The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight Read online

  He looked at me with a sad expression I had never seen before.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “When I was young, I watched a Chinese soldier kill my father. I hate and fear them intensely. And I must confess something: I myself am part Chinese. This is the worst part. It is this memory and guilt that erodes my energy, so that I tend to anticipate the worst. You will learn that at these higher levels of energy, our fields of prayer act very quickly to bring to us exactly what we expect. If we fear, it brings to us what we fear. If we hate, it brings us more of what we hate.

  “Thankfully when we go into these negative expectations, our prayer-fields collapse rather quickly because we lose our connection with the divine and are no longer outflowing love. But a fear expectation can still be powerful. That is why you must monitor your expectations carefully and set your field consciously.”

  He smiled at me and added, “Because you don’t hate the Chinese military the way I do, you have an advantage. But you still have much fear, and you seem to be capable of great anger… just like me. Perhaps that is why we are together.”

  I was looking ahead at the road as we drove, thinking about what Yin was saying, not believing that our thoughts could be that powerful. My reverie was interrupted when Yin slowed the Jeep and parked in front of a line of dusty frame buildings.

  “Why are you stopping?” I asked. “Won’t we draw more attention to ourselves this way?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But we must risk it. The soldiers have spies everywhere, but we have no choice. It is not safe to go into the western areas of Tibet with only one vehicle. There are no places to make repairs. We must find someone to go with us.”

  “What if they turn us in?”

  Yin looked at me in horror. “That won’t happen if we get the right people. Watch your thoughts. I told you we have to set the right field around us. It is important.”

  He started to get out of the car but hesitated. “You must do better than me in this regard or we have no chance. Focus on setting your field for rten brel.”

  I was silent for a moment. “Rten brel? What’s that?”

  “It is the Tibetan word for synchronicity. You must set your field to stay in the synchronistic process, to bring the intuitions, the coincidences, to help us.”

  Yin glanced at the building and got out of the Jeep, indicating with his hand that he wanted me to stay.

  For almost an hour I waited, watching the Tibetan people walk by. Occasionally I would see someone who looked Indian or European. At one point I even thought I saw the Dutchman we had seen at the checkpoint pass on a distant street. I strained to see, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Where was Yin? I wondered. The last thing I needed was to be separated again. I imagined myself driving through this town all alone, lost, having no idea where to go. What would I do?

  Finally I saw Yin leave the building. For a moment he hesitated, looking both ways carefully before walking to the Jeep.

  “I found two people I know,” he said as he climbed behind the wheel. “I think they will do.” He was trying to be convincing, but his tone of voice betrayed his doubt.

  He started up the car and we drove on. Five minutes later we passed a small restaurant made entirely from corrugated tin. Yin parked the Jeep about two hundred feet from the restaurant, hiding it behind some oil storage tanks. We were on the outskirts of town now and almost no one was on the street. Inside the building, we found one room with six rickety tables. A narrow, whitewashed bar separated us from the kitchen, where several women worked. One of the women saw us sit down and came over to us.

  Yin spoke briefly to her in Tibetan, and I caught the word for soup. The woman nodded and looked at me.

  “The same,” I said to Yin, taking off my coat and draping it behind me on the chair. “And water.” Yin translated and the woman smiled and walked away.

  Yin turned serious. “Did you understand what I said earlier? You must now set a field that brings more synchronicity.”

  I nodded. “How do I set that field?”

  “The first thing you must do is make sure you build on the First Extension. Be certain the energy is flowing into you and out into the world. Feel the measures. Set your expectation for this energy to be constant. Now you must expect that your prayer-field will act to bring forth just the thoughts and events necessary for your best destiny to unfold. In order to set this field around you, you must keep yourself in a state of conscious alertness.”

  “Alert for what?”

  “For synchronicity. You must keep yourself in a state where you are constantly looking for the next mysterious bit of information that helps you toward your destiny. Some synchronicity will come to you no matter what you do, but you can increase the occurrence if you set a constant field by always expecting it.”

  I reached into my back pants pocket for my notebook. Although I hadn’t used it before, I had an intuition to make note of what Yin was saying. Then I remembered that I had left the notebook in the Jeep.

  “It’s locked,” he said, handing me the keys with a nod of his head. “Don’t go anywhere else.”

  I went straight to the Jeep and retrieved the notebook and was about to head back when the sound of vehicles pulling up to the restaurant startled me. I moved back behind the tanks and looked out at the scene. In front of the restaurant were two gray, Chinese-built trucks. Five or six men in plain clothes got out of the trucks and went into the restaurant. From where I was, I could see inside through the windows. The men lined everyone up against the walls and began to search them. I tried to locate Yin but couldn’t see him anywhere. Did he escape?

  A new land cruiser pulled up outside, and a tall, lanky Chinese official in a military uniform got out and walked toward the door. He was clearly the man in charge. At the door he looked inside briefly, then stopped and turned around, looking up both sides of the street, as though sensing something. He turned my way and I ducked behind the bins again, my heart racing.

