomdende (Bhagavat in Sanskrit), a general epithet for a buddha. He is the buddha who personifies compassion. His practice is very popular in Tibet and throughout the Buddhist world. He is depicted with one or several faces, with one or several pairs of arms—up to as many as one thousand arms altogether. His mantra is OM MANI PADME HUM. The Tibetan people consider the Dalai Lama to be an emanation of Avalokiteshvara.

BARDO

A Tibetan word designating the intermediate state between death and the ensuing (re)birth. When a death occurs, the kin of the deceased invite monks to chant specific prayers during the period of the bardo—which is a maximum of forty-nine days—in order to guide the deceased to a favorable rebirth.

BODHISATTVA

A Sanskrit word; the Tibetan is changchup sempa, which means “hero of enlightened mind.” For the sake of (continuing to work for) all beings, such a hero renounces entering into the state of a buddha of complete liberation or enlightenment.

BUDDHA

A Sanskrit word, which in Tibetan is sangye. A buddha, an “awakened one,” is someone who has succeeded in liberating him- or herself from the three poisons: attachment or desire, hatred or anger, and ignorance. These are the sources of all suffering, and they are what generate karma.

BUDDHIST ROSARY

Mala in Sanskrit. It consists of 108 beads and is most often used to count mantras. The number 108 refers to the same number of volumes of canonical Buddhist texts. The mala is held with the left hand and, if possible, at the level of the heart.

CHANG

A fermented drink made from barley in a process similar to that for making beer. Low in alcohol, it is very much appreciated by many Tibetans.

COMPASSION

Bodhichitta in Sanskrit. The practice of compassion begins with an altruistic thought directed toward enlightened mind and continues with activities directed toward enlightenment. The aspiration and motivation of compassion have as their aim continuing to work for the welfare of all beings for as long as they continue to suffer.

GARUDA

A Sanskrit word; khyung in Tibetan. A mythical bird who is the enemy of snakes and nagas. The garuda is an important element in rituals performed to cure diseases brought about by the nagas. Guru Rinpoche left behind propitious garuda-related liturgies for the healing of such diseases.

GÖMPO LUDRUP

The Tibetan for the Indian name Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna means “He Who Subjugates the Nagas.” Nagarjuna was a great Indian master to whom many writings are attributed. The most famous concern the Middle Way, of which he is considered the originator. According to legend, Gömpo Ludrup went to the realm of the nagas (deities having the form of snakes) to teach them the Dharma.

GREEN TARA

Green Tara is a female deity who symbolizes compassion that acts with the speed of the wind. Her legs are arranged in the bodhisattva posture. The left leg [folded in] represents renunciation of the passions; her right leg, which is partly extended, shows that she is ready at any moment to rise up and go to the aid of beings. The people of Tibet regard her as the mother of all the buddhas, or the embodiment of the perfection of knowledge (prajñaparamita). Her mantra is OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SVAHA.

GURU RINPOCHE

Tibetan, “Precious master.” His Sanskrit name is Padmasambhava (“Lotus Born”). He is considered to have been the founder of Buddhism in Tibet. Tibetans venerate him very highly and regard him as a second Buddha. His extraordinary, legendary life is an edifying example for spiritual practitioners.

INNER VEILS OF OBSCURATION

Two main categories are distinguished, and thus the name “the two veils” is also used. These two veils include the range of factors that cover over or hide the buddha nature in every sentient being and thus act as obstacles to the attainment of liberation and enlightenment. The two are the veil of emotional obscuration, which impedes liberation, and the veil of cognitive obscuration, which is an obstacle to omniscience and thus to the attainment of the complete enlightenment of a buddha.

KAILASH

A Sanskrit name, for which the Tibetan is Gang Rinpoche. It refers to a sacred mountain in the western part of Tibet that is a pilgrimage site for Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and Bön practitioners.

KARMA

The Sanskrit word for “act” or “action.” The concept is to be seen here in the dynamic context of the law of cause and effect. Any action—physical, verbal, or mental—necessarily produces a consequence, which can be positive, negative, or neutral. We may speak of an accumulation of causes, which once the appropriate conditions come about—either immediately or sometime later—produce a fruit, a consequence.

KHYUNG

See Garuda.

LAMA

A Tibetan word, guru in Sanskrit, that means spiritual master. In the Mahayana, the lama is the equivalent of the enlightened bodhisattva who helps his peers on the path to enlightenment.

LHASA

The name of the capital of Tibet. Translated literally from Tibetan, it means “Land of the Gods.”

MAHAYANA

A Sanskrit word; in Tibetan, thegpa chenpo. The term means “Great Vehicle” and designates the body of Buddhist teachings proclaiming the ideal of the bodhisattva and universal compassion.

MANTRA

A Sanskrit word; in Tibetan, ngak. Mantras are composed of syllables of healing and energy. The mantra most recited by the people of Tibet is OM MANI PADME HUM.

