Imagination

THE STORY ISSUE

PARABOLA T R A D I T I O N , M Y T H , A N D T H E S E A R C H F O R M E A N I N G

Imagination SPRIN SP RINGG 200 20099 PLEASE DISPLAY UNTIL April 30, 2009 $9.50 / $11.50 CANADA

Ishmael Beah Jean Houston Laura Simms Diane Wolkstein

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PARABOLA TRADITION, MYTH, AND AND THE SEARCH FOR MEANING MEANING

IMAGINATION VOLUME 34 NUMBER 1 SPRING 2009

INTRODUCTION: FLINGING THE NET The reconciling power of good stories 32

THE HEART EA EATER TER Translated T ranslated and retold by Ishmael Beah 34

THE ODYSSEY Introduced by Jean Houston, from Samuel Butler’s translation 39

KOSIYA, THE BUDDHIST SCROOGE Translated T ranslated and retold retold by Margo McLoughlin McLoughlin 44

RUTH RU TH:: WHE WHERE RE YO YOU U GO GO,, I WI WILL LL GO Retold by Diane Wolkstein 52

A HEN HEN AN AND D A RO ROOS OSTE TER R Retold by Laura Simms 60

THE STOR STORYY OF KRAKA AND RAGNAR LODBROK Retold by Barbara Bluestone 66

MON MO NKE KEYY KIN ING G: JO JOU URN RNEEY TO TH THEE WE WEST ST Retold by Diane Wolkstein 68

THE SECRET OF DREAMING Retold by Jim Poulter 76































SCENE FROM SHAKESPEARE’S “A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM” ANONYMOUS, C . 185 1858, 8, LIT LITHOGR HOGRAPH APH,, LON LONDON DON

ARTICLES 6

THE MIST WOLF Stephan A. Schwartz A shaman, a sacred sacred act, and the world world is re-ima re-imagined gined

12

IMAGINATION IMAGINA TION AND THE VOID Patrick Laude Imagination within the sacred Traditions

20

FINDING THE CENTER, ENTERING THE LAND Geoffrey W. Dennis The triumph of the imaginative imaginative faculty, faculty, in the Jewish labyrinth

28

IMAGINATION Christian Wertenbak Wertenbaker er A scientist explores the many facets of imagination

87

A TOPOLOGICAL NOTE ON THE TRINITY Richard Jagacinski Using imagination to apprehend a sacred mystery

92

A CRACK IN THE WORLD Thomas K. Shor High in the Himalayas, an expedition to a secret secret world

10 3

THE GENEROUS IMAGE Barbara Helen Berger Lessons from the naked goddess Green Tara

BOOK REVIEWS 1111 11

REINVENTING THE SACRED

Stuart A. Kauffman | reviewed by James George 1166 11

BEADS OF FAITH

Gray Henry and Susannah Marriot | reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos 1244 12

ACEDIA AND ME































EDITOR & PUBLISHER Jeff Zaleski

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A parabola is one of the most elegant forms in nature. Every path made by a thrown ball, every spout of water from a fountain, fountain , and every graceful arch of o f steel cables in a suspension bridge is a parabola.

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MANAGING EDITOR Robert Doto EDITOR AT LARGE Tracy Cochran ART EDITOR Miriam Faugno EPICYCLES EDITOR Margo McLoughlin CONSULTING CONSUL TING EDITORS Joseph Bruchac, Gray Henry, Winifred Lambrecht, Jacob Needleman, David Rothenberg, Martin Rowe, Laura Simms, Richard Smoley,, Phyllis Tickle, Diane Wolkstein Smoley

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The parabola represents the epitome of a quest. As stated in our first issue, it is “a curving line that sails outward and returns with a new expansion—and perhaps a new content, like the flung net of a Japanese fisherman.” It is the metaphorical journey jour ney to a particular point, and then back home, along a similar path perhaps, but in a different dif ferent direction, after which the traveler is essentially,, irrevocably changed. ly Parabolas have an unusual and useful property: as in a satellite dish, all parallel beams bea ms of energy (e.g., light or radio waves) reflect on the parabola’s face and gather at one point. That point is called the focus. In a similar way, each issue of PARABOLA has its own focus: one of the timeless themes of human existence.

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FOCUS | Froromm the the Ed Edito itorr

WELCOME TO PARABOLA PARABOLA’’S ISSUE ON IMAGINATION, which is also our first Story Issue. The confluence seems appropriate because at their best, stories offer guidance on the spiritual spiritu al path. The story of Jesus, or the life of the Buddha, or the tales of Beelzebub told by G. I. Gurdjieff come to mind. Parabola features This issue of Parabola features nine stories drawn from nine cultures. First comes “The Heart Eater,” a traditional story from the Parabola by Mende tribe in Sierra Leone, translated and retold for Parabola by Ishmael Beah, the author of A of A Long Time Gone , the bestselling memoir of Beah’s harrowing harro wing time as a child soldier. Joining Beah with another story is the woman who sheltered him from war, his adoptive mother, renowned storyteller Laura Simms. The issue also includes a traditional story stor y heard in the mountains of Bhutan and retold by Bhutanese folklorist Dorji Penje. Internationally Internation ally acclaimed storyteller stor yteller Diane Wolkstein Wolkstein contributes an excerpt from the Chinese epic Monkey King . Psychologist Jean Houston reintroduces readers to one of the th e great Western epic stories, the Odyssey , and Parabola ’s ’s epicycle editor Margo McLoughlin offers of fers a tale that demonstrates the universality of themes (and human hu man character traits) across traditions. Imagination plays a critical role in helping us explore how the world works. As anyone who has prayed or meditated knows, imagination can too often and too easily take the form of daydreaming and distracted thinking. Yet as demonstrated by Thomas Shor’s true-life tale here of fantastic Tibetan adventure, and by Stephan A. Schwartz’s provocative witnessing of a shaman tearing a crack in the cosmic egg, imagination can bring us into contact with a reality greater than that known by our everyday minds. (As St. Paul said,

































