The Lord of Death said, “Have you heard the Tibetan proverb ‘As rare as a mani in the next life?’ ”
“Of course I have.”
“Then you understand the meaning of this saying?”
“Well, I think it means something incredibly valuable, something very hard to come by.”
“And yet you still consent to bequeath your sole mani to another, without hesitation?”
“Of course. Gendün Dargyé and I are sworn brothers. If I weren’t even willing to give up a single mani, wouldn’t ‘sworn brothers’ be an empty title?”
“How marvelous! You are a man of true virtue!” The Lord of Death leaped suddenly from his seat and rushed over to shake Tsering Samdrup’s hand, then led him insistently to his throne, upon which he seated him. Picking up the phone, he announced, “A man of true virtue has arrived. Escort him immediately to the Blissful Realm—no, prepare a banquet—after we have dined I shall accompany him myself!”
Tsering Samdrup, feeling very uncomfortable now, rose to his feet. “Great King, this is too …” he began, but the Lord of Death placed a hand on his shoulder and forced him back into the chair. “Eh. The people of Earth are becoming more self-centered with each passing day—just look at Gendün Dargyé. Gendün Dargyé, let me ask you: you have all these manis, and yet not only do you not give any to your sworn brother, you have no qualms about taking his sole mani for yourself, is that so?”
“That’s … that’s …” said Gendün Dargyé in a feeble voice, apart from which he was unable to muster any other response.
“Have you no shame?” boomed the Lord of Death as he beat his fist on the table.
Gendün Dargyé lowered his head.
The Lord of Death paced back and forth. “I truly have no idea whether or not you held in your heart the sentient beings that have been your mothers as you were chanting all those manis. Therefore, I also have no idea whither I should send you.”
“Great King, Great King, it seems that I have harmed my sworn brother …” said Tsering Samdrup in a fluster, but the Lord of Death cut him off. “No no no. This has nothing to do with you. All his vices and virtues and his good and evil thoughts are recorded in his file. Whither he should be sent is also clearly stipulated in the Lord of Death’s legal code. I am simply reminding him. To be truthful, Gendün Dargyé has committed no great sin, bar his excessive selfishness. In any case, he still recited all those manis, so he shan’t be sent to the hell realms,” he said, breaking into a smile.
“Oh, that’s good, that’s good.”
“Now let us dine!”
“Ah … Great King, I have a request …”
“By all means.”
“May I be permitted to have this last meal with my sworn brother?”
“How marvelous! Pure friendship, friendship of purity! Once again you have touched this old man’s heart. Come, come, please come!”
The Lord of Death threw his arms around the shoulders of the two sworn brothers, and together they marched across the thick green carpet toward the banquet hall.
6
MAHJONG
According to a Japanese legend, the evil of tobacco was first brought into the human world by a demon. I have nothing against the Japanese, but there’s never been such a thing as a demon in this world and there never will be, so that story is nothing but baseless nonsense. However, it is a fact that the game—or gambling tool—known as mahjong was first brought to Tsezhung by a cadre who had been fired from his government job. When he first arrived in Tsezhung he wasn’t even wearing a presentable pair of trousers, but he was carrying a brand-new mahjong set consisting of green and white plastic tiles. According to him, they were made of turquoise and ivory. The people of Tsezhung, naïve as someone who “knows no person but their mother and knows no earth but the hearth,” bought this completely. “This thing must be worth be a whole lot of yaks and sheep then?” said one of the wealthier men.
“How many yaks is a turquoise necklace worth? How many rams are ivory prayer beads worth?” the man retorted haughtily.
“Come on, tell me honestly. How many yaks and sheep do you want for it?” insisted the wealthy man.
“Alas, I don’t want to sell it.”
