Padmasambhava
 
 
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This desert we speak of is a highly secretive place. The wisdom of antiquity cannot outsmart it. This desert we speak of, though we see it, its yellowed borderlands are unknown, it is a sky blue world of a myriad unseen riddles. In the silence beyond, there is melody.
An old man in a tattered red deel, riding an old yellow camel with crossed humps, was crossing this oceanic desert, heading westwards. The camel loped along beyond the light blue hills, which showed amid the blue haze of morning. Some unknown song played away in the old man's mind. “Thirty-three deserts there are, but only three have I crossed..." - that was where the melody came from. And as the yellow camel with crossed humps crossed through the red saltwort of the vast desert, pulled by the wind, the grasses and the bushes whispered and rustled.
The old man tended always to be in a hurry. Today he was in a particular hurry. The sand grouses flew up here and there. Otherwise not a sound. He had no chance to whip the old yellow camel's sturdy sinews, nor to consider his own almost eighty years. The old man's dark, wrinkled face, his gnarled and cracked hands, were like the sandy folds of the desert, like the wounds in the hills. This desert we speak of has brought forth, over the course of time, animals and humans and rocks, all in their proper colors and forms.
Wherever he headed, the blue mists cut athwart him. Every time he moved, the envelope of blue mist grew bigger, its edges stretched further away. The horizon and the skirts of the desert had no definition, they dissolved into one another. Oh, Ocean of the Gobi! In ancient times this had been an ocean. The ocean was no more, and from its floor had emerged this primal land, the oceanic desert...
Craning its neck where it perched on an ovoo, a brown condor watched the shape of the man on the camel and, in a dull state of almost-flight, lifted its wings and took off. For a moment, the bird seemed to be rising upwards, and then in the blue air it slumped. Looking from the spaciousness of the sky where the condor had taken off, the old man on the trotting camel might perhaps have been a little worm. A man is a male tiger on the earth. A condor is a garuda in the sky. But in that desolate expanse, anything would have seemed small, would have seemed very small.
Mirages fluttered across the low hills. The waves of primitive oceans washed in rhythmic movement. It was the memory of a great ocean glimmering across an aeon. A valley of saltwort appeared behind it, and a plain replaced it on the hard rocky earth. The round stones of the desert chattered and clattered against the camel's hooves. At one time, this had been dense forest, the pattern of rings on the trees bore witness to the movement of the stony bodies of wizards, from time to time they caused the rocks to sing. As for the desert, it was contemplating and inscribing its secrets within itself, beyond the maples, in the chattering of its stones, in the fluttering of the mirages, and in the striations of the sand-dunes.
The rough brown hills were round and curved. Some were fawn-colored, and yellowing. Others were flushed and purplish. One family of hills would turn green-turquoise, and the hills beyond them an arctic-hare white. Or else a sooty black. The many hills would look out for their children's faces, as they transformed like magic from one worldly tone of paint into another, a constant change and modulation. From last year's tumuli of arctic-hare white, this year's color of ochre stones came quickly, and so changed into a scarlet red. The blue mirages in the desert, and the sky blue hills, and the party-colored hills, and the lizard-yellow sand-dunes, everything seemed to be in a state of transformation. It all had the nature of unseen spirit.
The oceanic desert stretched off towards the west, joining with the Hashaat desert at its borders, and with the vast Galbin desert. Old Tüdev had not looked further afield. Like a tethered camel calf, he had turned around where he was and hurried towards something, and before he knew it he was within the shadow of eighty years. Through the secret power of unseen mysteries, amid the blue of the great desert, that protector of wisdom aeon upon aeon, he had turned around and headed towards something mysterious, his entire life had passed in a blink, like a dream at night.
It is interesting how, over the centuries, so many scholars from the west have travelled to penetrate the secrets of the great desert of Mongolia, they are fascinated by its mysteries, are searching for something, but they cannot unlock these unseen mysteries, beyond discovering the skeletons and eggs of dinosaurs, petrified trees, and land rich in gold and copper, or a few hills and caves. There is nothing for reconnaissance patrols to do save follow the regular men who are the desert nomads, and these patrols don't know how the secrets are safeguarded. At best, an old man of the desert might be known to carry the key to the door of Shambhala...this chatter is like half-heard stories, it is no more surprising than any other notes taken down upon the road.
 
Old Tüdev's life has been like this, full of secrets invisible to anyone else. In his time, he had been acknowledged as the curator of the temple housing the remains of the fifth Noyon Hutagt of the Gobi, the poet Danzanravjaa. For no apparent reason, they had destroyed the Buddha images, and they were no more, and he had transformed into a man from the country, out where a few head of livestock hung around the desert gullies. And now, at the end of this present aeon, he was piling up the sacred objects of the Noyon Hutagt Danzanravjaa in Danzanravjaa’s own land, in the colored hills of Övör Hamar, so like a planet with its enticing formations of scree and caves and hollows, and he was burying and locking away the secret mantra, and from that time the secret wisdom was awoken in nature, it joined with human understanding, and there the magical power of heaven took up residence, and all these riches of wisdom and awareness and energy were piled up and swirling. The knot of all things, indeed, dwelt here.
 
