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students make the serious mistake of thinking that we believe in
those horrid hells sometimes pictured on the Wheel. A few
illiterate savages may, but not those who have received enlighten-
ment. Do Christians really believe that when they die Satan and
Company get busy with the roasting and racking? Do they believe
that if they go to the Other Place (being one of the minority!) they
sit on a cloud in a nightshirt and take lessons in harp-playing? We
believe that we learn on Earth, and that on Earth we get our
 roasting and racking . The Other Place, to us, is where we go
when out of the body, where we can meet entities who also are
out of the body. This is not spiritualism. It is instead a belief that
during sleep, or after death, we are free to wander in astral planes.
Our own term for the higher reaches of these planes is  The Land
of the Golden Light . We are sure that when we are in the astral,
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after death, or when asleep, we can meet those we love, because we
are in harmony with them. We cannot meet those we dislike,
because that would be a state of disharmony, and such conditions
cannot exist in the Land of the Golden Light.
All these things have been proved by time, and it does seem
rather a pity that Western doubt and materialism have prevented
the Science from being properly investigated. Too many things
have been scoffed at in the past, and then proved right by the
passage of the years. Telephones, radio, television, flying, and
many more.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
TRAPPA
My youthful determination was devoted to passing the examina-
tion at the first attempt. As the date of my twelfth birthday
approached, I gradually slackened off studies, for the examination
started on the day after my birthday. The past years had been filled
with intensive studies. Astrology, herbal medicine, anatomy,
religious ethics, and even on the correct compounding of incense.
Tibetan and Chinese languages, with special reference to good
calligraphy, and mathematics. There had been little time for
games, the only  game we had time for was judo, because we had
a stiff examination on this subject. About three months before, the
Lama Mingyar Dondup had said:  Not so much revision,
Lobsang, it merely clutters up the memory. Be quite calm, as you
are now, and the knowledge will be there.
So the day arrived. At six in the morning I and fifteen other
candidates presented ourselves at the examination hall. We had a
short service to put us in the right frame of mind, and then, to
make sure that none of us had yielded to unpriestly temptation, we
had to strip and be searched, after which we were given clean robes.
The Chief Examiner led the way from the little temple of the
examination hall to the closed cubicles. These were stone boxes
about six feet by ten feet in size and about eight feet high. Outside
the boxes police-monks patrolled all the time. Each of us was led
to a cubicle and told to enter. The door was shut, locked and a seal
applied. When all of us had been sealed into our own little box,
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monks brought writing material and the first set of questions to a
small trap in the wall. We were also brought buttered tea and
tsampa. The monk who brought that told us that we could have
tsampa three times a day, and tea as often as we wanted. Then we
were left to deal with the first paper. One subject a day for six days,
and we had to work from the first light in the morning until it was
too dark to see at night. Our cubicles had no roof, so we got what-
ever light came into the main examination hall.
We stayed in our own separate boxes all the time, for no reason
whatever were we permitted to leave. As the evening light began
to fade, a monk appeared at the trap and demanded our papers.
We then lay down to sleep until the following morning. From my
own experience I can say that an examination paper on one subject,
which takes fourteen hours to answer, certainly does test one's
knowledge and nerves. On the night of the sixth day the written
examinations were at an end. We were kept in our cubicles that
night because in the morning we had to clean them out and leave
them as we found them. The rest of the day was ours to spend as
we desired. Three days after, when our written work had been
checked, and our weaknesses noted, we were called before the
examiners, one at a time. They asked us questions based on our
weak points only, and their interrogation occupied the whole of
the day.
The next morning the sixteen of us had to go to the room where
we were taught judo. This time we were going to be examined on
our knowledge of strangleholds, locks, breakfalls, throws, and
self-control. Each of us had to engage with three other candidates.
The failures were soon weeded out. Gradually the others were
eliminated, and at last, due solely to my early training at the hands
of Tzu, I was the only one left. I, at least, had passed top in judo!
But only because of my early training, which at the time I had
thought brutal and unfair.
We were given the next day to recover from the hard days of
examination, and on the day following we were informed of the
results. I and four others had passed. We would now become
trappas, or medical priests. The Lama Mingyar Dondup, whom I
had not seen during the whole time of the examinations, sent for
me to go to his room. As I entered he beamed upon me:  You
have done well, Lobsang. You are at the top of the list. The Lord
Abbot has sent a special report to the Inmost One. He wanted to
suggest that you be made a lama right away, but I have opposed
it. He saw my rather pained look, and explained:  It is much [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]