THE

MIST WOLF Stephan A. Schwartz

WE ARE STANDING IN A PARKING LOT IN GATHERING TWILIGHT. Maybe twenty of us, including half a dozen physicians and several scientists. Standing there, leaning in, watching a Shoshone shaman, Rolling Thunder, attempt to heal the wound of a teenage boy lying on a massage table. It seems a painful wound, torn into the muscle of his leg, and the boy is clearly in discomfort, and just as obviously medicated. He got this wound through some kind of accident, I have heard, and it is not healing properly pr operly.. This is what has brought him to this Virginia Beach parking lot at the back of Edgar Cayce’s old hospital. It is now the headquarters of the ARE, the organization founded in 1931 1931 to preserve preserve Cayce’s Cayce’s readings, discourses given from a state of nonlocal awareness while Cayce lay seemingly asleep. It

































taking place in the middle of my inter view with Rolling Thunder. Thunder. Part of my income comes from writing for the VIRGINIAN-PILOT about unusual people who come to Virginia Beach, which mostly means to the ARE. Hugh Lynn Cayce, executive director of the ARE, called me late last Monday

afternoon to say a shaman, a medicine man, as he explained it, was coming. If I wanted to interview him I could pick him up at the Greyhound station and talk to him that afternoon. Saturday he would be doing a traditional Native American healing ritual, which I was welcome to attend. That’s how I first heard about Rolling Thunder Thunder.. Of course I accepted, and he gave me the time. Four o’clock. I had to check the location, it seemed so improbable: “The Greyhound…bus station… in Norfolk?” “The same,” Hugh Lynn replied. Most of the people I have met through Hugh Lynn put themselves forward as spiritual teachers and shamans and are accepted, by at least some people, as being the genuine article. Having spent hours talking to these men and women, listening to their stories, their answers to my questions, their affect, how they dressed, how they stood, their eyes, what I can only call their beingness , I have begun to develop some discernment. It is clear to me that authenticity is in part a measure of the continuity between the public persona and private personality. To the degree they are not one and the same, that person seems diminished. About a month before, Hugh Lynn had alerted me to an Indian of another type, a Hindu priest from India. He

































“Wow,” I thought. “This man must be in a truly exalted state of consciousness.” I looked forward to hearing him speak later that night. However, he was quite disappointing. He had beautiful diction, but spoke almost nothing but platitudes and slogans. By the time he was through I realized I was dealing with shtick, whether consciously consciously contrived or not I couldn’t tell. But it taught me a lesson I never forgot: If an expert is someone from more than one hundred miles away with a briefcase, a holy man may be only someone from a distant land, practicing an unfamiliar faith, with a different set of altar ornaments.

TH IS IS ST THIS STIL ILLL VERY V ERY MU MUCH CH IN MY MI MIND ND on a hot summer afternoon as I drive down to the Greyhound station. The Norfolk iteration of this cultural institution comes complete with the usual: sailors fooling around, Marines playing a game of black jack, old black ladies sitting patiently, patiently, cooling themselves with paper church fans, and leaning up against the snack counter a middle-aged Indian, with an unblocked cowboy hat, an old tweed jacket, and a bolo tie with a turquoise slide. He is eating some cheddar cheese Nabs, and drinking a coke. He smokes a pipe, I can see; it is sticking out of the breast pocket of his jacket. Wee introduce ourselves, he picks up a W small bag, and we walk out to the

they have. A mile farther Shore Drive cuts through a state park, and suddenly we are in beach wilderness such as sixteenth-century colonists would have seen, and it runs on for several miles. Wee are about W about midway through when Rolling Thunder asks me to pull over. Reaching for his bag, he opens the door and gets out of the car, asking me when he is supposed to be at the ARE. I think he wants to relieve himself in the woods. But no. He clearly intends to leave me. About seven p.m., I say say.. He thanks me, asks me to build a small fire where he is to work, and turns and walks down the bank and into the woods. “Don’t forget the steaks,” he calls out as he walks away away.. He is completely natural in all of this. It is not being done for effect and, as it is happening, it seems the most obvious and appropriate thing for him to be doing. Only as I watch him vanish into the trees does it become clear how unusual this is. Presumably he is going to sleep in the woods? Rolling Thunder reminds me of a Polish sergeant I had when I was in the Army. Army. So thoroughly secure in his esoteric skillset, that what seemed improbable to me he did with effortless effor tless competence. I realize he and the sergeant are just different kinds of warriors.

TH E NEX THE N EXTT AF AFTE TERN RNOO OONN I go up to the ARE with the steaks in a cooler. cooler. Someone has



































































the cooler out of the car, and go over and light the fire. Hugh Lynn comes over, wearing an ironed white shirt, without a tie, and a windbreaker. windbreaker. He always reminds me of a prosperous small town banker, not the youngest son of one of the most famous clairvoyants in history. In fact he has the mind of a Medici, and is the most interesting person I have met doing these interviews. He introduces me to a couple of the doctors, then goes over to the vans parked nearby,, and talks with two women. They nearby are the mothers, who have accompanied their sons. Inside each van one of the boys to be healed lies quietly in the back. It is twilight now and I can see them framed in the overhead light in the vans. Another physician physician almost in silhouette moves between them. Precisely at seven Rolling Thunder, looking just as he had the day before, walks out of the woods holding his small bag. He goes up to Hugh Lynn who, seeing him coming, calls everyone together.. He says a few words of introtogether duction, and while he does this Rolling Thunder kneels down and pulls out from

within is brought out on a stretcher and placed on the massage table. As Rolling Thunder talks quietly to him, the boy seems to be having trouble at first focusing on what is being said, probably because the move has caused him additional pain. But gradually he calms, and lies still, his eyes closed. His mother comes over and stands to one side. While this is going on, by unspoken consensus we observers have been slowly shuffling forward until we reach an acceptable compromise between intruding and being able to observe obser ve closely. closely. It turns out this is an arc about eight feet away from fr om the boy on the table. Rolling Thunder begins a soft slow chant. I cannot make out the words, just the rhythm of the rising and falling sound. He begins making slow passes over the boy’s form using the wing and breast of the raven, moving it just an inch or two above his body. body. I can see the feathers spread slightly against the air pressure as his arm sweeps along. Long graceful strokes. Every second or third stroke he flicks the wing tip down towards the steak on the ground. As it



































clock. Sweep. Sweep. Flick. Sweep. Sweep. Flick. After about thirty minutes the form begins to fade, first losing shape, then becoming increasingly insubstantial. Finally,, it is nothing more than a Finally chimera, there and not there. Then it is gone. Rolling Thunder straightens up and stops. He makes a kind of gesture and somehow somehow we are released to come forward. The boy is very peaceful. His mother steps up to him and leans over him, kissing his forehead. The wound is completely healed. It looks like your skin does when a scab falls off, leaving smooth unlined pink skin, shiny in its newness. I am astonished. Clearly,, so is everyone Clearly ever yone else. I go over to Hugh Lynn, who is in animated con versation with a British scientist, Douglas Dean, who has come down from New Jersey to see this. Hugh Lynn asks me, “What did you see?” “Y “Yes, es, what…?” Dean says. I tell them, and when I say the mist took form, they exchange a look, and Hugh Lynn asks, “What shape?” When I tell them I saw a wolf, another look passes between them, and