A smoky autumn morning, gleaming with light. The hollows and the salt marshes of the vast desert are all turning yellow. A wind whistles across the hills. Banks of blue mist across the lower slopes. The wind on the hilltops sky blue. The cardinal directions and the intermediate directions are blue, are turned upside down. The wind blows across the stones on the hilltops. As though discussing something. The winds of Mongolia's thirty-three deserts are swirling in discussion atop Hüsliin Uul, the hill of wishes. The wind is the life-breath of the world. All humans and animals, all creatures have breath. All grasses and plants, all saxaul and saltwort, have breath. Rocks and earth, not to mention dust in a bucket, have breath. They are all alive. And the life-breath of all things raises a stir on every side, is spun around on the hilltops, and the wind moves to twist it like an interweaving of silk.
Old Tüdev sat down on a rock near to the ovoo and held his breath, he loved the gentle autumn wind, the life of the world, which slapped at his cheeks and his face, someone is stroking me with their hand:
 
...I came up Hüsliin Uul. It was where I was headed. I lay down and rested my bones, my body exhausted by the wind on the hill, my lungs relaxed, I thought a little, it would not be a problem if I were to crumple here and die. Our elders have no time for what they call "fleeing a lonely death," we shouldn't take too much care. "Old man," the voice had said, "come up onto my hill," and so I packed some food and left. My poor wife! Almost sixty years married, the two of us.
 
Oh, such a shame! My boy Altangerel came to me recently, he said "Should I look after you for a few days, sir?" and I rather chased him away. I shouldn't sit and look at how the local men are dying off. It could be said that the need for direction is a smart one, and what place does an old man who is suffering have walking the world's roads? My boy understands this. Right now, he'd scold me if he saw me out on the top of a hill. Perhaps he'd say, What are you doing? Don't you know you'll exhaust yourself? But I'd say to him, if you carried me, I would still come. Well, then. We each do what we can. The hill and I will talk together in our own good time. My belovèd Bayanzürh! Were you always so high? I have whispered all my desires to you. And many of them have been granted. And some which have not...
Old Tüdev took out his binoculars to enjoy the view, and he continued to think...Hang on! Let me see... what are those yellow things out on the desert? They look like stūpas. Wait, they're tornados. They're really powerful. As tornados grow in intensity, they move forward, gathering up whatever comes their way. When I think about it, it joins with the sacred wheel of the world's winds. And then, all of a sudden, it's gone. And here it comes again.
My old yellow camel, with its crossed humps, he’s as hungry as I am. He won't eat that nice-looking bush, he'll roll on it until it's flat. Nonetheless, the old man has met with his mountain. It's been rather pleasant. I'll walk him out a little, get him beating out a drumbeat, legs swirling fast. You're about thirty now, my fine steed, clambering up and down these three deserts. You might make it through this winter, my poor old cross-humped yellow camel. Oh well, all of us poor fellows die eventually.
Oh, and autumn is yet an infant. What is that pulsing away at the end of my binoculars? Wait - a gazelle. Gazelles are born late in autumn, though. It's going to be a fertile winter. That's good. Oh, my homeland is really lovely. Of course it is. It's Shambhala manifested here! To you I offer the best of food, my homeland. Tulgat Han, Han Bayanzürh, Hamar Höövör, Bayan Bogd, Suvargan Öndör, all my hills! Dalai Gobi, Hashaatin Gobi, the yellow dunes around the standing spring, all my golden homeland! Horgin Hyar, Tsagaan Hoshuu, Sevhüül, Hamarin Uul, Gurvan Bayan, all my hills! The feather grass and bushes and willows and apricots and ten thousand types of plants in Övör Hamar!. The mists and mirages which shimmer here, the five precious types of livestock spread around here in herds, the birds and wild beasts who hole up here, all my insects and tiny bugs! And stored beneath, the great ocean, silver and gold, precious wealth, all those sacred objects! Om, may everything be peaceful, may everything be good!
Poor thing! I shall offer to the sky above my hills the tantric nectar of the Holy One. My teacher, the Holy One! Om, may everything be peaceful, may everything be good! My Holy One, this is your pure magical water which is hidden for us in the womb of the desert our mother. And oh, when we receive it, primitive things become visible, ancient memories are revived, everything appears utterly clear, it is most strange. My Holy One, why did you enchant this vessel of vast wisdom? Suppose I open my eyes, relax my mind and bring myself forth? From where does such wetness come in this dried up old man, who has seen how water drips from rocks? Am I weeping...? Fine, fine, Tüdev! Cheer yourself up! These pearlescent drops which fall from you are the final drops of the mind's ink, which has written the story of your almost eighty years. Now there's nothing to write. Weep, weep until you wring out the good!
Oh, poor thing! From amid tears, all is unclear. But wait - amidst these tears, glistening in the eyes, comes a grey mirage. And, amidst the mirage, are the red and green and yellow and white hills of Övör Hamar. And amidst these hills, is our monastery...Oh, I'm drunk. How it's changed! Now, then. I'll think a while. No. The mind is quite clear. My body is light, my mind is healthy. My Övör Bayasgalant Hamriin Hiid is just as it always was. Oh yes. Beautiful. When the Holy One was nineteen, he founded the first Lamrim monastic school. It had a tower and golden finials, it glistened. The utterly majestic Namtar Duulah Datsan. It was stylish and well-constructed. Moreover, at that time, it was Mongolia's premiere theater. It had a children's school and a school for educating women and a tantric college. To the west was a monastic estate, a temple for meditation and the Protectors' Temple...in all, there were about thirty schools, both large and small.
Moreover, there was a temple, white as fresh snow. It had a green enamel roof, on top of which were trident-like finials. It was well-known, this so-called White Temple. Over the door, in golden script, was written Givaadinravjaalin, which means " Monastery Glorifying Perfect Virtue." That place has been my Pole Star, all through my life.
 In the caves and hollows unknown to man, within that white palace, the color of mother-of-pearl, which glitters across the mirror of my inner life, and beneath the land, there exists all wisdom to explain that which is precious. And it is a mysterious power, joined with what is precious in the sphere of emptiness. When I, Tüdev, was twenty-five, I was honored to receive the vow as guardian of the White Temple. Everything came together in a moon-shaped blue spot, as wide as a hand, on my back. It was a sign, sent by the Holy One! My father Ongio had exactly the same mark. My grandfather Nariyaa too had had that mark. The very first in our line, when his son Gan-Ochir was born with this mark, said, 'This is a sign, sent by the fifth Noyon Hutagt of the Gobi from Shambhala, it is a tryst.' If you ask who this first person was, you'll be told, ‘That was Balchinchoijoo, our ancestor, Danzanravjaa's first guardian.' My father, and his elder brother Gombo, from the time I was five years old, had driven and compelled me to learn the duties of the guardian. When I reached twenty-five, they said I had had enough of being beaten. I felt like the epic hero Jangar, eternal and deathless at twenty-five. My body had strength then, it blazed like a flame, it glittered like steel. From my father I took into my care a long blessing scarf and the Holy One's jade snuff-box. I received the regular term guardian, I was guardian of the temple holding the preserved body of Danzanravjaa, the Noyon Hutagt of the Gobi. The repository whose guardianship I received was a truly extraordinary collection of precious, sacred objects.
 
