went to work, opening up the corpse’s chest, removing the internal organs, and slicing the flesh from the skeleton. The rogyapas mashed up the bones with stone hammers, then mixed the particles with barley flour, a proven vulture delicacy.
“What are we doing here?” I moaned, seizing His Holiness by the shoulders.
“We are here to relieve the suffering of other sentient beings. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“No, I mean what are we doing here? Why are we in this demented alfresco cemetery?”
“We are here to meditate on tathata — suchness — the true nature of reality.”
Only after a large quantity of flesh and bone had been prepared were the vultures allowed into the ceremony, a precaution that kept them from fighting among themselves. The rogyapas carried the offerings to a large slab of rock decorated with a geometric representation of the universe, then systematically pitched the portions, one by one, toward the center of the circle. Meanwhile, one particularly athletic rogyapa swung a large rope across the inscribed outcropping, discouraging the raptors from entering the mandala before the proper time.
“Take me away!” I wailed. “I can’t stand this place! Class dismissed!”
“Is that truly your wish?” asked His Holiness.
“Yes! It’s over! Allons-y! I’m the worst student you ever had!”
“That would appear to be the case.”
The rope-swinger stilled his cord and stepped aside. Fluttering, shrieking, squawking, and — for all I knew — chanting praises to their patrons, the appreciative vultures descended.
“I don’t want to be enlightened!” I cried. “I want Gawa! I want my cousins! I want onion bagels and pineal-gland tea and Prokofiev and Fred Astaire and the Marx Brothers! I want all my stupid, worthless, impermanent toys!”
The bodhisattva shrugged and, taking my paw in his hand, began leading me toward Gangtok. “Taktra Kunga, I am disappointed in you.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Let me offer a word of counsel,” said His Holiness. “When lying on your deathbed, strive mightily to release these negative energies of yours. You won’t be reborn a buddha, but you won’t come back an insect either. Speaking personally, I hope you remain a giant ape. You do that very well.”
The Earth turned, the wheel of life revolved, and, exactly one year after hearing Dorje Lingpa declare his intention to wreck a Mao-Mao troop train, my cousins and I once again found ourselves huddled drowsily behind his yurt on the eve of Mönlam Chenmo. We did not expect to get much sleep. Chögi Gyatso and his half-brother had stayed up late arguing over the necessity of destroying the Brahmaputra bridge. They had found no points of accord. Bad karma suffused the gorge like the stench of a charnel ground.
I awoke shortly after sunrise, tired, bleary, and miserable, then stumbled into the yurt. My cousins occupied the dining table, playing seven-card stud. His Holiness and Dorje Lingpa sat in the breakfast nook, eating oranges and drinking buttered tea.
“A flush,” said Cousin Jowo, displaying five hearts.
“Beats my straight,” said Cousin Nyima, disclosing his hand.
The plaintive moan of a diesel horn fissured the frosty air.
“A troop transport,” noted Dorje Lingpa. “Over the years I’ve come to know each train by its call, like a hunter identifying different species of geese by their honks.”
A second mournful wail arose, rattling the circular roof.
“The train is exactly nine miles away,” said Dorje Lingpa. “It will be here in six and a half minutes.”
“Dear brother, your mind is crammed with useless knowledge,” said Chögi Gyatso.
“That horn is a death knell,” Dorje Lingpa continued. “Listen carefully, brother. The train is pealing its own doom.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
A long, malevolent, Za-like grin bisected Dorje Lingpa’s melon face. “I’m talking about a bridge bristling with sticks of dynamite. I’m talking about a detonator attached to the high-speed track. I’m talking about headlines in tomorrow’s Beijing Times and the next day’s Washington Post.” He brushed his brother’s shaved head. “And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”
Nothing. His Holiness’s favorite concept. Long live Double-O-Seven. You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when Chögi Gyatso leapt up, fled the yurt, and dashed toward the railroad siding.
“Bad idea!” I yelled, giving chase.
“I think not,” His Holiness replied.
I drew abreast of Chögi Gyatso, surpassed him, depositing my furry bulk in his path. He circumnavigated me and lurched toward the rusting turnout connecting the maintenance track to the Lhasa line.
“Om mani padme hum,” he chanted, seizing the steel lever and throwing the switch.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
Actually it was quite obvious what he was doing. He was contriving to reconfigure the rails, so that he might drive the gang car west along the highspeed line, hit the bridge, and trip the detonator.
“Pacifism is not passivity,” he noted, then headed for the gang car. “The explosion will warn the engineer to stop the train.”
“No! That’s crazy! Don’t!”
Now Dorje Lingpa appeared on the scene, grabbing His Holiness around the waist with the evident intention of hauling him to the ground.
The diesel horn bellowed, louder than ever.
I was there, O shiny ones. I saw the whole amazing incident. For the first time in seven hundred years, a Dalai Lama decked somebody with a roundhouse right — in this case, his own bewildered brother. James Bond swinging his fists or a yeti delivering a glog punch could not have felled Dorje Lingpa more skillfully.
As the trainman lay in the snow, stunned and supine, my clan arrived, grappling hooks in hand, climbing ropes slung over their shoulders like huge epaulets. Cousin Ngawang placed a large hairy foot on Dorje Lingpa’s chest.
“Your brother is a brave man,” the ape declared.
The diesel horn screamed across the valley.
His Holiness climbed into the inspection vehicle and assumed the controls. “After I’ve passed over the turnout, kindly throw the switch to its former position,” he instructed me. “We don’t want to save the train from my brother’s vengeance only to derail it through negligence.”
“You don’t understand!” I cried. “All is illusion! That train isn’t real! The soldiers aren’t real! There is no suchness except what exists in your mind!”
“Don’t be silly,” His Holiness said, putting the motor in gear. “I love you, Taktra Kunga,”
