THE TATTOO

I met my wife in 2001 at a party in Bangkok after a sleepless night of travel from Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia.  I was traveling as the personal physician of the iconic movie star, personality, martial artist and lawman, Steven Seagal.  I was yet to become the seasoned jungle-and-bush doctor sitting currently in the middle of a remote Indonesian island.  Back then I was living out another thrilling, yet less dangerous medical career as a Hollywood Doctor to the Stars.

But that story is for another chapter.  The point is that I was in Bangkok in August of 2001 when I first met the woman who would become my wife.

The ultimate Doctor Tattoo (Not mine.  Mine would
have skulls)

At this party, as people do at parties, she asked me what I do for a living.  I told her I was a doctor.  She looked me up and down and shook her head.  I was in ripped jeans and a tight tank top.  My hair had metro-sexual  LA blonde highlights and I was tattooed on both shoulders and a calf.  She shook her head.

“I do not believe you.  You are not a doctor.  You cannot be a doctor."

"Why can't I be a doctor?"

"You have tattoos. Doctors cannot have tattoos.”

She said this with a sense of absoluteness that was culturally unquestionable in her Thailand.  In Thailand, according to her, doctors do not get tattoos.  It is an unwritten rule of conduct.  It was an SAT corollary:  Doctors do not have tattoos.   Erik has tattoos.  Erik is not a doctor.

“How can you say that?” I asked.  “They wear long white coats covered from neck to toe.   They could have tattoos and you would never know it.”

“No.   That is not possible,” she said.  “Thai doctors do not have tattoos.  They cannot have tattoos.”

Another proper medical tattoo you
won't find on a Thai doctor

I can see where this comes from.  I've met and worked with a number of Thai physicians during my years in Bangkok.  They are old school.  Short hair.  Clean pressed shirt.  Always with a tie.  Bad Asian haircut.  Small round glasses.  They have true prestige in Thai society which, unlike my USA, still puts doctors on a pedestal.  Oddly enough (you can research this on your own) there is a higher percentage of transvestite and transsexuals (AKA Ladyboys) in the Thai medical fields than in the general population—which is also exceptionally quite high.  I asked my wife about this.  She said it was okay for doctors to be Ladyboys...............as long as they didn't have tattoos.

Since then I've lived in Thailand for nearly 12 years.  My wife and mother-in-law are Thai.  My children are half Thai.  I've grown to appreciate and stop questioning this sense of unproven logic.  There is no satisfaction in doing so.

This year I found myself in Thailand during a challenging stretch of life.  I was on a “forced” vacation.  I had accrued time off and my contract year was ending.  If I didn't take the vacation time, I would lose it.  I don’t really enjoy taking my vacation time anymore.  I never thought this could happen (as  my last name is Travels).  Vacation satisfaction diminishes when you have a twitchy six month old son and parents with serious medical conditions. Thus, simple vacations have inherent stress built into them. Add to this that I live in a true paradise surrounded daily by beautiful empty beaches, tropical weather, coconut trees and lush jungles full of all sorts of beasts.  

I've become city and travel phobic.  I don't want to go anywhere.  I tried to cancel my vacation, but the office wouldn't hear of it.  They’d booked my replacement and I had to go.  Reluctantly, I made my travel plans.  There’s a saying I use often that refers the folly of starting off with bad directions.

The Motorcycle Taxi Driver:
You transport option when an ambulance
is not an option

Two days before leaving I received a call from New Jersey.  My father had another heart attack.  One day before vacation I received another call from New Jersey.  My father had another stroke.  I proceeded on my trip to Thailand with the caveat that I’d be heading back to the US sooner than later if my father didn't recover.  Age and fragility in our parents is not a new concept to those of us easing out of middle age.  It is a reality and an unenviable rite of passage.  Day two after arrival in Thailand my son fell  from playground monkey bars and broke two bones in his arm. This happened at the height of Bangkok’s traffic rush hour. The only way to get him to a hospital quickly was to pack the both of us on the back of a tiny Honda 50cc motorcycle taxi. The taxi driver moved well up front on his seat, my son behind him and me behind my son with my ass hanging completely off the motorcycle. I held the jacket of the driver tightly to keep my son packed “safely” in between us while he weaved dangerously between cars through Bangkok traffic.