mist which seems about two-inches thick begins to form. It grows stronger, stops flickering, but, just as it begins to take form, it stalls. It happens once. A second time. A third. This time I look around and my eyes are ar e drawn to the mother mother.. I have no idea how I know this, but I know it is the boy’s mother. mother. She is blocking this. As Rolling Thunder is beginning a fourth attempt he suddenly stops. He straightens up, turns and walks over to Hugh Lynn. He says, “I cannot do this. The mother will not permit it. She has a mother’s love, and it is very powerful.” “Yes. “Y es. I noticed. I’ll talk to them.” Hugh Lynn goes over and talks to the doctor for a while, then the mother and the son. I can’t hear them. Then he comes over to where Dean and I are standing and says, “He was drifting a way from her, now he is dependent once again. She is conflicted about giving that up.” Rolling Thunder goes over and sits on the cooler that held the steaks. The evening is clearly over. People start drifting away. away. I can hear cars starting and, in



































IMAGINATION AND THE VOID TO BE OR NOT TO TO BE Patrick Laude



































TH E AMB THE A MBIG IGUO UOUS US POW POWER ER OF IM IMAG AGES ES has never been as pervasive as it is today through the world of media and virtual vir tual reality. reality. Images shape ideas and tendencies, determine action, invade daily consciousness, and sometimes rule over opinion. They can hypnotize and control; they can feed all sorts of delusions and foster imbalance. In short, images fill up the vacuum left by the spiritual disarray of our contemporary world. So saturated is modern life with myriads of images of all kinds that we don’t take notice of most of them anymore. One must wonder what may remain of the power of creative imagination when such a passive, hardly conscious relationship with images has settled in and become second nature. Notwithstanding, modern man still values imagination as a rare, mysterious, and awesome faculty.. Our schools encourage children to faculty explore, display, enrich their imagination, although what we mean by it is far from clear, so blurryy and capricious have become the criteria blurr that validate its worth and function. When we try to specify what imagination entails, the most likely associations involve subjectivity subjectivity,, individuality individuality,, and freedom from boundaries. Imagination is a private, idiosyncratic realm that makes one enjoy the oft-complacent delights of being special. As a comforting haven of fantasy fantasy,, it protects us from



































seemingly unlimited power of projection of an imagination that defies the constraints of reality as it is known. Modern science and technology thrive on this sense of unhampered liberty to question, inquire, and fathom. This is, in a sense, the very pride that modern mankind boasts as its uncontested superiority over ages of allegedly conformist compliance with unexamined beliefs and unscrutinized customs. There is no modernity without unconstrained unconstrained imagination, imagination to think, to do, and to be.

CRITICS OF MODERNITY HAVE SUGGESTED that such highly subjective, individualized, and metaphysically unrestricted understanding of imagination may ultimately confine us to alienation and Prometheism. The artificiality of many of its productions reinforces mankind’s chronic separation from its environment, short of integration with a qualitative universe of meaning. It erects walls of isolation among humans by means of the mesmerizing power of technological creations and projections. Television and the internet are poor substitutes for bonds

aries and realizes the old prophecies of a world totally enmeshed in the alluring net of Maya, or swept in the whirlwind of exponential “surreality “surr eality.” .” To attend to this crisis of modern imagination, a few questions are in order. Should imagination be confined to the realms of the subjective, the individual, and the phantasmatic, and has it always been akin to them? Is imagination free from any laws, and independent from any objective grounding? Is the contemporary disconnection between imagination and “things as they are” and “things as we know them” the fundamental rule, or rather the circumstantial exception?

TR ADIT TRAD ITIO IONA NALL WOR W ORLD LDSS have been unanimous in their metaphysical and spiritual embrace of imagination. The world of images has been universally conceived as an inspiring and pacifying treasury of wisdom: not only a horizon of dream but a space of knowledge. Pre-modern mankind was quite aware that visual representations provide a more direct access to reality than concepts and discourses. It highly prized the power of imagina-





































TRADITIONAL WORLDS HAVE BEEN UNANIMOUS IN THEIR MET METAPHYSICAL APHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL EMBRACE OF IMAGINATION.





































“world,” the mundus imaginalis , a world more real than our daily dream. In it and through it the higher realm of spiritual realities becomes proportionate to our terrestrial faculties of perception: the imaginal unfolds a bridge between the celestial and the terrestrial. In other words, the “imaginal world” is the intermediary realm that joins the spiritual spheres with physical realities. As for the “imaginary” domain that

ontological province, but it also possesses its own laws. In his ANTHROPOLOGICAL STRUCTURES OF IMAGINATION ,

Gilbert Durand drew an extensive repertory of the ways in which imagination has manifested and functioned through myths and symbols, through religions and arts, through ages and lands. He has has shown that mankind has been remarkably one in its understanding and use of imagination as a faculty that

IMAGINATION LIES AT AT THE JUNCTURE OF DEATH AND LIFE,

ABSENCE AND PRESENCE









































































visions of reconciliation, fusion and union, like the night that envelops and disposes to sleep, yin . Imagination lies at the juncture of death and life, absence and presence. It has been hailed as a victory over death and putrefaction. Is not the image a surrogate for the living reality that has elapsed or vanished ? Paintings, photographs, are images proposed to memory: we willingly evoke the presence of those we love by means of the magic of representation, or we restore, through it, a symbolic life to those who have passed away. In Rome, the imago was was a mortuary mask of the dead that patrician families carried in a funerary procession. It was then placed on the altar of ancestors, like a permanent reminder of death in life and life in death. The image is a presence in absence, but it is also an absence in

IMAGINATION FILLS A GAP, but it does so in two very different dif ferent ways. As Corbin reminds us, it can be, positively, positively, like a bridge, or a pathway pathway,, between the world of visible, physical forms, and the realm of suprasensory suprasensor y, archetypical, spiritual realities that cannot, as such, be perceived by our senses, nor enter the world of forms. This is the intermediary world of similitude in difference and difference in similitude. Similitude is the key to interpretation, the science of deciphering messages from the beyond; but such a translation is not one-sided and quasiautomatic like that of a sign-post or an allegory, meaning this is that and that’s it. Difference introduces a wealth of levels and correspondences that makes the symbol ever more than what it appears to be. Imagination is the faculty that gives access to this full domain of meaning.





































