Neon Lotus

by Marc Laidlaw

  NEON LOTUS

  by Marc Laidlaw

  Freestyle Press

  “Write like yourself, only more so.”

  marclaidlaw.com

  ISBN: 978-1-5323-1076-8

  This ebook edition published in 2016 by Marc Laidlaw

  Copyright © 1998 by Marc Laidlaw

  First U.S. edition published by Bantam Books in 1998

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, including information storage and retrieval systems, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author at marclaidlaw.com.

  This ebook is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws, which provide severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted material. Please do not make illegal copies of this book. If you obtained this book without purchasing it from an authorized retailer, please go and purchase it from a legitimate source now and delete this copy. Understand that if you obtained this book from a fileshare, it was copied illegally, and if you purchased it from an online auction site, you bought it from a crook who cheated you and the author.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design © 2016 by Nicolas Huck (www.huckworks.com).

  Photocollage created by Marc Laidlaw based on a photograph by Daniel Winkler (www.mushroaming.com), used by permission of Daniel Winkler.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PART ONE: THE BARDO DEVICE

  1. THE ORACLE IN EXILE

  2. BEYOND THE CLEAR LIGHT

  3. RECOGNITION

  PART TWO: RAINBOW TARA

  5. MAP AND MANDALA

  6. PRAYERS AT A TWO-WAY SHRINE

  PART THREE: LOTUS SONG

  7. IN THE MINES OF JOY

  8. MR. FANG

  10. TUMO FIRE

  PART FOUR: THE BODHI SYSTEM

  11. TIBETAN TRUCKSTOP

  12. THE LAUGHTER IN TSAIDAM

  13. THE OPENING OF THE WISDOM EYE

  14. NECTAR ANALYSIS

  15. THE POWERPLANT OF NOTHINGNESS

  PART FIVE: THE CLOUD PRISON

  16. REFORMING THE FORMLESS

  17. LHASA RISING

  18. THE GREAT DARKNESS

  19. THE WISH-FULFILLING GEM

  GLOSSARY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book is for my grandfather,

  Alexander Zavala

  PART ONE: THE BARDO DEVICE

  (A.D. 2136-2140)

  1. The Oracle in Exile

  The monks of Nechung Monastery had wrapped the Medium of the State Oracle of Tibet in over a hundred pounds of clothing and jeweled armor. The tiny monk could hardly stand without assistance. He wore white leather boots with curling toes; silken scarves of red, yellow, and gold, including flags that swayed over his head and coursed down his back on flexible poles; thick flaring pants of scarlet, and immensely padded sleeves embroidered with fierce protective eyes. There was hardly enough of him to fill the spectacular garment; it hung from him in gorgeous wrinkles. A mirrored breastplate set with turquoise and amethyst rose and fell unevenly with each ragged breath. At his waist was a sword in a silver scabbard that dragged upon the floor; on one shoulder, a quiver full of arrows. An archer’s golden thimble capped his right thumb. His shaven head looked like a small brown nut, misplaced in so much richness.

  As attendants helped him into the Central Cathedral, the monks in the hall began to chant with renewed energy.

  “Come, Dorje Drakden, bearing council.

  Come, Spirit Minister, bringing sage advice.

  Protector of Buddhism, we call you.”

  Hearing the chants, the Medium’s eyes rolled back into his head. He staggered beneath the weight of the ceremonial garb. A young monk hurried to put a low stool under him. Two others brought forth a massive tiered helmet of gold-plated iron decked with peacock feathers, bear fur, bells, and grinning golden skulls weighing more than fifty pounds.

  The Medium’s breath came in rapid gasps. His eyelids fluttered as if he were dreaming. The monks slipped the helmet onto his head and fastened it beneath his chin with elaborate slip-knots.

  Trumpets wailed as the monks droned on. The little Medium looked utterly crushed, overwhelmed beneath garments that weighed more than he. For an instant, slumped into the Oracular vestments, he seemed to vanish altogether.

  Then the helmet rose steadily upright, lively eyes flashing out from beneath the row of golden skulls. The ritual garments began to swell, straining against the belts and ties with which they had been fastened; within seconds they seemed incapable of containing the powerful body of the Medium.

  He was a common monk no longer.

  Dorje Drakden had arrived.

  His first shout shattered the monotony of chanting. The Oracle’s aides stepped back as he leapt to his feet. The monks and state officials lining the walls of the cathedral fell silent and perfectly still, except for those engaged in invocation and prayers of praise.

  The State Oracle leapt onto his toes, launching into a spinning, capering dance. His steps were as light and graceful as those of a naked dancer, a swirl of colored scarves, an illusion.

  A brass gong moaned among the columns of the cathedral, sounding like the sea that had once drowned these mountains. Five-metal bells sang of space and silence—those other deeper seas that would never recede.

  The prophetic warrior whirled toward the far end of the hall, where three neon Sanskrit syllables glowed above the head of an enormous golden Buddha.

  OM

  AH

  HUM

  Diamond white OM, ruby red AH, and turquoise blue HUM. The brilliant characters shone in Dorje Drakden’s eyes. He sent the body of his Medium soaring aloft in great bounds that the little man could scarcely have performed even in his ordinary robes.