In the Thai hospital  the doctor (white coat, bad Asian haircut, nerdy glasses, not a Ladyboy)  was giving me, a fellow doctor, wishy-washy, unsatisfying advice on how the break should be handled. I was not finding the confidence I was looking for and I was becoming openly frustrated.  Suddenly this vacation had become more stressful than my worst day of work ever. And there were three more weeks of vacation ahead.

Eventually I stopped feeling sorry for my mother, my father, my son, my wife and  myself.   In a never-say-die way I decided  there were still options for redemption.  The first option I considered was a world class Bangkok Bender—a week long pub and gogo bar crawl of epic proportion.  I still had a few unemployed friends lurking around Bangkok who would happily join me on this quest.  Misery loves company every bit as much as it hates asking for it.  Ultimately good sense prevailed and I decided against this.  The problem with epic benders is that they ultimately turn south on you.  There's always shrapnel and regret.

   

"Daddy, when can I get my first tattoo?

What I really needed was to get out of town.  The stress of being stressed and being back in a big crowded city was wearing on me.  I was becoming  jumpy, short tempered and aggressive.  The previous night I was at a local Bangkok pub with a few friends.  I drank a few beers, smoked an expensive Montecristo cigar and participated in some good barroom conversation. That’s really all I've ever needed  to relax.  I was giddily calm for the first time in weeks.  Good friends, good booze and a good Bangkok night.  Simple enough. Then a crusty, horrible, middle-aged German man walked over  sat down next to me.

He was an acquaintance of a friend.  He was drunk, sweaty, dressed in clothes from 1970 and he stank.  He was carrying the largest, cheapest bottle of beer sold in Thailand and the cheap bastard had brought it with him into the bar.  He was the model Bangkok Expatriate.  I didn't  care. There’s room for everybody, right?  Ten minutes later he was having a conversation with a waitress and became agitated.  He raised his voice and rhythmically poun-ded-the-tab-le-with-each-syl-la-ble!

“Dude, calm down,” I said calmly.

“VAS IS DIS HERE.  YOU SHOULD DEMAND REEEEE-SPECT!!!!  YOU SHOULD!!!!”

“Buddy, calm down,” I said.

“YOU ARE A VOMAN OF THAILAND!  YOU SHOULD BE DEMANDING REEEEEEEEE-SPEEEEEEECT!!!!”

The Bangkok Expatriate:
Handsome and hard at work

I had enough.  I stood up and took the neoprene beer cover off my bottle (it is the civilized habit in Thailand to serve  beer with a soft, neoprene cover--called a beer cozy-- to keep the beer cold.  It makes no sense to leave it on the bottle when you are planning to hit someone with it.).  

“HEY ASSHOLE,” I said, “IF YOU POUND THAT TABLE EVEN ONE MORE TIME I’M GOING TO SMASH THIS FUCKING BOTTLE OVER YOUR HEAD AND DUMP YOU IN THE STREET.  THE FUCKING RATS WILL FINISH YOU OFF.  NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP.  I’M UNDER A LOT OF STRESS   AND YOU ARE RUINING MY VIBE.  I’M ON FUCKING VACATION, YOU PRICK!”

I was going to preface this with ‘I’m not usually a violent man’, but that’s what people always say before or after they get violent.

The German man must have seen blind rage in my face.  He  sat back, apologized and pouted like a child lost at the mall.  Another guy at the table said, “Are you sure this guy is a doctor?”

I called it a night.  So no bender.  There were other options.

I decided to head to Northern Thailand.  Old Thailand.  The ancient, spiritual, magical  heart of this exotic country.  I would put myself on a regimen of daily yoga classes, temple visits and hours of meditation for nearly a week.  I would actively avoid drunk, crusty expats and pursue as nonviolent a course of international life as was possible.  I went to the airport the following day and found a random flight to Chiang Mai.