sense of the word. This is imagination as “filler of the void,” to use Simone Weil’s Wei l’s phrase: “It is continually at work filling up the fissures through which grace may pass.” There are the fissures that result from our relativity, relativity, from the fact that we are neither self-sufficient nor self-fulfilled. The “void” that is to be filled is the incompleteness of our terrestrial being, of our individual experience. It is from or through the “void” resulting from our relativity that the “fullness” of the Real can be unveiled. In need of Reality Reality,, our incomplete, fragmentary being should open itself to the completeness, the absoluteness of the Divine, which is the only fully satisfactory response r esponse to it. But such an opening implies a “dark night” that our soul does not want to bear with patience, or in waiting, to use again one of Weil’s

I desired to be known, so I created cr eated the world in order to be known.” Imagination is an objectification of the divine Subject through which God knows Himself in the mode of multiplicity and contrast. Imagination is the exteriorized “content” of the Divine Subject in the way of a wealth of creative cr eative meanings “passed into” imaginal forms. The world springs forth out of God’s imagination, and human imagination can, and must, unfold in an analogous creative process. Human art mimics divine art. In parallel, the individualistic bent that characterizes modern imagination, despite its flowing from an inordinate cultivation of arbitrary idiosyncrasies, can also be understood as an obscured and indirect sense that imagination does indeed relate each and every soul to the whole of being, and to the Principle of







































FINDING THE CENTER, ENTERING THE LAND

THE LABYRINTHS OF JEWISH IMAGINATION IMAGINATION Geoffrey W. Dennis













































































ever I go, I am only going to the Holy Land….”(Chayyei Moharan, Navritch 6). This sensibility that life is a pilgrimage through an imagined landscape is especially evident in the Jewish use of one of the enduring archetypes of human thought, the labyrinth (Hebrew: mavokh, labirint, sevakh ). ).1 Few symbols typify the human experience like the labyrinth. It signifies the inner life of man, the divine mind, the transition between kinds of being, and the journey of a soul trying to navigate the bewildering twists of fate. For Jews, the labyrinth embodies all

NACHMAN OF BRATSLA BRATSLAVV, MOHAR AN #420

Nachman’s characterization of faith as an irrgang of sublime discoveries is an ancient motif in Judaism. It is the master image of the mystical Hekhalot (“Palaces”) literature of Late Antiquity, which offers to guide a living adept on an ecstatic soul-ascent through the complex of celestial precincts. The worthy who can navigate this supernal maze will be privileged to encounter the “King in His Beauty” at the heart of the heavenly mansions.3 But the labyrinth finds its primary





















































































































walked about in the antechambers. Some of them have have entered the the inner court of the habitation and have come to be b e with the king, in one and the same place with him, namely, namely, in the ruler’s r uler’s habitation. But their having come into the inner part of the habitation does not mean that they see the ruler or speak to him. For after their

ancient city as an irrgang has compelling intuitive logic. In the biblical account, the walls of Jericho are the chief barrier bar rier to entering the holy land (Joshua 6:1). The divine solution, requiring the Israelites to make seven circuits around the walls in meditative silence until the









































becomes for Jews a trope for the condition of exile. By the early modern era, an increasingly common literary motif is that of a foreboding forest or wilderness, as exemplified in this famous Hasidic parable:

this labyrinth motif is found in the Yiddish poem “Brother God,” by the young Abraham Joshua Heschel: God is fettered in jail, in labyrint labyrinths hs of transcendenc transcendence. e. You escape and go through all the streets But Your divinity masks You.9









































and word. Ten Sefirot out of nothing…. SEFER YETZIRAH MISHNAH 1:1, TR ANSLATION BY ARYEH KAPLAN

This description of divine wisdom flowing through a complex network of letters and numbers in time evolves into the doctrine of the ten sefirot that con-

way (unicursal), while a maze/irrgang has multiple pathways (multicursal) that include dead-ends and false routes. Historic usage of these terms, starting with the Labyrinth Labyrinth of Minos itself, has not held held true to this typology typology.. I too will use the terms interchangeably.

2 Saward, J., LABYRINTHS AND MAZES , New York: York: Lark Books, pp. 18–19. Schafer, r, P T THH E H I D D E N AN D M AN I F ES T G O D S O ME 3 Schafe









































IMAGINATION Christian Wertenbak Wertenbaker er









































fantasize endlessly about the opposite sex, leading sometimes to action. In the view of many scientists, scientists, this is the origin and purpose of imagination. However, these are not its limits: the manipulation of images in human minds undergoes many levels of abstraction, evidently

conscious choices are illusory, afterthe-fact rationalizations, and in many circumstances this can be clearly shown. So “free will” does not exist. But this does not take into account the power of imagination. We can anticipate various possible reactions to a stimulus, and pre-































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































the white water curtain to the other side. What did he find? To be concise: Paradise. Monkey paradise. Flowers, fruit, trees. tr ees. No large crouching beasts, prowling beasts, or flying beasts and no humans! Monkey leapt back through the waterfall, described paradise; and the monkeys, not being fools, followed him through the waterfall to paradise where fights broke out over stone tables, chairs, and cups. “STOP!” shouted Stone Monkey. “You “You forgot your promise! I found the beginning! I am your king! I am Handsome Monkey King!” And the monkeys, who love to play play,, bowed and kowtowed and threw flowers and fruit fr uit at their king. Monkey King then appointed ministers and ruled….