  After a moment I risked a glance toward the restaurant. The Chinese were bringing out the people and loading them into the trucks. Yin wasn’t among them. One of the cars drove away as the officer in charge spoke to the remaining men. He seemed to be directing them to search the street.

  I ducked around the tanks and took a large breath. I knew if I stayed there, it would be only a matter of time before they found me. Looking for options, I noticed a narrow dirt alleyway that ran from the tanks through to the next street. I jumped into the Jeep, put it into neutral, and used the small incline of the street to roll through the alley, turning right on the next corner. I started the vehicle but had no idea where I was going. All I wanted to do was put some distance between me and the soldiers.

  After a few blocks, I took a left onto a narrow lane which took me into an area that had few buildings. A hundred more yards and I seemed to be completely out of town. A mile later I pulled off the road and parked behind a cluster of high rocky mounds each the size of a house.

  Now what? I thought. I was completely lost, with absolutely no idea where to go. A flash of anger and frustration raced through me. Yin should have prepared me for this possibility. Probably someone he knew in town could help me, but I had no way to find anyone now.

  A flock of crows landed on the mound to my right, then flew up over the Jeep and circled, cawing loudly. I looked out the windows in both directions, certain that someone was disturbing the birds, but I saw no one. After a few minutes most of the crows flew toward the west, still cawing. But one stayed at the top of the mound, silently looking in my direction. That’s good, I thought. He can be a sentry. I could stay put until I decided what to do.

  In the back of the Jeep, I found some dried fruit and nuts, along with some crackers. I ate them unconsciously, taking occasional nervous drinks from the canteen of water. I knew I had to devise a plan. It came to me to head further up the road to the west, but I decided against it. A great fear was overwhelming me now, and I wanted only what I had desi
red all along: to forget about this trek and get back to Lhasa and then to the airport. I knew I could remember some of the turns, but the others I would have to guess at. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t tried to call someone at Lama Rigden’s monastery or later at Hanh’s, to set up an escape plan.

  As I thought about what to do, my heart froze. I could hear the first rumblings of a vehicle coming down the road in my direction. I thought about starting the Jeep and pulling away but realized the vehicle was closing too fast. Instead I grabbed the canteen and a sack of food, ran behind the farthest mound, and hid in a place where I was out of sight but could still see what was happening.

  The vehicle slowed down. As it pulled up even with me, I realized it was the van we had seen earlier at the roadblock. The driver was the blond man whom the Chinese soldiers had been interrogating, and in the passenger seat was a woman.

  As I watched, they slowed the van to a complete stop and began to talk. I thought about going out and talking to them but immediately felt a flash of fear. What if the soldiers had alerted them about us, insisting that they be notified if we were seen? Would they turn me in?

  The woman opened her door slightly as though to get out, still talking with the man. Had they spotted the Jeep? My mind was running wild. I decided that if she got out and came over, I would just start running. That way, they would only get the Jeep, and I could put some distance between myself and this place before the officials came.

  With that thought in mind, I looked back at the van. The two were gazing toward the mounds, an expression of concern on their faces. They looked at each other one more time before the woman slammed her door shut, and they sped away toward the west. I watched the van crest the small hill to my left and disappear.

  Somewhere inside me I felt disappointed. Maybe they could have helped me, I thought. I considered running to the Jeep and overtaking them, but I dismissed the idea. Better not to tempt fate, I concluded. It was more prudent to go back to my original plan and attempt to find my way back to Lhasa and home.

  After about a half hour I returned to the Jeep and started the engine. The crow to my left squawked and flew down the road in the direction the Dutch van had gone. I turned the other way and headed back toward Zhongba, taking a series of small roadways, hoping to bypass the main streets and the restaurant. I made it several more miles before I reached the top of a hill. I slowed the Jeep as I crested the peak so that I could survey the long expanse of highway in the distance.

  When I got into a position to see, I was shocked. Not only was there a new roadblock set up half a mile down the mountain with dozens of soldiers, but I could count four big trucks and two Jeeps filled with troops heading my way, closing fast.

  I quickly turned the Jeep around and raced back in the direction I’d come, hoping they wouldn’t see me. I knew I would be lucky to outpace them. I reasoned that I should travel farther west as fast as I could, then bear south and east. Perhaps there were enough small roads that I could get back to Lhasa that way.

  I darted across the main street and into a series of side roads, again heading south. I turned a curve and realized I was going the wrong way. I had inadvertently returned to the main road again. Before I could stop, I was less than one hundred feet from another Chinese checkpoint. There were soldiers everywhere. I pulled over to the side of the road and put on the brake, then slid way down in the seat.

  Now what? I thought. Prison? What would they do to me? Would they think me a spy?

  After a few moments I noticed that the Chinese seemed oblivious to my presence, even though I was parked in plain sight. Old cars and carts and even pedestrians on bikes kept passing me, and the soldiers would stop them all and ask for identification, checking their papers and sometimes searching them. Yet they paid me no attention at all.

  I glanced to the right and realized that I was parked just short of a driveway that led up to a small, stone house, several hundred feet away. To the left of the house was a small lawn of uncut grass, and beyond the grass, I could see another street.