  At the foot of the giant Buddha sat a figure equally still, equally golden, but no bigger than a man. Its features were cunningly painted so that it seemed to be alive. The eyes were like white almonds; the full, smiling lips were red as roses. On the bridge of the golden nose sat a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses.

  Dorje Drakden bowed before this, the gilded mummy of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. From a monk waiting beside the jeweled throne, he took a white scarf and draped it over the mummy’s upraised golden hand. Tears welled from the eyes of the Protector.

  Suddenly, seizing handfuls of rolled scarves from the monk’s bowl, he began rushing about to the wail of horns and the clash of cymbals, tossing scarves in all directions till the air of the cathedral seemed full of streaming clouds. Scarves settled in the hands of precious images, in the lap of the giant Buddha, and one mysteriously draped itself around the neck of an elderly onlooker named Tashi Drogon.

  Tashi touched the white scarf tenderly, as if he had never felt silk before, and looked over into the amazed eyes of his younger companion, Reting Norbu.

  The Protector danced on.

  Tashi noted the startled expressions of the four Kashag ministers seated along the opposite wall. The entire Council of Ministers was staring at him, oblivious to the energetic careening of the Spirit Minister. The prime minister alone kept his eyes on the dance, although he had certainly noticed the unusual blessing.

  Still stroking the scarf, Tashi returned his attention to Dorje Drakden, hoping that some explanation might accompany the prophecies.

  At last the dancer slowed his pace. Returning to the mummified Dalai Lama, he dropped onto his knee and bowed forward. Golden bells sang in th
e helmet as he dropped his heavy head.

  Venerable Tara, the oracular secretary sitting to one side of the mummy, extended a quivering hand to the Oracle, offering a slip of paper folded into a triangle. Dorje Drakden accepted three such triangles, one after another, and slipped them under the brim of his helmet. Then he stood stroking the golden hand of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, weeping softly. Tashi felt an inexpressible sadness. The Protector mourned the Dalai Lama as if he were a child who had died only yesterday, rather than a man who had lived a long life two centuries ago.

  As if realizing the foolishness of despair, the Spirit Minister reared back and broke into ecstatic laughter—a high-pitched ululation that gradually quieted to a rapid stream of lilting Tibetan.

  There was not a head in the cathedral that did not lean closer, hoping to catch some part of the prophecy. But Dorje Drakden spoke solely for the ear of the mummy, and indirectly to the Venerable Tara who transcribed every word on an electronic slate. While the words themselves were audible only to the secretary, the music of the utterances was dear to all. Hearing the Spirit Minister speak was like listening to a mountain stream, each syllable a drop of rushing diamond-bright liquid.

  As the songs of prophecy came to an end, Dorje Drakden reached into a bowlful of barley at the foot of the throne and began hurling handfuls of grain across the wide chamber. As these blessings came showering down, the Spirit Minister stumbled away from the Dalai Lama’s throne. His body seemed to deflate. The robes fell loose again, releasing the Protector. The face beneath the helmet turned red, then purple, and finally blue.

  Attendants rushed forward and caught the Medium as he fell. They slipped the knots beneath his chin before the helmet strangled him. One took the helmet with a gasp at its weight; two others lifted the hugely padded body of the unconscious monk and bore him away.

  Reting Norbu squeezed Tashi’s arm. “You’ve been honored.”

  Tashi nodded, hardly believing what had happened. “It does seem auspicious,” he admitted.

  The trumpets shrieked their most deafening blasts in conclusion and the monks, after prostrating themselves in the direction of the Dalai Lama’s mummy, began to move out in files.

  Across the room, the four ministers of the Kashag uncrossed their legs and rose from the cushioned platform. The prime minister who had sat above them greeted the Venerable Tara and accepted the slate containing the prophecies. The Kashag crowded around but he held up a hand to forestall them.

  “We will convene in one hour,” he said.

  The ministers hurried toward the doors, barley crunching underfoot.

  The prime minister fixed his eyes on Tashi Drogon and came striding toward him. He wore a plain khaki chuba with the sleeves folded back to show that despite his position he worked with his own hands. The Silon was famous for trusting none but himself with sensitive tasks.

  “Doctors, you will be present for the reading, of course?”

  “Certainly, Silon,” Tashi said.

  “Am I permitted?” asked Reting.

  “As Dr. Drogon’s student and collaborator, I assume he will want you to witness the answer to his question.’

  “Reting is more than my student,” said Tashi. “He is my partner.”

  Reting bowed to each of them. “Thank you.”

  The prime minister’s eyes lingered on the scarf that hung around Tashi’s neck. “Have you any idea what it means?” he asked in a low voice.

  Tashi shrugged. “No, Silon. Except perhaps that our device has divine approval.”

  The prime minister nodded and granted Tashi a rare smile. “My own thought as well. The prophecies may explain further.” He bowed to both doctors then went after the departing ministers. Two guards accompanied him, keeping their eyes on the electronic slate.

  Several muscular monks watched from between the columns, waiting to see if the doctors would leave on their own. Tashi looped the scarf around his neck so that the wind would not blow it away, then he and Reting went outside.