ONE DAY, DAY, HANDSOME MONKEY KING WAS EATING A PEACH, and suddenly, he began to weep. A tear trickled down his cheek onto his chest down to his tail and plopped to the ground; followed by another and another. His subjects cried, “Handsome Monkey King, why do you weep? We have everything—flowers, fruit, trees; no rain, no beasts, no wind and no humans!” “Everything today today,” ,” said Monkey. “And tomorrow? Will not Yama, King of Death, come and take it all away? Ah. . .ohhhh.” All the monkeys covered their faces. They wept and sobbed and cried: “Wee shall die…we shall die…we shall “W shall die!” They made a racket. Grandfather Monkey spoke. “Monkey King, It may be time for you to travel.” “Travel?” “To “T o the ones who don’t die, who remain like rivers and mountains, the Buddhas, the Immortals, the Sages.” “If I must follow the clouds to the ends of the earth, I will find the ones who don’t die and will learn their secrets.” “When will you leave?” “Tomorrow.” “Ha, you are already a sage.” The next day the monkeys feasted and presented their king with a pinewood raft. They bowed and kowtowed as sage Monkey King pushed off on his way to find the dharma. TH E WIN THE W INDD CAR C ARRI RIED ED MO MONK NKEY EY AN ANDD THE T HE RA RAFT FT TO TH THEE SO SOUT UTHH CON C ONTI TINE NENT, NT, where he beached his raft and made strange faces at the humans on shore, frightening them into fleeing and leaving their clothing. Dressing himself in human clothes, he swaggered across countries, imitating human speech and manners. He found people suffering stress and strain, seeking profit and fame, rising early































Fearless of leopards or tigers, Monkey King headed for the peak. The door to a cave opened. A graceful, ageless boy looked at Monkey strangely and asked, “Why are you here?” “I am seeking immortality.” “Our master was speaking when he stopped and said, ‘Bring the seeker outside the door.’ It must be you.” Monkey King followed the boy through pearly chambers to a green jade platform where Subhuti sat. Subhuti was a grand priest, empty empty,, spontaneous, ever-changing. His age and heaven’s age were the same. On seeing the grand Subhuti, Monkey King fell before him, cr ying, “Master, I am here. Your student is here!” He bowed and kowtowed and kowtowed and bowed. “Stop!” the master ordered. “Y “Your our name before bowing.” “I have no name.” “The name of your parents?” “I have no parents.” “Were “W ere you born fro from m a tree? tree?” ” “From a stone.” “Let me see you walk.” Monkey scurried about. “A monkey! Well, I shall call you Sun, meaning, child, little one.” “Don’t stop there, master—give master—gi ve me my own name as well. I beg you.” “Wukong, “W ukong, Awake to Emptiness.” Monkey King leapt for joy. A name! He had become a sentient being. He leapt and danced until the others had had to lead him away away to learn to act and speak properly. properly. He read and discussed scriptures. He practiced magic signs, pruned trees, gathered firewood, fir ewood, carried water, brought tea….

ONE DAY, DAY, SUBHUTI ASCENDED THE TH E PLATFORM AND INTERWOVE INTE RWOVE ZEN, TAO, and the Confucist way with such harmony that a golden lotus sprang from the ground. The truth so simple and profound hit Monkey King and he began to laugh and prance until he ran about on all fours. “What are you doing?” doing?” asked asked Subhuti. Subhuti. “Why are you not listenin listening?” g?” “Oh, but I am! Yo Your ur words—I saw flowers falling from heaven—and I could not not help but leap leap and dance.” dance.” “How long have you been here?” “Seven times I have eaten my full of peaches on Ripe Peach Mountain.” “Then, what learning do you wish? There are three hundred and sixty side-doors to illumination.” “Which will bring me immortality?”





























































“Mischievous monkey!” Subhuti said, and struck him three times on the head, turned his back on him, and left the room. “Bad, rude, ill-mannered monkey!” the others cried. Sun Wukong grinned. That night he pretended to sleep and counted his breaths to the third watch, the right time to seek the Truth. The moon was crisp and cold and clear as he crept in the back door to Subhuti’s bedroom. When the master awoke and saw Monkey, he cried, “Mischievous monkey, monkey, what are you doing here?” “Did you not order your student by three taps and turning your back, to come at the third watch by the back door for secret instructions?” “Ah, you’ve solved the riddle in the pot. Listen carefully carefully,, and I will tell you the wondrous way of long life. He revealed the cloud somersault and the seventy two transformations to Monkey, Monkey, who upon learning one, understood one hundred…. Some time later, Great Sage, desiring a proper weapon to protect himself and his little ones, set out to visit his neighbor, the Dragon King. He made the magic sign and plunged to the bottom of the the Eastern sea. The Dragon King led him to the ocean treasur y. The rarity was shining with ten thousand rays of golden light. Monkey King lifted the twentyfoot iron rod. On one end was the inscription: Compliant gold rod. Weight 13,500 pounds. “A little long,” he said. The treasure shrank two feet. Monkey looked about him. Had anyone else noticed? The treasure was compliant with one’s secret wishes. Great Sage insisted that the Dragon King’s brothers give him gifts. When his brothers complained, the Dragon King said, “Better to speak to Heaven than to challenge the one holding the rod….” In heaven, the Four Dragon Kings demanded that Monkey King be punished. Kwan Yin stepped forward and said to the Jade Emperor, Emperor, “Rather than use force, let’s find a peaceful solution. Why don’t we invite him to join us? If he’s receptive, we promote pr omote him. If he’s disobedient, we arrest him. This way we can keep our eye on him.” The Jade Emperor nodded. As soon as Monkey King arrived in heaven, he held a banquet and immediately became friends with all the stars. Complaints were then registered against him for over-socializing. over-socializing. So he was appointed caretaker of the Garden of Immortal Peaches. Peaches. He worked conscientiously,, happily eating his way through the peach orchard. conscientiously One morning, Lady Queen Mother sent her seven maidens to pick peaches for the Grand Festival. While searching for peaches, they awoke Great Sage. “Rogues! Thieves! Thieves! How dare you steal my peaches!” he cried. cried. “Lady Queen Mother has sent us to gather peaches for the Grand Festival, and we can’t find enough. Someone has been here before us and plucked the juiciest ones.”































had not yet arrived. He transfixed the ser vants and wine-makers and drank and ate and ate and drank until he stumbled into the upper most of the thirty-three heavens, the home of Lao Tzu. No one was there. On the table were five gourds filled with the divine elixir that Lao Tzu had been preparing for five thousand years for the Jade Emperor Emperor.. “Good Fortune!” Monkey King cried and swallowed one elixir after another.. When he opened his eyes and saw the empty gourds, he said, another “Time to disappear” and somersaulted back to Water-Curtain Water-Curtain Cave.