The man wasn’t a nomad or a soldier, and he certainly wasn’t a cadre anymore, yet the people of Tsezhung still called him “cadre” with a tone of reverence. The “cadre” gathered together a few unemployed young men like himself and showed them how to play, occasionally even handing each of them a cigarette, much to the delight of the nomads, who generally led uneventful lives. They spent day and night with him, and before long they had picked up the game of mahjong. Next, the “cadre” taught them how to bet, and the nomads were even more delighted. The “cadre” laid down a cash stake, then went about tirelessly relieving the nomads of their money, and he even had the pipes out of their pockets and the coats off their backs. The “cadre” could never forget how the real cadres had so heartlessly driven him out the door, butt naked, so he had no qualms whatsoever about leaving the nomads butt naked too. He even went one step further. “If there’s a real man here, put up your wife. Who’s got the guts to wager?” he goaded them.
Though no one dared to put up his wife, they started to bet their yaks and their sheep, leaving a few of them completely dispossessed of their livestock. Some begged him helplessly and some cajoled him desperately, but the “cadre” simply snorted with derision. “Hmph! You’re free not to bet, but you’re not free to shirk your debt. It’s written in the laws of the nation—don’t you know how many years in jail you get for not paying your debts?”
The nomads of Tsezhung didn’t know a thing about the law, but they knew it was something to be feared, so they had no choice but to wager their wives. The more sensible elders then became flustered and, hoping that there might be a ritual with the power to destroy this demon called mahjong, went to see Alak Drong. Upon seeing him, however, they ended up even more flustered, and left his place looking at one another, completely unsure what to do. This was because Alak Drong, his consort, and his entourage had been deeply immersed in their own game of mahjong, and though they had approached and knelt before him, remaining that way for some time, he hadn’t noticed them at all.
“If Rinpoché is playing too, how could we possibly have called it a demon?”
“We have committed great sins!”
“Unspeakable, unspeakable sins!”
When, in accordance with the instructions of the higher authorities, we went to investigate why several of Tsezhung’s households had become suddenly impoverished, we found the place covered in low, square-shaped earthen mounds that resembled incense altars. These, as it turned out, were the places the shepherds conducted their mahjong games, or gambling sessions. By then, however, the “cadre” who had first popularized mahjong in Tsezhung had already made off with all its wealth and gone back to the county seat, where he was caught by the police while gambling with the real cadres. It is said that not long after the first time the “cadre” made off to the county seat with all of Tsezhung’s wealth he came back again, plagued by hunger and cold and looking half dead, nothing on his body but a loincloth made from a tattered old towel. Yet, in his hands, he carried five “turquoise and ivory” mahjong sets, and instantly became rich once again.
When we confiscated all of the mahjong sets in Tsezhung an old man seized my leg, wailing. “Please, sirs! I traded a hundred rams for this; now I don’t own a thing of value but this mahjong set. Have pity on me, I beg you!” The sight of him was enough to make you feel sympathy, sadness, and anger all at once.
7
THE STORY OF THE MOON
“Grandpa, tell us a story!” the last group of children on earth—who didn’t wear even a scrap of bark, much less animal skin—begged the old man pitifully.
This world, where the mountains and plains were bereft of flowers and no water flowed in the riverbeds, was silent and sorrowful. The lives of the children, who had no lessons to go
to and no games to play, were even more dull and barren. And so, all day long they surrounded the elders and pleaded for stories.
“Hmm, all right, all right.”
“Thank you, Grandpa! Thank you …” The overjoyed children clapped their little hands.
“Once upon a time, there was a princess who was as beautiful as the moon on the fifteenth …”
“Grandpa, what’s a moon?”
“The moon? Oh, well, a long time ago the moon was the closest heavenly body to our earth. Every thirty days it would rise in the sky at dusk, looking just like the curved eyebrow of a pretty girl. With each passing day it would grow rounder and clearer, and after about ten days it was all white and round—absolutely beautiful. For that reason, the ancients always compared a pretty girl to the moon.”
“Well, why isn’t it here anymore?”
