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The cuckoo flies around Mt. Rirab, like the sun and the moon, it is one in Body Speech and Mind. * * * "He is the Merry One," laughed the man. "It is not for us to deny his being the Presence, the Changchub Sempa, Chen-re-zi, the Compassionate one." "His behavior and his songs," said the woman, "show us that all is possible, even for common people like us." I eavesdropped near the Barkhor, watching and listening from the Nd-Drwa. * * * Dorjii and I did not rest for long for sounds disturbed us. They came from the entranceway of the cave, as if someone were stumbling in the dark. And that was exactly what was happening. Soon a lone figure came into the lit chamber. It was Thubten Sengey. "Aroo!" he shouted at the sight of us. "I have caught you both! You should have known that you could not escape! Surrender!" "Like hell!" I snapped, throwing a ball of fire at the monk. He laughed, taking the full impact of the flames upon his chest with no apparent harm. "Second hand powers!" he sneered and tossed flames at me. I gulped and awaited destruction. The fire hit me on the arm and set my chuba on fire. it did no harm to me, but I had to quickly slap out the flames. "Hmm," he said, "your absorption is further along than I had assumed." Dorjii ran to my side, clutching my smoking chuba. Her eyes were wide, fixed upon the monk. "Do not," she gasped, "let him get me again!" I whispered to her, "When we begin to fight, you run. You escape!" But I was looking for danger from the wrong direction. Suddenly, I heard a roar from the cave wall to my rear. Spinning, i saw the great blue figure, the carving in the rock wall, completely alive! It had leaped forward as I pushed Dorjii away. "Run! Dammit! Run!" I cried. She took a few steps and froze in place. i had little time to wonder if this attack was an illusion sent by Sengey. It was too evident, too soon, that it was real. Great teeth bit into my arm, sending intense pain throughout my body, as if I were connected to an electrical source. The teeth released my arm and I hoped that Sengey had made his point of my vulnerability and that would end it. But I was wrong. He seemed to be shouting words to encourage me. "Resist! Resist!" But this only confused me. If this was not his doing, what had animated the image? The great blue one pounced again, amazingly light-footed in its movements. Sengey was shouting at it, "Let him live! Do not kill him!" The great mouth roared, "We do not need the body of Nyima!" I had no time even to shudder at my recognition of that voice. Great claws were ripping at my torso, opening it up in an electrical storm of pain, with vital parts tumbling out. Sengey was shouting instructions to me. "Hold on! Hold on! don't give up!" I knew he wanted me to hold onto life, but I could not. Great colors spun before me just before I died. * * * "You fool," Sengey said to the blue man, who, upon appearing in his own form, had inactivated the monstrous carving which was now part of the wall again. But now it had real blood upon its teeth and claws. "You may have killed him!" he accused. The blue man laughed. "I have killed him!" "Pah!" spat the monk. "It is only Nyima, dead again! We need that other's continuum!" The blue man considered this somberly and then whispered. "Yes, perhaps. How are we to know if he escaped the claws by escaping the body? " I nodded in the Nd-Drwa, and quickly left the vicinity before they came looking for my astral form. I fled, faster and faster. * * * My tongue moved next to Suzi's ear. My lips kissed it, and she squealed in delight. However, she twisted way and I felt a sharp pain in my upper arm. With a jolt, I pulled away from her. "You bit me!" I snapped. "No," she laughed, "I did not, but I will if you like!" I was confused, for I believed her, but the red mark was already changing color. I knew that it would soon be a dark blue crescent mark. My eye caught the shining surface of a framed picture on the wall. i saw a shadow move across the surface, but I could not make out what it was. I spun, turning my head to see its source within the room, but there was none. I shuddered when I thought I heard something in the sound of a passing fire engine siren. "ERIN-NOON-SHIM-TAL", it seemed to say. * * * Ayesha! Listen. Answer me! I know my body is still there for my golden thread is intact. If I was gone—if it was broken! I'd be gone! Ayesha! Listen. I have to give you some final instructions. Dammit! Answer me! Are you dead? Oh God, what a thought! * * * Why am I thinking of Christmas? Bells. JIN-GULL BELLS! No. It is only the sound of the monks at prayer, with their hand -held bells. UH. UH. HUM. * * * "You would call it miraculous powers," smiled Dai Goro Bogdu." If you went back—when you went back—it would be due to absorptions and powers would go with that." "You mean," I asked, a little muddle headed, "I would have the power to change things?" He nodded and nodded, a bit too anxiously. "Your dead brother need not have died," he