List of Books
- Tiger of the Snow - by James
Ramsey
- Tenzing After Event
- Touching My Father's Soul
Excerpt from
Touching My Father's Soul
 Jamling
Tenzing Norgay
with Broughton Coburn
A N...O M I
N O U S...F O R E C A S T
Rimpoche bunched his mala rosary into his
cupped hands and blew on it sharply. He
withdrew it slowly and inspected it, turning
his head slightly and squinting, as if
trying to peer inside each individual bead.
He looked up at me.
"Conditions do not look favorable. There
is something malevolent about the mountain
this coming season."
I felt as if I had been punched in the
stomach.
Rimpoche sat on a wide, flat cushion, and
he adjusted his robe and began to rock back
and forth, as if he too had been surprised
by the divination. He clapped his hand
loudly to call the attendant monk. His clap
broke the silence the way a guru's clap in a
Buddhist teaching is meant to trigger
awakening to the nature of emptiness,
sparking a flash of recognition that all
life is impermanent, containing no inherent
existence. I experienced a narrow, momentary
space of calmness, a millisecond of
emptiness, then felt my stomach again.
A monk padded in quietly and served us
tea, gently lifting the filigree silver
cover from Rimpoche's jade teacup, which sat
on a silver stand. The monk then offered me
some fried breads from a woven bamboo tray.
I declined, then accepted after the third
offer. Such trays are always kept heaping
full, and I had to concentrate on not
knocking the other pieces off. My hand was
shaking.
In early January of 1996, I had traveled
here to Siliguri, West Bengal, for an
audience with Chatrul Rimpoche, a respected
but reclusive lama of the Nyingmapa, or
ancient sect of Tibetan Buddhism. His
principle monastery was located in
Darjeeling, where I lived with my wife, but
Rimpoche's patrons and supporters had built
him a small monastic center in the northern
plains of India, several hours away by jeep.
The West Bengal landscape is relentlessly
flat, far from the remote monasteries that
the Nyingmapa Buddhists established,
beginning a millennium ago, across the
Himalayas. I felt fortunate to have been
born on the south side of the Himalayas,
safe from the Chinese invasion of Tibet.
Since the late 1950's, Tibetans have been
crossing their border into Sikkim, India and
Nepal, for refuge. Partly as a result of
their unerring devotion, Tibetan Buddhism
continues to flourish along the south side
of the Himalayas.
T O U C H I N G... M Y... F A T H E R ' S...
S O U L - Jamling Tenzing Norgay with
Broughton Coburn
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