NAGA

A Sanskrit word; in Tibetan, lu. Nagas are beings who rule the subterranean world and bodies of water, and who control weather and rain. Their usual form is that of a snake, but they are reputed to be able to assume human form and to interfere with the affairs of human beings. Sometimes friendly, sometimes vindictive, always extremely touchy, the nagas are capable of causing diseases in humans who have provoked them by causing a disturbance in the realm of waters or the underworld. They are of major importance in Tibetan medicine.

NAGARJUNA

See Gömpo Ludrup.

NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH

A major body of teaching composed of eight practices to be carried on simultaneously: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right attention, and right concentration. Practicing these eight in everyday life should make it possible for the practitioner to understand the causes of suffering and to discover the remedies to them.

NYINGJE

A Tibetan word that expresses profound compassion toward a suffering being.

OM MANI PADME HUM

This is the short mantra of Avalokiteshvara, which the people of Tibet very often recite. It is carved into stones and placed in written form in prayer wheels so that suffering may be transcended and help may come to all beings.

PARAMITAS, OR TRANSCENDENT VIRTUES

In Tibetan, parol tu chinpa, a major body of six practices: the six virtues or the six perfections. These are: generosity, ethics, patience, energy, concentration, and knowledge. These paramita practices (in the Mahayana tradition) are an integral part of training to attain the awakened state of mind, bodhichitta, of which compassion is a main characteristic.

SANDALWOOD

A tree that grows in India and other places whose wood exudes a very pleasant and long-lasting fragrance.

SHO

A Tibetan word, the name of a traditional Tibetan dice game, often played for hours at a time by two, three, or four players.

SILWAYTSAL

A Tibetan name meaning “ Garden That Brings Coolness.” It probably refers to a place in India, in the state of Bihar, near Nalanda, where the Indian people brought their dead to have them cremated or buried. In Buddhist literature it is often referred to by its native Sanskrit name, Sitavana, which is usually translated “Cool Grove.” It is one of the eight great charnel grounds of the tantras and was a prominent site in the life story of the Buddha.

TEA WITH BUTTER AND SALT

This Tibetan national beverage is a highly fortifying drink. It is closer to a bouillon than an ordinary tea. It is composed of dried black tea leaves, boiling water, butter, milk, and salt.

TSAMPA

Barley flour that is finely ground and grilled. Tsampa is a traditional Tibetan dish that may be eaten without anything added to it; it may also be mixed with tea made with butter and salt or else with yogurt.

YAK

A bovine beast of Tibet that provides food to the Tibetan people and is of use to them in many other important ways.

Acknowledgments

I had the good fortune of having a father who still knew the tales of my country. At my request, he recorded a number of them for me and told me some others live in person. He is an embodiment of the living memory of ancient Tibet and a great source of inspiration for me in my life. I have a great deal of love and respect for him.

Without my husband, Claudio, I would have had difficulty putting down roots in Switzerland, which was a major precondition for me in writing down these tales. I thank him for all his love.

A big thank-you goes to my friends Jean-Claude and Marie-Paul Perréard, who for many years have been supporters of the Tibetan cause through the French organization Objectif Tibet, as well as in other ways. Their loyal friendship and their encouragement of my writing from the beginning were a big help to me in completing this book.

I am very grateful to Hélène Aubry-Denton, who in a brief but effective coaching session helped me to recognize a major blockage of mine during the writing of the tales. The problem was that I was troubled by the unpleasant thought that I was betraying the oral quality of my country’s tradition.

My thanks as well to Christian Pennel, a member of Objectif Tibet, who also encouraged me and helped me technically in transforming the beginning of the tales to a form suitable to a written text.

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Sylvette Divizia-Bayol and Fabienne Vaslet, who had the kindness and patience to reread and correct my pages. Their enthusiasm and their comments inspired me greatly.

I am infinitely thankful to my friend Michel Tardy, who believed in me and gave me enormous support in the publication of this book.

And finally, I would like to thank my audiences for their enthusiasm on occasions when I had the opportunity to recount a part of the tales. This encouraged me a great deal and helped me to move forward in completing this book.

About the Author

TENZIN WANGMO was born in India in 1962 and was educated by her parents in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. She grew up in Germany and has lived in Switzerland since 1974. Having taken a higher degree in education, she taught in a secondary school in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Today Tenzin Wangmo, who is multilingual, is an advanced-level coach specializing in social integration, adult tutoring, and consulting to organizations in the process of undergoing major changes. As a lecturer and Tibetan storyteller, her appearances are appreciated and acclaimed by a wide general and professional audience.

From the age of eighteen, Tenzin Wangmo has been actively engaged on behalf of her country and her people. In particular she has worked in support of two villages in Tibet dedicated to orphaned children. At the same time, she continues to follow the teachings of great Tibetan masters both in Europe and in India.

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