This was a good plan.  I dug right in.  I got a random hotel room in central Chiang Mai and plotted my course to the innumerable temples and meditation sites all around the city.  Chiang Mai is not the unmanageable, traffic heavy, filthy metropolis that is Bangkok.  Nothing in the city is more than fifteen to thirty minutes away.  The air is clean and a drive to the country is only two kilometers outside the city.  Conveniently there is a slew of extortion taxi drivers everywhere willing to reasonably extort money for a simple taxi ride. Yoga centers have sprung up in Chiang Mai like McDonalds franchises in the Jersey suburbs.  Hippies, Trustafarians, Granola Heads and various other unwashed free-thinking slackers have found a haven of freedom and commonality in Chiang Mai.   

Erik Travels:  Calm The Fuck Down Retreat was underway.

Erik Travels:  Calmer, less violent

All was going as planned and within forty-eight hours I was feeling better. I was healthier, less stressed and longer of fuse.  I had problems, problems could be managed would be managed and life would  take care of the rest.  My body felt good.  My muscles had the delightful ache of daily yoga classes.   I was spending hours meditating in local temples at the feet of golden Buddhist statues.

But something was missing:  A symbol or a commitment.  Something more than a charitable donation, but less than drinking fresh cobra blood.  Then it came to me.

Sak Yant.

 

Sak Yant is the ancient art of magical symbolic tattooing done with  needle-sharp sticks by the hand of an adept Buddhist monk.  To some, Cobra blood cocktail may sound  like a more reasonable option.  

(Speaking of Cobra blood, I have some experience with this.  During the fledgling trip to Bangkok with Mr. Seagal a number of Thai body guards were assigned to protect the Hollywood hero.  One morning they led everyone to a snake farm outside of Bangkok.  At the snake farm a young Cobra was chosen, held by the head and sliced open to reveal his still beating heart.  As with tradition, his blood was drained into half-filled bottles of Vodka and his heart removed for consumption by the bravest man.  Later, as we sat around with the body guards, the bottle was passed around with each man gulping a mouthful of the bloody vodka.  The men explained that drinking the blood makes a warrior bulletproof.  The bottle was passed to me.  I looked at the crimson mixture, grimaced and handed it back to him.  I told him as long as he drinks this crap I won't have to.)

Fully protected (from
everything except Hepatitis C)

Sak Yant started over two thousand years ago in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos.  The Khmer warriors used this method to cover themselves from head to toe believing it made them indestructible.   King Jayavarman VII of the Khmer empire tested this theory on himself by placing his tattooed body as a target for multiple arrows from his soldiers.  Allegedly each arrow merely bounced off his chest.  I was personally looking for nothing this dramatic from my own tattoo experience, but indestructablility is an awfully cool side-effect.

There are over fifty different styles of Sak Yant.  Each is specific in its design and  purpose to the bearer of the tattoo.  Each one is unique and confers magical protection and powers.  Some portend power and authority.  Some are for wealth and good fortune.  Some ward off illness and danger.  The choice of tattoo must be made with careful contemplation of one’s needs, wishes and faith.

I set off in search of a Master.  Where do you start such a search as a foreigner in a foreign land?  Internet?  Lonely Planet?  Crusty drunk Bangkok local?  No.  You turn to the source who possess not only street level smarts, but also vast local knowledge:  the thieving, extortion taxi drivers parked across the street.  Not only will they know who to see and where to go, but they will have an extortion price of transport to get you there.  With a good working command of Thai language and a keen sense of negotiation I had the information I needed within fifteen minutes.  One driver knew the location of a temple and the name of a famous Sak Yant monk who lived there.  He would not tell me, though.  He would only take me.  A transport price was agreed upon and five minutes later we were on our way out of Chiang Mai city.  I had no verification of this temple, the monk or the vehicle that took me along the dirt roads that led me further away from the highway.  I only had the word of the extortion Taxi driver.  This was a trip of faith.