IN HEAVEN, THE LADY QUEEN MOTHER, THE WINE MAKERS, AND LAO TZU reported to the Jade Emperor. Emperor. A great force was sent to earth: The Four Kings, the Nine Planets, the Twenty-eight Constellations, the Moon, the Sun, the Four Rivers, the Five Mountains, One Hundred Thousand soldiers. The One Hundred Thousand soldiers spread a net so tight around Flower-Fruit Mountain that not a drop of water could escape. The Nine Planets stormed stor med Water W ater Curtain Cave, shout shouting, ing, “Come out so we can reduce you to powde powder!” r!” “How rudely rudely you speak. speak. Where are your manners? manners?” ” Monkey King King called called and he appeared with the Compliant Gold Rod, and forced them to retreat. In Heaven, Kwan Yin recommended that the Demon King, Ehr-Lang, be sent to earth to defeat the rebellious Monkey King. Delighted, Ehr-lang, master of transformations, a green-faced, scarlet-haired creature, appeared on earth. He made himself one hundred thousand feet tall. Monkey changed into a creature the same height and features. They fought three hundred rounds: thrusting, blocking, hurling insults. Stones, rocks, flying dust dimmed the cosmos. In Heaven, Kwan Yin invited the Jade Emperor, Lady Queen Mother, and Lao Tzu to the South Heavenly gates to look out. “Ah, Ehr-lang may need some assistance. I will throw down my immaculate vase.” “No, no. If your vase hits the iron rod, r od, it may shatter,” said Lao Tzu, “Permit me.” And he dropped his diamond vajra bracelet. It hit Monkey King’s head. Great Sage toppled over. over. They punctured his collarbone, pulling a rope through it so he could not transform. They brought him to heaven and tied him to the execution block. They hacked and slashed him, stabbed stabb ed him. They burned burned him. To To no effect. “What did you expect?” asked Lao Tzu. “He ate the immortal immor tal peaches, drank the heavenly wine, imbibed the divine elixir. He has a diamond body. body. Not easy to destroy. Give him to me. I will smelt him in the cauldron until he is ashes.” He untied the rope to Monkey’s collarbone and threw him into the eighttrigram cauldron. Clever Monkey, Monkey, what did he do? He hid in the entrance to the cauldron where the wind passes in and out. Since fire cannot burn wind, after forty-nine days, when Lao Tzu opened the cauldron, Great Sage leapt

































Planets fled to their rooms. The thirty-six thir ty-six fighting thunder lords surrounded him. Monkey King, full of boundless transformations, changed into a monster with six arms and three heads. He whirled and danced in their midst; turning round and round, bright and luminous. No one could stop Monkey King! The Jade Emperor sent for Buddha. “Great Sage, let me see your powers,” Buddha said. “Big Monk, who are you?” Monkey King retorted. retor ted. Buddha laughed. “I am the Venerable Venerable One. What are your intentions?” intentions ?” “To “T o take over Heaven! The Jade Emperor’s been here too long. I’ve all kinds of powers. I know seventy-two transformations. I can cloudsomersault eight thousand one hundred feet. Why should I not sit on the throne of heaven?” “Monkey,, I will make you a wager. If you can somersault out of my “Monkey palm, you will rule heaven. heav en. If you fail, you return to the Regions Regi ons Below.” Below.” “What a fool! Your palm’s not a foot across. The bet’s on!” Buddha put out his right hand, the size of a lotus leaf. Monkey King leapt on it and shouted, “I’m off!” of f!” He was gone—invisible to the eye, flying in space, farther and farther far ther and farther. When he arrived at the outer regions beyond which there was nothing, he saw five pink pillars. On the third pillar he wrote his name, Great Sage, Equal to Heaven , and peed. On returning, he heard Buddha say, “Great Sage, when are you going to jump?” “But I did! I went to the edge of space and wrote my name.” “Poor Monkey,” Monkey,” said Buddha. “You never left my hand. Look!” Buddha tilted Monkey King in his hand so he could peer down and with his diamond eyes see on Buddha’s middle middle finger what he had written: Great Sage, Equal to Heaven . Monke Monkeyy King King tried tried to jump away away,, but Buddha flipped his hand, tossing him out the Heavenly Gate down to earth. Buddha’s fingers turned into the five elements—a five peaked mountain, which held Monkey King captive, incubating for five hundred years

TH OUGH THOU GH PI PITI TIFU FULL AND A ND BL BLEA EAK, K, MO MONK NKEY EY KI KING NG IS GL GLAD AD TO BE LI LIVI VING NG.. He does not know that he will remain captive for five hundred years until Kwan Yin

































































THE SECRET OF DREAMING Retold by Jim Poulter Anonymous | Aborigine, Australia “The Secret of Dreaming” is a story stor y that I pieced together over a period of years. My family has had an ongoing relationship with the Aboriginal community community in Australia since since 1840, and I have been fortunate for tunate to hear and read many Dreamtime stories and legends. When told these stories I have always sought explanation of the ideas represented, rep resented, but sometimes the explanations can only be hinted at, as Aboriginal Aboriginal lore has various levels of secrecy. secrecy. This has meant that I have often been told something in rather cryptic or metaphoric form, and then sometimes ten years later I have suddenly realized the import of what I had been be en told. The story before you therefore there fore represents not something that I have created, but something that has emerged from the amalgam of what I have been told and learned. In Aboriginal religion, creation occurred as a result of divine will. The world was dreamt in the mind of a Supreme Being, not created as an external reality. reality. This means that we are all figments of a Supreme Being’s imagination. As we know know,, human consciousness is marked by the unique capacity to see future possibilities p ossibilities and work toward their realization—in other words, the ability to dream. Aboriginal religion holds that this unique human capacity is a direct inheritance from the original creation dreaming, and this is the essential theme of “The Secret of Dreaming.” Many Aboriginal stories recount how Creator Spirits, represented as animal totems, moved through the world and gave the landscape its final shape. To me this is clearly a metaphor for original migration. If we understand these Creator Spirit stories as accounts of first migration, the idea is conveyed that the human mind is the final creative force. That is, it was only when the original Australians spread throughout the land witnessing the wonders before them them that creation was finally complete. The stories also emphasize that the observing of these wonders was accompanied by an understanding of human responsibility to future generations through protection of the environment. With this recognition of human responsibility came the Supreme Being’s decision that the af fairs of the real world could be safely left in humankind’s hands. hands. The consequent merging of the Spirit of Life into the land to rest is a powerful and pervasive theme of Aboriginal Dreamtime stories, and indicates the awesome responsibilities entrusted to humankind. It is through this act that Aboriginal religion expresses belief in a non-interventionist God. By merging with the land in rest, the Spirit of Life—perhaps most commonly known as Wandjina—ceased Wandjina—ceased to exercise conscious will over human affairs. af fairs. Mankind was given consciousness and free will, and our destiny is therefore in our own hands. It is a fundamental Aboriginal belief that whatever happens in this world is a result of human agency, agency, either witting or unwitting. We We therefore cannot pray to some higher force for guidance or inter-

