  Just at that moment a large truck drove past and stopped right in front of me, blocking my view of the checkpoint. Moments later a blue Toyota Land Cruiser driven by another blond man came up and pulled around the truck. Next I heard loud talking and shouts in Chinese. The vehicle seemed to be backing up as if to try to turn around, but the soldiers swarmed it. Although my line of sight was blocked, I could hear angry shouts in Chinese interspersed by fearful pleas in English that carried a Dutch accent.

  “No, please,” the voice said. “I’m sorry. I’m a tourist. Look, I have a special license to drive on the road.”

  Another car pulled up. My heart leaped in my chest. It was the same Chinese official I’d seen at the restaurant earlier. I slipped farther down in my seat, trying to hide as he walked right past me.

  “Give me your papers!” he asked the Hollander in perfect English.

  As I listened, I noticed something move to my right and peered through the passenger window to see what it was. The driveway down toward the house appeared to be bathed in a warm luminous glow, the exact same glow I had witnessed when Yin and I had escaped just outside Lhasa. The dakini.

  The Jeep was idling, so all I had to do was pull slowly to the right and down the drive. I was barely breathing as I passed the house and drove through the grass to the next street and turned left. A mile farther I turned left again, heading north out of town on the side street I had taken earlier. Ten minutes later I was back at the mounds, pondering what to do. Down the road to the west, I heard another crow caw. Instantly I decided to head in that direction, the way I could have been traveling all along.

  The road led up a steep rise, crested, and then settled into a long straight-away along a rocky plain. I drove for several hours as the afternoon light began to fade. There were no cars or people to be seen anywhere and almost no houses. Half an hour later it was completely dark, and I was thinking about finding a place to pull over for the night when I noticed a narrow gravel drive heading off to my right. I slowed the Jeep and looked more closely. There was something just to the side of the driveway. It looked like an item of clothing.

  I stopped the Jeep and shined a flashlight out through the window. It was a parka. My parka. The one I had left in the restaurant just before the Chinese had come.

  Smiling, I switched off the light. Yin must have placed my jacket here. I got out of the Jeep, picked it up, and drove up the narrow road with the headlights off.

  The drive led about half a mile up a gradual incline to a small house and barn. I drove cautiously. Several goats looked at me from across a fence. On the porch of the house, I noticed a man sitting on a stool. I stopped the Jeep and he stood up. I knew that silhouette. It was Yin.

  I got out of the Jeep and ran up to him. He met me in a stiff embrace, smiling.

  “I’m glad to see you,” he said. “You see, I said you were being helped.”

  “I was almost caught,” I replied. “How did you get away?”

  A nervousness returned to his face. “The women at the restaurant are very cunning. They saw the Chinese officers and hid me in the oven. No one ever looked in there.”

  “What do you think will happen to the women?” I asked.

  He met my eyes but said nothing for a long moment.

  “I do not know,” he replied. “Many people are paying a high price for helping us.”

  He looked away and pointed to the Jeep. “Help me bring in some food and we’ll make something to eat.”

  As Yin made a fire, he explained that after the police had left, he had gone back to his friends’ house and they had suggested this old house as a place for him to stay while they looked around for another vehicle.

  “I knew that you might become overwhelmed by fear and try to get back to Lhasa,” Yin added. “But I also knew that if you decided to continue on this journey, you would eventually try to head northwest again. This was the only road, so I placed your jacket there hoping it would be you wh
o saw it and not the soldiers.”

  “That was quite a risk,” I said.

  He nodded as he put the vegetables in a heavy boiler filled with several inches of water and hung it on the metal hook over the fire to steam. Yak dung flames lapped at the bottom of the pan.

  Seeing Yin again seemed to take much of my fear away, and as we sat down in old dusty chairs by the fire, I said, “I have to admit that I did try to get away. I thought it was my only chance to survive.”

  I went on to tell him everything that had happened—everything, that is, except the experience of the light around the house. When I got to the part where I was in the mounds and the van came by, he sat up in his chair.

  “You are sure it was the same van we saw at the roadblock?” he asked pointedly.

  “Yes, it was them,” I replied.

  He looked totally exasperated. “You saw the people we had seen before and you didn’t speak with them?” His face had an edge of anger. “Don’t you remember me telling you about my dream, about us meeting someone who could help us find the gateway?”

  “I didn’t want to take a chance that they would report me,” I protested.

  “What?” He stared at me, then leaned over and held his face in his hands for a moment.

  “I was petrified,” I said. “I can’t believe I’ve gotten myself in this situation. I wanted out. I wanted to survive.”

  “Listen to me closely,” Yin said. “The chances of your getting out of Tibet now by fleeing are very slim. Your only chance of surviving is to go forward, and to do that, you have to use the synchronicity.”

  I looked away, knowing he was probably right.

  “Tell me what happened when the van approached,” Yin said. “Every thought. Every detail.”

  I told him the van had stopped, and when it did, I immediately grew afraid. I described how the woman acted as if she wanted to get out, but changed her mind and they left.