whispered. I shuddered. I thought of the prisoner. "I could do what I pleased? Change time?" I further questioned. "Of course!" he laughed. "That is the point of such an escape. I—you—could do anything!" "Forever?" I asked in a hushed voice. "Forever," he answered in a whisper, a whisper so soft as to not rattle my mind. I knew what he was doing, but did not care. "And Suzanne?" I asked of myself aloud, which he heard. "Yes, Susan," he answered, "and Susy, and Suzi, and Sue, and..." "Wait! Wait!" I gasped. "It is almost too much! I can't think about it." "Take your time," he answered, and almost imperceptibly, "I will take mine." * * * "Su," I said. "Tra!" "Damn," I said, "It!" * * * "Why can't we find him?" asked Sengey. "The Nd-Drwa is infinitely large," said the blue man. "He can be anywhere!" "But," hissed the monk, "we must be within absorption range, else it will be of no avail!" The blue man pursed his white lips. "He may be close by, in another body." "That would explain why we cannot see him in the Nd-Drwa," said Sengey. "Yes," snarled the blue man. "Why did you have to teach him that trick?" "Ah. UH," the Tibetan started, "I needed him in physical form for certain studies." "Pah," spat Dai Goro Bogdu. "Your silly sexual yoga!" Thubten Sengey glared at his companion growling, "Not so silly, to experience the rising of the heat up the spinal..." "Forgive me if I do not listen," said the blue man. "For you could have done all that later, in the new world!" "I suppose you are right," he said. "Ah! There will be so many bodies for my subjects then!" "Our subjects," corrected the blue man. "Yes, Yes," said the Tibetan. Nearby, in the body of a yak, chewing its cud, I heard it all. "We'll see about that! You bastards! You'll not mess up my world," thought the yak. * * * I found the young monk at Sera Gompa. He was feverish and dying. I watched for a while, trying to judge the time to make my move. He lingered with great stubbornness. As much as I wanted a body again, I did not wish to intrude on the young man's last moments. I moved away in the light Nd-Drwa to the north, to see if I could find Sengey's abode. * * * The metal wheel was hidden under the mud, and the mud was dry. But the wheel was still there, unseen. * * * Above Sengey's building, I got a shock. I saw Dorjii on the stone veranda. She sat in a yoga position with both legs crossed. She stared blankly ahead, almost as if she were unaware of her nudity. Nearby stood the dark-robed Tibetan, Thubten Sengey. he did not move, staring at the young woman. Then, he slowly sat down, leaned heavily against a doorway and slid slowly down to an absolutely horizontal position. he was entering the Nd-Drwa! I hoped that he did not see me. I was lucky, his mind seemed concentrating upon something else. I, in turn, did not see where he had vanished to. I was not to be puzzled for long. From below the building, from amongst the rocks, someone was coming. "Ah!" I gasped," it is not a someone at all! It is a something!" It was an animated dead man! One of Sengey's moving corpses! He was repulsive, staggering up the stairs half decomposed. Where was he going? Dorjii stood up, .lovely and radiant, her breasts wobbling only slightly. She saw the corpse but did not move. I was puzzled by her lack of action. i glanced at the still form of Thubten Sengey and suddenly it dawned upon me. "He is in the corpse!" I gasped. "He is making him move!" And then I saw was about to happen. The dead man embraced Dorjii. They returned to a seated position and he penetrated her sexually. She seemed to gasp, but clutched at him in spite of herself. "Damn!" I shouted and flew in their direction. Without concern for the consequences, I entered the corpse. it was occupied by Thubten Sengey and a great confusion of energy and power. "Do not interrupt! I was almost to the 1000 petal lotus!" Lightning, electricity, and convulsions ran through us. The dead man's body arched and his feet and hands shuddered. Dorjii clung tightly to my/our body, screaming and gasping "AH! Ahrrgh!" * * * "Fire!" In a circle, around the Mountain. Where is the sun and the moon? The wheel is hidden in the mud. How can we hear the voice, the word? What is its sound before it is spoken? Fire! Chen-re-zi goes to Mying-di for another head! AH! Fire! Ah! * * * Thubten Sengey threw me out of the body. He had more control in there than I did. In one way, I was glad, for the pain within the corpse had been intense. Pain? Was it really pain? Whatever! I was glad I was out of that place, but I still had to do something. He was still lunging in and out of her, not having been stopped by me for long. her face was distorted in a grimace which i had not seen before upon it. suddenly it changed, it grew softer, more relaxed, smiling. She looked angelic. Then, in a split second this also changed and her eyes widened almost popping, her mouth pouted like cupie doll. I tried to reenter the corpse, but a field of energy prevented me from doing so. In a sense of panic, I flew in a wide circle around