trained in secret regimens of breathing and body control to move with extraordinary speed—could travel “as if carried on wings.” David-Neel, a scholar but also a popular writer who died peacefully at the age of one hundred in the French Alps in 1969, reported seeing lamas in trancelike states demonstrating
lung-gom
techniques on several occasions during her journeys in Tibet. This was her first encounter:
“I could clearly see his perfectly calm impassive face and wide-open eyes with their gaze fixed on some invisible far-distant object situated somewhere high up in space. The man did not run. He seemed to lift himself from the ground, proceeding by leaps. It looked as if he had been endowed with the elasticity of a ball, and rebounded each time his feet touched the ground. His steps had the regularity of a pendulum. He wore the usual monastic robe and toga, both rather ragged. His left hand gripped a fold of the toga and was half hidden under the cloth. His right held a
phurba
[magic dagger]. His right arm moved slightly at each step as if leaning on a stick, just as though the
phurba
, whose pointed extremity was far above the ground, had touched it and were actually a support.”
In Kathmandu, Purna Harsha Bajracharya, a Buddhist from the ancient Newar community of Nepal, told me a story about the power of Tantric law that had been passed down through his family. His father, Chitta Harsha Bajracharya, was Nepal’s first recognized Tibetologist; he had catalogued all the Tibetan monasteries in the country for the National Archives. “One of our forefathers, a student of Tantra, was in Lhasa,” Purna Harsha began. “He was respected very much by Tibetan lamas. Some of them invited him to tea in the Potala. When tea was poured, he just took what was in his cup and instead of swallowing it, spat it out the window. The lamas were disturbed. Again they poured the tea; again he spat it out the window. After three times, when he finally took the tea and did not spit it, then the lamas asked him: ’Was there something wrong with the tea? Why should you suspect it, when it was the same tea served to us?’ Our forebear then told them: ‘You see, I saw in my mind my house in Nepal and it was on fire. The people there were trying their level best to put it out, but not succeeding. Then, with the help of a mantra from Tantric law, I took the tea and spat it out of the window, willing it to put out that fire.’
“After two or three months he was informed that on that very day all of a sudden his house had caught fire. After many hours, clouds suddenly came and there was a very heavy rainfall. It doused the blaze. The Tibetan lamas, hearing this, went to him and wanted to keep him there in Lhasa. But with some difficulty he left and returned to his home in Nepal. People told the story everywhere afterward, believing how it proved the power of Tantric law.”
Sangay Wangchuck—then the undersecretary of Bhutan’s Central Monastic Secretariat and later director of the National Library—told methat there always had been and probably still are lamas whose mastery of higher disciplines had given them extrahuman powers. There are also plenty of Himalayan magicians and charlatans who appear to perform abnormal feats. The difference, he said, was that the lamas who had developed extraordinary powers were not in show business and would be very reluctant to make themselves known in any public way.
“A magician is not an enlightened person, though he can show a lot of things using a combination of material objects,” he said. “But that’s not really spiritual. It is another thing if that is achieved through meditation, practice. But if one monk or lama had the power to perform miracles, this is mostly kept quiet. They are not showing these things. Only if it is necessary do lamas show the miracle. If someone is a magician working with material things, then he always performs it. Such a person might be a lama, might be a
lung-gom
techniques on several occasions during her journeys in Tibet. This was her first encounter:
“I could clearly see his perfectly calm impassive face and wide-open eyes with their gaze fixed on some invisible far-distant object situated somewhere high up in space. The man did not run. He seemed to lift himself from the ground, proceeding by leaps. It looked as if he had been endowed with the elasticity of a ball, and rebounded each time his feet touched the ground. His steps had the regularity of a pendulum. He wore the usual monastic robe and toga, both rather ragged. His left hand gripped a fold of the toga and was half hidden under the cloth. His right held a
phurba
[magic dagger]. His right arm moved slightly at each step as if leaning on a stick, just as though the
phurba
, whose pointed extremity was far above the ground, had touched it and were actually a support.”
In Kathmandu, Purna Harsha Bajracharya, a Buddhist from the ancient Newar community of Nepal, told me a story about the power of Tantric law that had been passed down through his family. His father, Chitta Harsha Bajracharya, was Nepal’s first recognized Tibetologist; he had catalogued all the Tibetan monasteries in the country for the National Archives. “One of our forefathers, a student of Tantra, was in Lhasa,” Purna Harsha began. “He was respected very much by Tibetan lamas. Some of them invited him to tea in the Potala. When tea was poured, he just took what was in his cup and instead of swallowing it, spat it out the window. The lamas were disturbed. Again they poured the tea; again he spat it out the window. After three times, when he finally took the tea and did not spit it, then the lamas asked him: ’Was there something wrong with the tea? Why should you suspect it, when it was the same tea served to us?’ Our forebear then told them: ‘You see, I saw in my mind my house in Nepal and it was on fire. The people there were trying their level best to put it out, but not succeeding. Then, with the help of a mantra from Tantric law, I took the tea and spat it out of the window, willing it to put out that fire.’
“After two or three months he was informed that on that very day all of a sudden his house had caught fire. After many hours, clouds suddenly came and there was a very heavy rainfall. It doused the blaze. The Tibetan lamas, hearing this, went to him and wanted to keep him there in Lhasa. But with some difficulty he left and returned to his home in Nepal. People told the story everywhere afterward, believing how it proved the power of Tantric law.”
Sangay Wangchuck—then the undersecretary of Bhutan’s Central Monastic Secretariat and later director of the National Library—told methat there always had been and probably still are lamas whose mastery of higher disciplines had given them extrahuman powers. There are also plenty of Himalayan magicians and charlatans who appear to perform abnormal feats. The difference, he said, was that the lamas who had developed extraordinary powers were not in show business and would be very reluctant to make themselves known in any public way.
“A magician is not an enlightened person, though he can show a lot of things using a combination of material objects,” he said. “But that’s not really spiritual. It is another thing if that is achieved through meditation, practice. But if one monk or lama had the power to perform miracles, this is mostly kept quiet. They are not showing these things. Only if it is necessary do lamas show the miracle. If someone is a magician working with material things, then he always performs it. Such a person might be a lama, might be a
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