Suea (The Tigers)

 Nearly an hour outside of Chiang Mai a small road led to a lush, green, idyllic acre of land. There I saw a number of small temples, Buddha statues and a small sign that read Wat Nong Khem (which when translated literally by a foreigner  means “salty child.”  I’m sure there’s a tone that I’m missing in the proper translation).  This was  the home of master Sak Yant monk, Phra Ajarn Gamtawn until his untimely death in 2010.  Since then his talented trainees still tend the monastery and perform the tattoos. They make no appointments, but entertain  visitors on their individual quests for their magical skills.  My extortion taxi driver was curious enough to join me.  We walked along the path to the covered pagoda where  the monk was working.  He was sitting cross legged on a  tiled floor.  Two men sat in front of him-one a monk and the other a lay person.  They  waited patiently.  This was  apparently the customer queue. As we got closer we took our shoes off, did the traditional three bows of respect and sat down without saying a word.  He knew why we were there.   He pointed to a blue weathered photo album on a bench with a cartoon of Mickey Mouse on the cover—his portfolio.  In this book were the various  hand drawn traditional Sak Yant. The Phra (which means venerable monk in Thai language) went on with his work on the client before me.  This man was getting a large Copper Pig tattoo on his thigh.  My eyes went between the book of tattoos and the Thai man upon whom he was plying his craft.

Sak Yant is old school tattooing.  No vibrating electric pen.  No standard colored ink.  Sak Yant is done by progressive movement of a single sharpened point of a large needle or sharpened bamboo stick.  The point is intermittently dipped into a black liquid used as ink.  The ink is a secret mixture rumored to be made from among other things, ash, cobra blood and human remains.  The monk used the nail of his thumb to act as the guide for the needle entering the skin and moved the pointed stick back and forth like a piston.  Sak Yant tattoos are intricate and delicate—the shapes of the ancient letters are integral to the meaning of the tattoo.  You could see that this Phra  knew his business.  And he was fast.  It was hard to conceive that anyone could move so quickly and create the most delicate, tiny, perfect figures every time.  There's not white out in tattooing.

Making the right choice for my own Yant was not easy.  Each had it's own beauty and property.  At first  I was drawn towards getting Suea, the Twin Tigers representing power and authority. But then there was Yord Mongkut for good fortune and protection in battle or Bpanjamukhee which could ward off illness and danger.  

Ultimately the choice became clear:  Gow Yord, The Nine Spires.  This simple, yet geometrically beautiful Yant represents the nine sacred peaks of Mount Meru, the mythological center of the Buddhist universe.  A single Buddha sits on top of each peak beneath the long spires that extend  to the sky.  This is a tattoo of spiritual dedication.  I presented my choice to the Phra and got the thumbs up. My extortion taxi driver also agreed.

The monk set a small stool on the ground before him.
He sat on a long wooden bench.  Along the bench next to him were his bottles of ink, needles, orange robes, small Buddhas, amulets and a few jars with powders I didn't recognize.  I  decided that now was probably a good time to ask about sterilization procedures.  I’d like my tattoo without the Hepatitis C, please.  I turned   around and was working on the Thai translation for “sterile."  He just put his hand up and showed me the needles submerged in a blue liquid.  He said:

“You not wolly.  Arkahol.  Evely time arkohol.”

Who knows?  The blue liquid may have been Scope or Detol or Vodka and Kool-aid, but it was good enough for me.  I was ready.

He put his hands on my upper back and began to pray.  The air was hot and heavy in the Chiang Mai afternoon.  It had rained and there was no breeze.   There was a single fan rotating ineffectively twenty feet away.  I considered asking the extortion taxi drive to move the fan closer, but decided not to change the scenery.  The guy before me sat silently taking his medicine. So would I. After the prayer the Phra pulled a needle from the “arkahol” and sharpened it on a gritty piece of black sandpaper.  He showed me the point.  It was like a razor.  He secured the needle to a long, thin metal rod until the whole unit was nearly two feet long.  He pressed his knee into the center of my back and said, “Okay.”

Let the magic begin.

I leaned my head forward as the first stabs moved rhythmically into my upper back.  I thought to myself, 'Holy shit!  This really fucking hurts.'  I wanted to wince, but I’d drawn a small crowd of Thai men wanting to watch the white guy get his tattoo.  I felt obliged to save face for the white people that might follow one day.  I closed my eyes and controlled a whimper.  The needle was moving in and out one hundred times every minute.  Every few minutes he would scrape it across my back in a line to make the outline of the next section of the tattoo.  A handful of annoying black flies were circling my body and landing  on my arms and legs every few seconds.  I dared not move enough to shoo them for fear of disturbing the Phra. All I could do was move my fingers enough to make them fly for a few seconds before landing again.  I had no concept of how long this tattoo would take.  The pain from every short, quick stab into my skin seemed to get worse.  I've had a number of un-doctorly tattoos over the last twenty years. Even the biggest of them was never this painful.  I remained stoic throughout the process and hoped that this epic tattoo would soon finish.

