Read Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Terton Sogyal for Free Online Page A

empty-handed with more tales of dancing dakinis blocking his rifle’s sights. Maybe then her husband would understand that their son was no ordinary Nyarong yak herder.
    Sonam Gyalpo knew every niche of the forests above Shiwa village. He had run up and down the mountains since he was a toddler; by the time he was seven years old, he was directing yaks to open pasture with his slingshot and whistles in Luba Drako Valley. In the summertime, Sonam Gyalpo and his friends ran barefoot through the carpet of flowers in the meadows around Puntse Monastery. Yelling, “Stop!” they dropped to their backs and kicked their legs in the air, giggling and counting the poppies and daisies stuck between their wiggling toes. On this autumn day, however, Sonam Gyalpo hiked up the mountain with a gun slung over his hunched shoulder, feeling not the joy of a teenager but the clutch of his father’s will. Storms of emotion raged in his heart and drained him of energy. He did not want to upset his father, but he did not want to kill animals either.
    Sonam Gyalpo walked by a pilgrimage site with a long wall of stacked slate with chiseled mantras; orange and green moss covered some of the blessed rock engravings. Mantras are sacred syllables used in Vajrayana to protect the mind of the practitioner from negativity, as well as to invoke a chosen enlightened deity. A hundred years earlier, a hermit advised a herder to devote the rest of his life to the accumulation of virtuous acts by carving mantras on rocks rather than herding and hunting. The herder complained that he would have no food or money if he did not whip his yaks in the fields or shoot a deer or boar now and again. The hermit responded that if the herder followed an authentic spiritual path, he would never need to worry about food in his belly.
    “Genuine spiritual practitioners never starve,” the hermit assured him.
    The hermit told the herder to bring him his stock. Using a juniper branch to sprinkle blessed water on the animals, the hermit wove a red thread into their shaggy coats so all would know that the life of the yaks and goats had been ransomed—the wooly creatures would live out their days on the mountainside instead of dragging plows through barley fields, being milked continuously, or going to slaughter.
    “Carve Om Mani Padme Hum, the mantra of the Buddha of Compassion, on the slate around here and then stack the mani rocks for others to see. It will remind everyone of Buddha’s teachings and bless the environment.”
    If the herder performed these activities with compassion for his animals and carved while visualizing the Buddha of Compassion above his and the animals’ heads, the herder was promised that not only sustenance would come his way but a peace of mind he had never known. Since that time, other retired herders had come to carve mantra and scriptures on rocks, adding to the half-mile-long stone prayer wall.
    Sonam Gyalpo walked along the massive wall. In between two of the rocks piled above his head he saw a small scroll of golden-colored paper partially sticking out. Standing on tiptoes, he took the paper and unrolled it to see dakini script. Sensing the parchment was some sort of blessing, he opened the silver amulet that hung on his chest and placed the parchment inside among other blessed relics.

    Dakini script on parchment.
    Sonam Gyalpo continued trekking through the mountains until he arrived at the small Chakpur Temple. He bowed three times at the entrance and proceeded into the temple, which smelled of wood soaked with the smoke of juniper incense. A half dozen tattered felt robes lay motionless, still warm from the monks who were taking a mid-morning break from their prayers. Slanting beams of sun and the glow of oil lamps illuminated the altar. Sonam Gyalpo gazed at the shrine with statues of Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, and Vajrapani, representing the enlightened qualities of compassion, wisdom, and power. He wanted to present an offering,