and above the quiver forms. From that vantage point, I was surprised to see various forms on a ledge below the veranda. They were more dead men!" "A warehouse?" I wondered, zooming down towards them. Instinctively, I chose the largest one and entered him, bringing the body to life. Within this corpse there was not electricity to fight me. Scrambling up the rocks, I came up on the veranda and the sexual scene I had left a moment before. Without hesitation, I threw myself, in this new putrifying body, upon them, roaring unintelligible words. I pulled the corpse containing Sengey away from Dorjii and began wrestling with it, rolling over and over the flagstones. i had no time to see what Dorjii had done. Sengey tried to burn me with fire but I merely countered with sparks of my own. This did not save me, and did not save him. We both began to smoke as we struggled, bits of skin being left behind as we fought to and fro. As I twisted off his head, in one last burst of energy, he set me on fire. I did not even realize this until I had stood up and kicked away his head, letting it tumble down the hillside. I realized that I was burning at the same time as I turned to look at Dorjii. She was standing above me, near the door to the building, outlined against the intense blue of the sky. On the other side of the staircase I knew that there was a sheer cliffside. "Dorjii!" I tried to say, to encourage her after defeating Sengey. But a horrible gurgle came out instead. i made a mistake and took one burning step forward. This brought a scream from her. "No! No more! I cannot bear it!" And I realized that she was reacting to the sight of my flaming corpse body, which was moving towards her. However, before I could do anything she had turned and jumped out of sight. "Damn!" I thought. "She's killed herself!" I had no chance to move to retrieve her body when a series of noises made me spin in the midst of my orange flames. There, I found six dead men moving towards me, all of their hands dropping sparks! "How can he move six at a time?" I gasped to myself. Instead of trying to fight them, I stumbled towards Sengey's inert body nearby. "Kill the source!" I growled, about to full upon the Tibetan. But that never happened. A bolt of fire came from above and my body exploded to pieces. * * * "Around Rirab!" she called out. "Here I go around Rirab! Red and White!" * * * The young monk at Sera Gompa was dying. I entered his body quickly, finding that it was already empty. His fever was still intense, and for some moments I thought that I would have to leave him as a consequence. But soon, though gripping and grabbing by mind, I had control of his body. It was very hot work, and if I had had hands, i would have burned them there, within him. But as it turned out, I was able to keep a grip upon it all. "Hang on!" I thought. "Hang on!" Thus, waiting it out, I found his body cooling, and the death fever gone. I had a body to use. I could hide in here from everyone. * * * "Oh! No more!" Dorjii gasped. "Sengey-la! No more!" the dead woman cried. * * * "The Mongols will kill you," they warned Ippolito Desideri at Sera Gompa. He nodded but said nothing. Other monks came to him saying, "When the Chinese come to Lhasa, they will kill you!" Ippolito muttered to his fellow Jesuit. "Which," he asked, "do you think will kill us first? The other only crossed himself ferociously. * * * Dai Goro Bogdu asked, "Sengey-la, why are you playing with sexual yoga?" The Tibetan sneered. "Thank you for killing that corpse that was about to attack my body. But my gratitude does not give you the right to ask impolite questions!" "Ha!" laughed the blue man. "All questions addressed to you would be impolite! At least pretend to answer!" Sengey shook his head. "I go for higher knowledge implementation!" he said, "by going upwards through the lotus wheels! They spin, but I go upwards! There is no pollution for I can use other bodies, not my own." "Foolish, foolish," the blue man said. "You think your mind is immune to its environment?" "Pah!" spat the Tibetan. From the Nd-Drwa, I watched no longer and went towards Sera. * * * "A Changchub Sempa," said the Khenpo at Sera to the gathered young monks, "achieves enlightenment and returns to the rounds of rebirth, forgoing release." In my new body, the recently sick monk, I asked, "Khen-la, why does he do that?" Everyone's head snapped, turning in my direction in surprise. "AH," muttered the teacher. "You have been very ill, and have forgotten?" I gulped, realizing that I had made a big mistake. However, he in his kindness, explained patiently, "He, such as in the manifestation of Chen-re-zi, forgoes release. he does not wish to escape while there is suffering." "That explains it," I stated, causing a sweet smile to come upon the face of the teacher, which was soon to be replaced by a look of complete puzzlement. "That is why his incarnation lives here, in the Potala Palace?" I continued. "Uh?" he said, and nothing further. "That is why the Dalai Lama lives here in