A few deep breaths and twenty minutes later the jabbing stopped.  I heard the needle plunk into the arkohol.  Phra Ajarn closed his eyes, bowed his head and covered the tattoo with his hands.  He prayed, blew air on the tattoo and said only:

“Okay.”

The extortion taxi driver took a photo with my phone and handed it to me.  Very impressive!  It was beautiful, delicate and nearly a perfect freehand reproduction of the photo in his Mickey Mouse book.  I felt small rivulets of blood drip down my back. There was no set fee for  work.  It was donation only.  Most donations were a few hundred baht or whatever people could afford.  I took two one thousand baht notes and placed them, as directed, in front of the small  golden Buddha on his work bench.  Both the extortion taxi driver and I knelt on the ground and bowed three more times to the monk. He bowed back.   I looked on the monk’s table for some tissue or tape or antibacterial cream, but there was none.   The taxi ride back to  Chiang Mai was a little bloody.

Back in town I was anxious to shower and clean my new tattoo.  If you don’t treat a new tattoo properly—especially one done under  less than pristine conditions-- it can be a mess.  I walked shirtless into a pharmacy and purchased some first aid cream but they did not sell   gauze or bandages. I took five plastic bags with me.  I would cut these up to  place over the tattoo to keep it moist.  Still shirtless and bleeding, I walked into the hotel, past the doorman, the concierge, the receptionists and the twenty odd loud Chinese tourists gathering there for an outing.  Nobody mistook me for a doctor.

Doing yoga with a fresh bleeding tattoo was challenging.  I had used my plastic bag containment system and did not bleed on anyone’s yoga mat. The tattoo healed completely in only two days.  Usually it takes at least a week.  I was told that the cobra venom in the ink has something to do with expedited healing.  

I flew home to Bangkok two days later, to my wife and to my sons.  I’d missed them badly.

My wife, still not a fan of doctors with tattoos, was slightly horrified that I’d gotten a sizable tattoo on my virgin back.  Then, being a good Thai Buddhist, said she it was beautiful. It is doubtful, but she might get one someday. 

It was a leap of faith and intuition that brought me through this experience:  Taken to the 

middle of the country by an extortion taxi driver I’d met moments before.  Jabbed by a holy 

stranger in an orange robe with pot-sticker sized needles dipped in ink that may have been 

mixed cobra venom and human remains.

I  believe that  leaps of faith are the essential pieces of a full and evolving life. We can all use a life that comes with adventure, resolution and experience.

Seriously, what could go wrong?

The final night in Bangkok I met a few friends at a local downtown pub.  We shared a few 

beers, chatted and laughed.  I lit a cigar and sat back in my chair.  From behind me I heard a 

commotion.  A drunk, crusty, middle aged Korean man was yelling at a small Thai woman sitting 

at his table.  He was becoming progressively louder and aggressive.

I turned around and said:

“Yo, dude!  Keep it down over there.”

No response.  The guy just got louder and more aggressive. 

I removed the neoprene beer cozy from my bottle.

Trust me.  I'm a doctor.

The Search For The Karmapa and The Mystical Tibetan Snow Frog

"This way, this way," said the monk who had led us up three flights of the steepest, narrowest staircase I'd ever negotiated.  Our guide monk was a short man with closely cropped grey hair.  He walked with his back hunched forward like a man carrying the weight of life on his shoulders.  He was probably only about fifty years old, but had a weathered, leathery brown face with two small slits of eyes--the results of a lifetime of hard Tibetan elements.  I was giddy and excited here at the tail end of our quest. I wanted to ask the monk questions about this place, but I was sucking wind badly and the only English words the monk knew were "this way, this way."  The monk walked slowly, but deliberately up the narrow wooden steps.  Two people could not pass on this stairway without turning sideways and squeezing by.  He kept one hand on his maroon colored monk's robes and bunched them up to avoid tripping over them.  As slowly as he walked, I was still far behind and needed to stop every ten steps to catch my breath and avoid fainting. We were at nearly fifteen thousand feet in Gurum Town, nearly three hours rocky drive from Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet.  With each step the altitude made my head pound and my legs burn and shake.  I was hurting, but I pushed on.  This quest was in the homestretch.