The old man sighed. “Then let me tell you the story of the moon. In the time of my grandfather, we human beings had very advanced science and technology, and the achievements of these skills were many. But some scientists thought that the natural environment of the earth was bad, and the reason for global climate change was that the orbit of the earth was slightly askew. If, when the moon passed over Antarctica, they could blow it up with explosives, a large amount of lunar soil would fall into the Pacific Ocean, and then the orbit of the earth would be corrected.
“Back then, human beings had many nuclear weapons with the power to destroy the earth ten times over, and the moon was only a quarter the size of the earth, so needless to say they would have had no problem blowing it up.
“The scientists ignored people’s protests. With all their technology—spaceships, space stations, lasers, nuclear facilities, radio telescopes, supercomputers, robots—and with the help of all the brightest and best minds in science, they blew the beautiful moon to smithereens.
“Upon witnessing this fearsome spectacle, the peoples of other planets—whose science was very very advanced—thought, So badly have the terrestrials defiled the mother Earth on which they depend that living beings there can hardly breathe anymore, and now they’ve even stretched their claws into space and destroyed the most beautiful of the heavenly bodies in the solar system. How terrible! We can’t let them carry on like this, no matter what. And so they destroyed all civilization on earth. Not only was all of humankind cast back once more into a primitive state, but waves of natural disasters and epidemics on an even greater scale than in the past wiped out hundreds of millions of people, leaving us in the situation you see today.”
“Grandpa, you just made that up! It’s not a true story. Go back to the story of the princess.”
The children didn’t like the story of the moon because they’d never heard of things like “science and technology,” “nuclear weapons,” and “space stations,” and they had no idea what those words meant.
The old man had no choice but to tell them a story from the age of civilization, about a princess who died of a drug overdose and destroyed her whole family.…
8
A FORMULA
The first thought that entered his mind when he woke up was that they had to move camp today. He had come up with this plan the night before while curled up in bed with his wife. Earlier in the evening it had started drizzling, and he’d thought that if they didn’t move this worn-out tent to high ground now, they’d run the risk of getting flooded.
As he went out for a piss—shoeless, sheepskin coat draped over his shoulders, chanting prayers as he went—the rays of the morning sun were beginning to show over the tip of the mountain in the east. The sound of birds singing was everywhere, their voices blending together into one great melody. The globeflowers blooming on each bank of the nearby river had multiplied since the day before, and a newborn calf was gamboling playfully around their tent. All of this gave him a feeling of contentment that was hard to put into words. But they needed to move camp today—he had no time to savor this good mood.
“Hurry up and get breakfast made, we’ve got to move camp today!” he announced, doing up his belt.
“Ah tsi!” his wife exclaimed. “We only moved here yesterday!”
“But there’s a risk we’ll get flooded down here in the valley. Besides, it’s nice to be on high ground in the summer.”
His wife, who always did just what her husband said, buttoned her lip. After finishing their breakfast, they started to gather up their things. He brought the three old yaks over and fitted their saddles. They pulled up the pegs and put them inside the tent, and after folding up the tent and binding it with ropes they loaded it onto the left side of one of the pack animals. He shouldered the leather-covered wooden chest containing all the family possessions that had been passed down to them from their grandparents or great-grandparents and strapped it to the animal’s right side. Seeing that the other side now seemed a bit light, he packed the tent poles on top to balance it out. He then heaped some grain, butter, cheese, clothes, and other odds and ends onto another of the yaks. On one side of the oldest and most docile yak he packed the pans and buckets, and on the other he hung the basket they used for collecting dung and lined it with a fur rug, into which he placed their butt-naked, snot-nosed little son, whose face hadn’t been washed since the day he was born. Finally, half bending and half squatting, he carefully lifted the altar onto his back and made one last sweep of the camp. Though they hadn’t left anything behind except the earthen stove—which always has to be abandoned when you move camp—he couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d forgotten something. He looked around, furrowing his brow, and finally discovered that the dog was still there, tied to its post.