TH E SE THE SECR CRET ET OF DR DREA EAMI MING NG For the Aboriginal people of Austra Aus tralia lia spa space ce and tim timee ar aree woven wove n toge t ogethe ther. r. All Al l livi l iving ng cr creaeatures and all features of the living landscape are interconnected. All are kin. Within this vast web of relationship everyone (and ever ever ything) has its place. Through ceremony and ritual the Aboriginal people activate the presence of their Spirit Ancestors, which is always with them. In this way they reconnect with the time of creation, known as the eternal “Dreamtime” or the “Dreaming.” Through their ritual and stories they remember that humankind had a particular role to play in the the Dreamt Dreamtime ime,, one one that is not to be taken lightly, then the n or now. now. Wha Whatt is that role, role, and how do we humans fulfill it today?

O nc ncee ther th eree wa wass noth no thin ingg. Nothing but the Spirit of All Life

And the color of Fire burned brightly brightly in the Mind of the Great Spirit.

































ABOVE: TIM PAYUNKA PAYUNKA TJAPANGA TJAPANGATI, TI, “TINGA “TINGARI RI DREAMI DREAMING NG.” .” ABORIGI ABORIGINAL NAL ART, ART, AUSTR AUSTRALIA, ALIA, TWENTI TWENTIETH ETH CENTURY PREVIOUS PREVI OUS PAGE: MAXIE TJAMITJINP TJAMITJINPA, A, “WOME “WOMEN’S N’S DREAMING.” DREAMING.” ABORIGI ABORIGINAL NAL ART, ART, AUSTR AUSTRALIA, ALIA, TWENT TWENTIETH IETH CENTURY

And the Great Spirit liked the Dream. So the Dreaming continued.

The Great Spirit began to grow tired from the Dreaming,



































into the world with the Spirit of the Barramundi. And Barramundi entered the deep still waters,

…and began to Dream. Bogai Dreamed of the wind and the open sky.

Barramundi Dreamed of waves and wet sand,

But Bogai did not understand the Dream and wanted to Dream only of the rocks and warm sun.

But Barramundi did not understand the Dream and wanted to Dream only of the deep still water.

So Bogai passed the Secret of Dreaming onto the Spirit of the Bunjil, which is the Eagle.

So Barramundi passed the Secret of Dreaming to the Spirit of the Currikee, which is the Turtle. Turtle.

And Bunjil rose into the open sky, felt the wind in his wings,

…and began to Dream.

…and began to Dream. And Currikee came out of the waves onto the wet sand …and began to Dream. Currikee Dreamed

Bunjil Dreamed of the trees and the night sky, But Bunjil did not understand the Dream and wanted to dream



































But Coonerang did not understand the Dream, and wanted to Dream only of the trees and the night sky.

And man understood the Dream

So Coonerang passed the Secret of Dreaming onto the Spirit of the Kangaroo.

He dreamed of the deep still water, of the waves and wet sand, the rocks and open sky, the trees and the night sky, sky, and the plains of yellow grass.

And Kangaroo stood tall, looked across the plain of yellow grass …and began to Dream. Kangaroo Dreamed of music, and song and laughter. laughter. But Kangaroo did not understand the Dream and wanted to Dream only of the wide plains and yellow grass. So Kangaroo passed the Secret of Dreaming onto the Spirit of Man.

So he continued to Dream of all the things that had been dreamed before.

And Man knew through the Dreaming, that all creatures were his spirit cousins …and that he must protect their Dreaming. And he Dreamed of how he would tell these secrets to his child who was not yet born. Then the Great Spirit knew at last that the Secret of Dreaming was safe.



































THE KING OF THE GODS Translated T ranslated by Dorji Penjore Anonymous | Bhutan



































DANGPHO…DINGPHO… there lived a man and a woman who had nine sons. The youngest of them was mute but as clever, thoughtful, and skilled as his older brothers. Unfortunately Unfor tunately,, the brothers saw only his dumbness and treated him like an animal, often comparing him to their ox. “Go and live with your companion ox in the barn,” they would make a fun of him. His parents were no better. Devoid of human company, company, he indeed found a friend in the ox and spent most of his nights in the barn. During the day, day, he followed his dumb companion to forest, meadow meadow,, or field, and sat scratching the earth with a stick. His family did not know that even a dumb animal is capable of the same feeling and emotion as ordior dinary humans. One day when he was in a meadow with the ox, the boy heard someone speaking. “Why are you crying? cr ying? What makes you always sad? Why are you coming near me? What has happened to you?” He looked everywhere but found no one. The person was no other than his friend the ox. “If an animal can speak, why not I, a human?” he thought, and he tried to speak. Miraculously, Miraculously, he found he could speak to the ox. He was happy beyond sky and earth. ear th. “Don’t you know my family is cruel to me? They tell me the two of us are the same since both of us have no gift of speech. I’m a human, yet I can’t speak,” he replied. They talked for the whole day day,, sharing their sorrows sorr ows and suffering. suf fering. “You “Y ou have to suffer for nine more years for your past actions. I was born as an ox for my bad action,” the ox said, promising to take him to the realm of gods when the time was ripe. When asked whether they had any connection in previous lives and if that is why they could speak to each other miraculously, miraculously, the ox replied that the boy would hear the answer after nine years. Until then they promised to live together, solve



































animal. He wanted to own the animal and asked for its owner. One morning, the king came to the hut and asked, “Does the ox belong to you?” “Yes.” “Wait “W ait son!” the king said. “You don’t even have a good house to live in, good food to eat, or good clothing to wear wear.. Your body and clothes are infested with lice. Will you exchange the ox for a good food, good clothing, and a good house?” “The ox is both my body and sok . I’ll not sell it,” the boy replied. r eplied. Sok is a life-force. Earlier the ox had advised the boy not to sell him, not even to the king, no matter the price. The king increased the price but the boy refused. After all persuasions had failed, the king came up with a plan. He summoned the boy to the palace. “T “Tomorrow omorrow we’ll play a hide-and-seek game,” the king said. “The loser will surrender his ox or half of the kingdom.” Fearing for his life, the boy could not refuse the bet. Back in his hut, the ox told him not to worr y. The king went to hide first. The boy was to search. The ox informed him that the king had transformed himself into two tall trees above the road. “Those trees are different dif ferent from others and you can easily spot them,” the ox said. “Go near the trees and pretend to fell them, saying, ‘I haven’t seen these trees before. If I take them to my king he’ll like it.’” The boy suffered the whole day without any food or drink, searching for the two trees. In the evening, he found them above the road r oad as described by the ox. He pretended to lift his knife and uttered utter ed the words. The trees replied, “Stop! Don’t cut me. It is only me.” The trees tr ees instantly transformed into the king. But the king refused to give half of the kingdom to the boy, saying, “Not until you find me,” and asked him to hide the next day.









































