Will you be having your yak shit
fried or aldente?

I'd spent four weeks in remote Eastern Tibet  spending only one or two nights in each town where we worked.  We were running a large mobile eye hospital and churning out hundreds of surgeries from sun up to sundown.  When the surgeries were over we moved on.  Most nights were spent in ugly, box-shaped, piss yellow  Chinese government hotels.  The hotel rooms were the size of  jail cells and smelled like a combination of public restroom and old cheese.  Most of the villages were too small to have hotels. In these places I slept on floor mats with twenty other people a large community rooms.  The rooms were  heated by yak dung stoves that burned dried yak shit throughout the night.  The smell of pressed, burnt yak shit combined with the smells of twenty guys with high-altitude flatulence did not contribute to a restful sleep. Towards the end of the trip I couldn't handle the smells anymore and opted to put up a small tent in any nearby open field.  Despite the cold it was nice to sleep  under the cool, sweet Tibetan air.  Around midnight wild dogs and yaks would show up, growl and  run in nervous circles around the tent.  I had to do a quick survey of animal threats every time I left the tent to relieve my bladder.  This was still better than sleepless nights immersed in burnt yak shit and fart.

Buddha in the sky with diamonds

For four long weeks I lived like this surviving on packaged noodles, cans of Chinese beans,  hard Yak cheese and fresh Yak milk yogurt.  The yogurt was tasty, but  pulling  five inch Yak hairs out of the bowl before eating the yogurt ruined the culinary experience.  I ate, I survived, I lost twenty pounds.  I saw and experienced things that only a handful of people get to see in a lifetime.  I met children who, upon seeing the first white man in their lives, went screaming in horror yelling about ghosts.  I saw clouds that magically formed images of  Buddhas and magnificent deities in the sky. They would show up in the sky every day appearing and disappearing in two blinks of the eye. It took me less than a week to know that Tibet was not a normal place where normal things happened.  The Tibet I saw earned it's mystical reputation.  We heard about some things there that were so supernatural and so particular to Tibet, that the reluctance to talk about them to outsiders was inherent in Tibetan DNA and culture. The greatest example of this is the legend of the Tibetan White Snow Frog.

"White Snow Frog?  Nope,
never heard of it (wink, wink)."

Dr. Ken had somehow gotten the information about the Tibetan White Snow Frog from our translator.  Our translator was half Chinese, so we assumed it was either the Chinese part of him that was giving up Tibetan secrets or he was drunk and chatty on Tibetan Chaang.  After hearing about the White Snow Frog it became a mini-quest of ours to find one in the five weeks we would spend in Tibet.  Once our group of Tibetan hosts became aware of this quest we ran into nothing but hurdles, obstacles and misdirection in our search.  The more we found out about the Tibetan White Snow Frog, especially the female of the species, the more we understood why.  According to Tibetan legend  the fleshy back of the female White Snow Frog is the single most powerful "virilification" medicine known to man.  A single millimeter sized piece of White Snow Frog flesh has the ability, in both men and women, to make Viagra seem like a baby aspirin.  This is well documented in thousand year old Tibetan medicine texts.  Even more versatile than Viagra, it can be eaten or applied directly to the genitals.  The sickness from this frog flesh, if used without first  removing the toxins, is also well documented.  For us this made local intel on Tibetan White Snow Frog preparation just as important as finding this mythical amphibian--especially if it was going to be applied to the genitals. Our Western thinking had led us towards a very non-Buddha-like thought process.  Imagine the possibilities.  Why wouldn't you share this secret with the world?  To understand this you have to think like a Tibetan.  Every direction, every action and every intent of Tibetan thought is designed to keep a person on the long winding path towards Buddha-hood.  How does the Tibetan White Snow Frog fit into this path?  Follow this closely:  Tibetan White Snow Frog flesh is so powerful that under it's influence  two people will experience the most supernaturally blissful union and most pleasurable sexual experience possible to a human being.  In fact, the euphoria will be so powerful and so pure that the ultimate empty nature of sexual desire will be finally realized.  The striking clarity of this emptiness will cause a person to drop desirous activity like a bad habit.  Once desire is finally removed, it will no longer be an obstacle towards reaching the altruistic state of Buddha-hood.  Knowing a little bit about Buddhist theology, I'm sure its a little more complicated than this, but it remains a potentially life changing message.  The depopulation effect of too many people rising to Buddha-hood could be staggering.  Still, Dr. Ken and I were willing to verify the myth. We also recognized that in Buddhist theology, you must ask an important question three times in order to get an answer.  If you stop after first request, the question could be interpreted as a passing fancy and unworthy of attention.  If you only ask a question twice it shows lack of commitment.  The third time asking is the charm proving persistence and dedication to your curiosity.  We were completely shut down after asking at least thirty locals about the frogs.  We got the "not a clue" headshake each and every time our translator checked with a villager about the local Snow Frog stash.  This quest had officially failed. This was disappointing, but we weren't disheartened.  As practicing Buddhists we knew that if we didn't find a White Snow Frog now, there was still a good chance we'd find it in the next lifetime.