“Ah—that’s it.” Laying down the altar, he yanked at the thick stake in the ground, eventually pulling it out and freeing the dog. Kneeling down again, he hoisted the altar onto his back.
His wife untied their dairy cows, coiled up the rope, and threw it over her shoulder, and they were all ready to go. By then the sun was already high in the sky, so without further delay they set off, herding the livestock and pack animals before them.
As they were pitching the tent at their new camp his wife accidentally caught the edge of her coat on the altar, dragging it to the ground and causing the bronze statue of the Buddha inside to come tumbling out. For an instant she stood, stunned, then began to recite in a flustered panic: “Vajrasattva, Vajrasattva … ”
For a moment he too was aghast. Recovering himself, he dashed over and slapped his wife across the face, hard.
“Vajrasattva, Vajrasattva … ” His wife had long since become accustomed to her husband’s brutality. Paying no attention to the slap, she righted the altar and put the statue back inside.
He put his feet up and ate his lunch (which, like breakfast, consisted of tsampa), and looking out from the flap of the tent he saw white clouds gathering over the mountain peak in the distance, swelling like milk. All of a sudden they grew larger and turned black, a flash of lightning breaking out in their midst like a shooting star, followed by a low rumble of thunder. Over by their camp the weather was still nice and clear, flowers blooming everywhere, giving him a feeling of contentment much like the one he had had that morning.
“See—isn’t it nice being on the high ground in the summer!” he announced to his wife with satisfaction. Looking around, he suddenly felt that some of their things hadn’t been arranged quite right. Setting down his tea and getting to his feet, he switched around the satchel and the chest. Sadly, this arrangement seemed even less pleasing to the eye, so he picked the satchel back up, slid the chest back, placed the altar on top of the chest, and stashed the satchel down by its side. But this still didn’t seem right at all, so he went back to pick up the satchel once again. The damn satchel, however, suddenly seemed so heavy that he couldn’t pick it up, and he had to call his wife for help.
“Ah tsi, your temples are going gray!” His wife, completely taken aback, stared at him in amazement.
He raised his hand instinctively to feel his temples.
“Your … your hair’s … gone gray as well,” he said. His wife too raised her hand instinctively to feel her hair, and let out a dejected sigh.
“The cows have all run off!” announced his son, as though he were issuing a command.
He raced after the cows as quickly as he could and finally managed to rein them all in. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he began herding the cows back. As he walked he mulled over the problem of finding a wife for his son, and before he knew it he’d arrived at the foot of the hill where their tent was pitched. The hill wasn’t all that steep and it wasn’t that far to the tent, but he felt exhausted, and on top of that he was getting battered by the autumn wind, dry grass whipping into his face. He simply had to sit down and rest for a while. When he did finally make it to the top of the hill, he felt a little better, but much to his surprise his wife and son had already pulled up the tent pegs and wound up the guide ropes, and were preparing to move camp.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, both disappointed and angry.
“Moving camp. If we don’t move down to the valley for the winter this old tent’ll get torn apart by the wind,” said his son with a finality that brooked no discussion.
At that moment a scattered dusting of snowflakes began to fall from the freezing sky. His tattered jacket felt extremely light, and he couldn’t help but shiver.
It was indeed warmer down in the valley, or at least the wind was less severe, and he felt a bit more at ease. But he really was unhappy with the placement of their possessions. Unfortunately, not only did he lack the strength to move them, he no longer had the authority to, so he had no choice but to put up with his discomfort. And so he chanted prayers to himself and continued to mull over the problem of finding a wife for his son.
In the glow cast by the flame of the stove, which gave them light and heat and cooked their food, he saw another fearful sight: his wife’s face had become ridiculously small. Looking closer, he realized that she didn’t have a tooth left in her mouth. Without thinking, he lifted his hand to feel his own face, and, sticking a finger into his mouth, he found nothing but a tongue. Feeling utterly dismal, he heaved a sigh.
The Handsome Monk and Other Stories Page 12