  A chill wind greeted them, coming down from the Dhauladhur range of the Punjabi Himalayas. He smelled the faint sweetness of rhododendron and also the metallic tang of snow on granite. He slid his finger along the seal of his insulated jacket, a tattered but beloved garment he had purchased when he was a student in America; he had found it in an astronautics surplus store. The jacket, he sometimes joked, was nearly as old as Reting and had withstood the trial of time with considerably less wear.

  Although a young man, Reting Norbu was forever stricken by colds and gastric complaints. His teeth were bad and his face preternaturally thin. He had suffered great deprivation in his childhood; and later, given the chance of improving his lot, he had forsaken food for textbooks and sleep for study. The dark circles beneath his eyes were permanent, as was his doleful disposition.

  “Cheer up, Norbu,” was Tashi’s frequent exhortation, although little was the good that it did. He repeated it now. “Things look promising for us,” he added.

  “I don’t know,” said Reting. “When the Kashag gets ahold of a thing, I fear for it. They pull it in four directions at once, till there’s nothing left but tatters.”

  “The Silon will hold them steady. He’s a good man. He understands our purpose as well as our needs.”

  “I don’t know. I hope you’re right, of course.” Tashi thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket, “Besides, they can’t do a thing without our cooperation. Unless we can get the Bardo device to work, all their schemes and plans for it mean nothing.”

  “Do you think it will ever work?”

  “Let’s see what the gods say, shall we?”

  Reting seemed on the verge of some pronouncement gloomier than his preceeding ones; but whatever it might have been, a violent sneeze diverted him.

  “You’ve got a cold coming on, Reting.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Take care of yourself, my friend!”

  “I swear it’s . . . ”

  Tashi unlooped the Oracle’s scarf and wrapped it around Reting’s neck. “Come, let’s get some tea. We have time.”

  In a small cafe near Dharamsala’s main square, in the shadow of the Namgyalma chorten, they sat sipping salty buttered tea until the sweat sprang out on their brows. Reting was not inclined to speak so Tashi watched the traffic in the street. Locals and pilgrims alike circumambulated a stand of prayer wheels below the chorten, dragging their hands over the copper barrels as they muttered mantras. Merchants crouched against a low wall at the foot of the shrine, selling grain and vegetables from flat circular baskets. One could almost believe that this was Tibet. Undoubtedly life had gone on like this in Lhasa before the Chinese occupation. The exiled Tibetans carried on as they had for ages, as if their homeland were forgotten.

  But that was an illusion.

  This was northern India and not Tibet.

  And no Tibetan would ever forget the land that lay on the far side of the Himalayas.

  He watched a group of young travelers disembarking from a bus that looked as if it had rattled over every road in India before stopping in the dusty square outside the Nowrojee Supermarket. INTERFAITH FELLOWSHIP was written in English on the side of the bus. Religious students, no doubt, come to visit the spiritual and political—if not geographic—center of the exiled nation. Since 1960, Dharamsala had attracted more pilgrims than Lhasa had done in the two thousand years preceding. India was far more accessible than any part of Tibet, especially now that the Chinese—wracked by civil wars and too embarrassed to display the ravaged Tibetan Autonomous Region to tourists—had once again closed the borders.

  The Interfaith Fellows perhaps looked on Dharamsala as a relic, a curiosity. They would be attracted by the color and vitality of Tibetan Buddhism, by the mementos of the Last Dalai Lama. There might be some genuine Buddhists among them who would part from the tour and join a local monastery. There might even be one who would look at the peaks rising above Dharamsala and feel a sharp yearning, reminded faintl
y of a prior life when he or she had lived in Tibet. Such events were not unknown. In the massacres of 1959 and the years thereafter, Tibetan souls had been violently flung far and wide, to experience rebirth in distant lands. Somehow, they always returned.

  Tashi smiled, wondering how many of the Interfaith Fellows would laugh at his beliefs. He recalled from his days on American campuses that such “interfaith” groups were mainly Christian fellowships. Reincarnation was a doctrine that had never received wide Western approval, despite periods of popularity.

  All that might change soon. Very soon. He had done the theoretical work necessary to revolutionize humanity’s objective understanding of death, although the practical applications remained undemonstrated. Until the Bardo device was complete he had elected to keep all of his findings secret. Once the device was operable the Kashag might well impose an official silence.

  Reting Norbu sneezed, drained what must have been his tenth cup of tea, and stood up. “It’s time, Tashi.”

  They hurried through the streets until they came to a group of buildings set back among evergreens in a fold of the hills. Several jeeps raced past them and parked not far away. Two ministers disembarked and vanished between the buildings. As the doctors followed, a pair of soldiers appeared and requested their identification. These soldiers became their escort to the Kashag’s meeting hall.

  With the last Dalai Lama long since passed away, the exiled state of Tibet was now in the hands of its bureaucrats—and practiced hands they were. Bureaucracy had been one of the chief arts of old Tibet; like Buddhism it had traveled well. The government in exile was structured like a set of intricate interlocking boxes. At the core was the Kashag or Council of Ministers, overseen by its prime minister, the Silon.