Lhasa?" "DA-LA-I-LAMA?" and turned to a nearby lama of middle age, who whispered to him, causing him to nod. Speaking to me again, he asked, with wrinkles upon his forehead, "We call him the Gyalwa Rinpoche, the Presence! How is it that you know his Mongol title?" I bit my lip and said nothing for a moment, then spoke again, only making matters worse. "By whatever name," I said, trying to avoid the question, "does he not bring compassion everywhere that he goes?" There was a stunned silence, which allowed some giggling from some novices some distance from me. "Return to your tasks," said the proctor, and suddenly the Khenpo was gone, and the monks began moving away. A few smiled and nudged me, singing in a whisper pieces of different songs. One which I caught was, "Snowing at dusk, searching for my sweetheart..." But I understood none of this. * * * The mud was dry. It was cracked deeply, but you couldn't not see the wheel. * * * I had to go back to Sengey's house. I was sure that Dorjii was dead, but one part of me kept wishing that it was otherwise. Through the Nd-Drwa I went, faster and faster. * * * "It is only excuse-making," the Chinese Amban said. "Sexual yoga is merely filth. it is not the path. it is not meditation. It is a debased practice. Anyone calling it religion is rationalizing." His Mongol visitor merely nodded. And later, while the Chinese prattled on, he nodded again. * * * I was expecting to find him, but he was gone. His room, his cell, was empty. I was puzzled. I was sure that I had left him here. Could he be in another cell? I zoomed from one to another. No, all empty! But who would have bothered to move him? Even if they had thought that he was dead? I had not been gone long. Where was the body of the young monk? * * * Spin spin. In the moving circle. "Get the right man!" he had said. "Stab him and get rid of the switchblade knife!" * * * "Snowing at dusk, searching for my sweetheart," the yak herder sang. "Secrets cannot be kept, if my footprints remain in the snow." The yaks grunted, and shuffled making their noises. "AH. Ahrrgh! Ahrrgh, ahrrgh!" * * * At Sengey's house, I found that Dorjii's body was not at the foot of the cliffside. It was above on the veranda! someone had moved it, putting it into a leaning position, head on chest, arms at the side, near the foot of the stairs. She definitely was dead, the side of her face crushed, and her hair in a tangle of dried matted blood. I sighed, and gazed at her for a long time. "I must do something," I said to myself. "I cannot just leave her here. Ah! I will bury her!" But that was easier thought than done. I had no substantial body there, only a subtle astral one. "I'll use one of those damn corpses!" I decided. However, that, too, was not to be. They were nowhere to be found. "Sengey's out with them somewhere," I mused. "That means his body is somewhere lying around apparently dead. I'll use his for the gravedigging job!" Again, easier said than done, for either he had hidden it very well or he was out somewhere in it himself. I could not figure it out, and did not wish to waste any more time in that manner. "Damn!" I cursed. "I'll just have to go to Sera Gompa and come back in the young monks' body. That will take time. I mean, his reaching his place on foot, but what else can I do?" I flew down the non-existant highways of the Nd-Drwa in the darkness, estimating very well, thus entering the light realm at Sera itself. Going to the monk's cell, I found it empty. "Damn!" I muttered. "Where could a dead man go?" * * * "Without sleep, because of love," sang the merchant loading heavy bags upon his yak. "Overwhelming frustration causes fatigue, when there is a day without my beloved." He tightened the straps to steady the position of his merchandise. * * * "Footsteps in the snow," said the regent to his assassin. "So, he has gone out to the taverns. Wait. Before dawn, be prepared. Strike quickly!" * * * Soon, it was too evident. Too clear! They had taken the young monk's body to the great rock for burial. A sky burial! The Tibetans did not bury corpses. Only a few were ever burned, due to the lack of fuel. Even the river would be an inappropriate place to throw a dead monk. Hey! They were taking him to be chopped up and fed to the vultures! "No!" I thought. 