Oh, such a shame! I am looking this year of nineteen thirty-seven full in the face. 1937! My twenty-fifth year was a miserable year of violence and destruction. When I think of thirty-seven, it's as though the flesh of my heart is torn...my little white-chested puppy, which I had taken and nurtured myself, sensed evil, and didn't bark when he saw the moon between the clouds. One morning, outside the monastery, two high-ups had come in a truck, they wore broad green hats and a myriad of golden ants braided their collars, and by their hips they bore white guns, and they loaded up all the senior monks and drove away. "It appears," they said, "that Hamriin Hiid is siding with Japan, and that the monks are their spies." The poor and middle-ranking monks who had no seniority, now "went to the countryside," disrobed and married, and quietly they disappeared among a few well-fattened goats. The monastery and its temples were left empty, wormwood grew there, the incense-burners became the nests of birds, and the droppings of rooks and alpine choughs piled up on the Buddhas' heads. The red-beaked choughs ran riot through the temples, and pecked the Buddhas' eyes. One day, with a loud rumbling sound, a clattering green pick-up truck trundled to a stop on the processional pathway around the monastery. A large black fluttering mass of rooks and crows suddenly disappeared. And I, just a young fellow, the Guardian of the Temple of the Body, was scared and couldn't fly. I was tethered by my vow to the White Temple. From behind came another vehicle. Russian soldiers, with small yellowish heads, sunken green eyes and jutting brows, and long hooked noses, got out and quartered themselves in our monastery. There was a single Mongol officer, in a green cap. Gündsambuu, one of the two poor young men left behind to look after the monastery, stood outside the Mongol officer's door and tied red cotton cloth to the rafters.. Not long after, his father said he had gone off to gather agriophyllum. He never came back.
The final month of summer. In the desert, the dogs are fiercely unhappy. The Russian soldiers never enter the cool buildings during the day. Guards stand with their guns on the towers of the temple. When night comes, they light fires outside the temple, stir up the smoke and sing a little. As they whisper, I decide to come down from the high ground and protect the Buddhas and the sacred objects in temple. They are talking in particularly about firing bullets at the copper and brass Buddhas. Listening to the news of far away, there is looting of monasteries in other countries, and pictures set ablaze.
"Tüdev my son, better that you think about your own life. Many of the senior monks of our monastery have been shot. A reprieve means ten years. Then they'll take what you have from you and shoot you through like a crow. They'll destroy the images of Buddha in any case, and time will have unravelled...". And although he heard the old man's words in his ears over and over, it was as though his late father was scolding him, from somewhere came the words, “The Holy One’s precious possessions are much more valuable than you and I, where our duties are concerned."