king said he had a clever son who disappeared either by climbing up the sky or descending down to the earth. “He was a clever man,” the king said, “but it seems you’re cleverer than him, or you must be his reincarnation.” The king explained that there was no need for either of them to rule over one half of the kingdom and offered of fered to appoint him as his minister. The king continued, “This palace is facing a water shortage. I want you to make a phochu and a mochu flow down from a cliff clif f above the palace.” Phochu and mochu literally means male (father) and female (mother) water. The king demanded that the water form a lake that would neither increase or decrease, nor sink down into the earth ear th nor overflow. overflow. The boy went to his ox and explained the king’s offer of fer and command. The ox asked him to cut two trees and wrap them with his hairs. He was to insert inser t one tree where water was to come out and the other tree along the slope where water should flow. flow. After that was done, a canal was to be dug along the slope. “Ask the water to come out and phochu will spring forth. for th. Then take out mochu in a similar way,” way,” the ox instructed. instr ucted. The boy followed the instructions. Both phochu and mochu began to fall from right and left of the palace. The water began to roar and accumulate below the palace in a lake. The king complained about the noise and asked the boy to silence the water, ordering him to grow trees along the water canal with different song-





































A TOP OPOL OLOG OGIC ICAL AL NO NOTE TE ON THE TRINITY RECONCILING SYMBOLS OF DIVINITY WITH DIFFERENT SHAPES Richard Jagacinski









































































spheres that have this property are twodimensional knotted surfaces in a fourdimensional space. To appreciate this abstraction, is it useful to rely on visual illustrations. First consider the simpler example of a spherical surface in three-dimensional space, similar to a hollow rubber ball. Suppose you put the ball in a meat slicer and cut it into very thin slabs and arranged them successively on a table. This operation approximates taking two-dimensional

the center of the ball, shrinking oneself to a tiny size, and then taking an imaginary walk along the needle, and looking at the two-dimensional pattern in a plane immediately in front of you (Adams, 2004) [FIGURE 2]. The successive images represent two-dimensional cross-sections of the ball. This same type of imaginary walk can be used to explore a knotted two-dimensional spherical surface that exists in a four-dimensional space. Namely Namely,, taking







































3 E R U G I F

SUCCESSIVE THREE-DIMENSIONAL CROSS-SECTIONS OF A TWO-DIMENSIONAL SPHERICAL SURFACE THAT THAT EXISTS IN A FOURDIMENSIONAL SPACE, SPACE, I.E., CROSS-SECTIONAL IMAGES OF A KNOTTED BALL BALL THAT THAT RESIDES IN FOUR-DIMENSIONAL SPACE. SPACE.

one approaches the center of the ball). As one continues farther through the four-dimensional four-dim ensional ball, this sequence of images reverses, to smaller knots, and

er layer of meaning at a high level of abstraction. An important part of the work of scholars of religion is to understand the relationships among multiple







































cian of higher dimensional spaces Thomas Banchoff was a high school student, he theorized that if the Trinity can be conceived of as a four-dimensional God, then a manifestation of God on Earth would reveal one person in our three-dimensional world, and two aspects of the Trinity would be unobservable (Peterson, 2001, p. 42). Another example within the Christian tradition is Salvador Dali’s (1954) painting, “The Crucifixion: Corpus Hypercubicus,” which depicts Christ hanging on a cross constructed from a set of three-dimenthr ee-dimen-

in abstract symbols, and the confluence of these different modes of thought can be especially rich in layers of meaning (e.g., see Robbin, 2006). The author is thankful for helpful comments from Lindsay Jones.

REFERENCES THH E K N OT B O O K . Providence, Adams, C. C. (2004). T







































A CR CRAC ACKK IN IN THE THE WOR ORLD LD THE TRUE STORY STORY OF AN EXPEDITION TO TO A LAND OF IMMORT IMMORTALITY Thomas K. Shor

Don’t listen to anybody. Decide by yourself and practice madness. Develop courage for the benefit of all sentient beings. Then you will automatically be free from the knot of attachment. Then you will continually have the confidence of fearlessness and you can then try to open the Great Door of the Hidden Place. TULS TU LSHU HUKK LI LING NGPA PA













































































disciples. So not only did bad times have to ripen, but that particular disciple had to take incarnation and be spiritually developed to the point that he could uncover this hidden knowledge within himself. Tulshuk Lingpa had been visited in a vision by Khandro Yeshe Yeshe Tsogyal, Tsogyal, the

consort of Padmasambhava. She revealed to him that deteriorating conditions meant the time was ripening for the opening of Beyul Demoshong and that he was the one destined to open it. Khandro Yeshe Tsogyal told him in great detail the landmarks he would find on his way to the “gate.” She described rituals he should perform to appease the spirits. Opening this hidden land wasn’t as easy as going to the right place and stepping through. It was rather akin to opening a









































ritual, and healing. At the age of nineteen he eloped with a young woman and went south over the Himalayas to India. There, despite his youth, he was given his own monastery in the high mountains of Lahaul in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and quickly

failed attempt, if you wanted only to loan your house out and not sell it or give it away in order to have something to return to, your faith was thereby shown not to be great enough, and your lack of faith would present an obstacle sufficient to block ever yone’s way. way.









































THE PARABOLA LIBRARY

























































































































Sikkim, things got out of hand. When the king threatened to jail Tulshuk Lingpa, he and his followers fled the kingdom. Since the mountain straddled the Sikkim-Nepal border, and the “gate” was actually on the Nepal side, they went to Nepal.

the pass. Just as they started star ted their ascent, a cloud came low with a whirl of wind that picked up the snow and made the air thick with it. Blinded by snow and pierced by the wind, they retreated, reaching the cave as a storm came low on the mountain. For the next two days















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Imagination

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