'Yes!" I answered myself, zooming in the direction of the sky-burial rock. I could see vultures gathering already. Worse, I could see that a procession of monks was leaving the site, with only a few persons staying behind to do the work. "If I could get there in time," I thought, "I could save the body. i need that body." It was close. The young monk lay stripped flat on his back. The vultures skipped about from one foot to the other, a few yards away, flapping wings in anticipation. "Hurry!" I cried to myself as I saw the man lift up a vicious-looking chopper. I entered the body hoping to roll it out of danger, but was too late. I was within it, allright. But it was hopeless. The chopper came down upon my throat before I could say anything or do anything. Headless, my body shook. My hands quivered and my feet shivered. I may have gurgled, but I do not remember precisely, for the pain was too intense. I had to escape from that body, which I did sorrowfully. * * * Overwhelming frustration causes fatigue. The room was empty. I left, and the door was closed behind me. * * * There was nothing to be done but to go back to Dorjii's body, even without a body of my own. I was startled to see her on the veranda, still nude, half going through the motions of a dance by herself. How was that possible? Then it struck me! she was animated by Thubten Sengey! I was at a loss as to what to do. His inert body was nowhere to be seen, so I had to do something direct. I decided to enter her and fight him for possession within her being. The entrance came as a stunning jolt and I realized that the seeming electricity had something to do with how many persons were within a body and not what that body was doing. He/she certainly was not engaging in sexual activity, but the interior sensation was erotic nonetheless. "It is you again!" growled the Tibetan within the darkness. "Damn right!" I snapped. "Haven't you done enough damage? Get out!" "Pah!" he responded, somewhere very nearby. The energy currents were very strange. It was erotic but frustratingly so, unsatisfiable. i had little time to contemplate this. And electrical struggle began. It was very painful. I began to feel that I had to escape that environment of suffering. However, with a few "Hang on!" mutterings to myself, and I succeeded in remaining within the dead Dorjii's body, fighting the Tibetan. Without thinking, I decided to use sparkling, flaming fingers upon my foe. But I had forgotten that we were in the same form. I clasped my (his, her, our) head in the grip of two flaming hands. There was a burst of sound and vision, a great roaring and gasping in the skull, and the explosion of unknown and known constellations. i distinctly saw Orion. "Aroo!" came the sound from him, and suddenly all was quiet. He had left. I looked down, dazed, at two smoking hands and staggered for a moment. With my eyes thus lowered, I found it strange to be looking down at the breasts, torso and legs of the body which I now inhabited. "Ah!" sighing, was all that I could do for a moment. I did not think, for a moment, where Sengey had gone off to. But in an instant, when he acted, I knew very well. A garbled sound came to my ears. It was a dead man staggering towards me. He spoke again, for that was what that noise had been. "We shall see who governs that maiden's body," he said. I would have smiled at his use of the word "maiden" except that the left side of my face would not work. The corpse grabbed me around the torso and threw me to the flagstones. Dorjii's body, dead or alive, would be no match for his strength. "Now," it laughed, leaping atop me, "perhaps you will learn something!" He was biting into my white shoulder, while his hands moved elsewhere roughly. * * * Where is she? Why won't she see me? Is there another man? You fool. Of course there is another man! She has told you! You remember whatever you wish, and forget all the rest! Ring ring! Circle circle! Wheel wheel. Why won't she answer the telephone? You imbecile! There are no telephones in Tibet! Don't you know where you are? Do you know where you are? Answer me! My god, no one answers! * * * "Her body smells of sweetness," sang the pilgrims on the road to Lhasa, "highway queen, my sweetheart, like a false turquoise, I found and threw away!" * * * Faster and faster upon the highway! * * * "Kill him! One thrust of the knife will be enough! If you do it right! So do it right!" * * * "I dwell in the Potala, as Ringden Tsangyang Gyatso," sang a Tibetan woman moving in the dark along the Ling-khor, the long road which circled the base of the Potala Palace. "Roaming in Sho and Lhasa below, I am Je Bo Tangsang Wangbo," she sang further on along her circumambulation, "the libertine!" Her voice rose and fell, finally lost somewhere on that side of the Potala which faced the village of Sho. * * * Don't you remember? The corpse had you pinned to the ground, his teeth digging into your shoulder. Through his heavy breathing, couldn't you hear it? His laughter. You shuddered as his hands moved upon your breasts, the hard cracked skin scratching you. His powerful legs followed his knee, separating your thighs. Remember? You must know that! Your hands waved and quivered helplessly, your feet shook like branches in a wind. Remember what you did? How you escaped? * * * Wheel hidden in the dried mud. Dark blue crescent mark upon the skin. What do they mean? * * * "My landlord's daughter," the man sang, "brings longing for her blossoming beauty." And the others drinking chang joined him, "Is like pining for a peach, high on a branch, unreachable!" "You manage, nonetheless," laughed one man to Je Bo. The young man looked at him, smiled, and drank his hot chang. You remember that, don't you? Yes, I remember. We both remember. Lovely peach. * * * |