The endless lengths one will go to 
find a Tibetan White Snow Frog   

Each day in remote Tibet felt like the most memorable day in my middle-aged life.  Each day was more surreal and mystical than the next. But as great as the days were I had a sense that there would be a Tibetan experience of Indiana Jones-like proportion coming my way.  And it would happen before we left the land in the clouds. 


I had come to work in Tibet as much for the Buddhist experience as I had for the charity work (which a good Buddhist might argue is one and the same).  I was a practicing Buddhist for quite a while by the time I made it to Tibet.  When people  ask me how long I've been Buddhist I only answer: since creation.  When they roll their eyes I clarify that officially and technically it was in the 1990's.  I (along with seven hundred other Los Angelenos) participated in a formal Buddhist induction ceremony at UCLA's Pauly Pavillion given by Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness, The Dalai Lama.  There was blessed milk and blessed strings and Talismans given at the massive ceremony, but it was only a technical confirmation of what I'd already believed.  Belief is a very personal and powerful thing, but when it comes to religion, you choose your poison. I had chosen this one.


In Buddhism, much like in major league baseball, being in the presence of the great ones is a glorious and memorable experience.  You feel a transformation afterwards that can last anywhere from a week to a lifetime (depending upon the immenseness of the hero you  meet).  In Tibet, seeking out the great Buddhist masters is like standing on the playing field during the All-Star Game.  It is going to the source.  In the 1990's in Tsurphu Monestary, deep in the hills of Gurum Town, three hours drive from Lhasa, lived The Karmapa.  The Karmapa had been living in the snow-capped peaks of Eastern Tibet for nine hundred years.  You read that correctly:  nine hundred years.  He is currently in his seventeenth reincarnation.  The first Karmapa, around the time of 1190, was the first Buddhist master to leave clues to his followers that would lead them toward finding his reincarnation after he died.  This streamlining of the reincarnation process seemed to make sense to the other masters, including the Dalai Lama, who still practice this method today.  When we sought out the Karmapa he was only fourteen years old and in his training to become the spiritual leader for Tibetan Buddhists accross the world.   In the late 1990's Karmapa was the highest Buddhist master still living in Tibet.  In 1959, the Dalai Lama had escaped in the night as a young man and made his way to India to avoid assassination by Chairman Mao.  The Chinese wanted complete control of Tibet and figured that cutting off the head of the snake was the best way to get control of the body.  They were unsuccessful.  The second highest Tibetan master in Tibet is known as the Panchen Lama.  Once reincarnated and recognized by the Dalai Lama in 1989, the six year old Panchen Lama was taken to Beijing by the Chinese government and kept in custody ever since for "his own protection."  He is still there under lock and key.  This left the fourteen year old Karmapa as the spiritual leader of a nation that was being systematically, piece by piece, usurped by China .  He was free to roam about the beautiful monastery of Tsurphu and the surrounding beautiful peaks and forests of Gurum, but kept under military and secret watch.  It was the Chinese government's plan that he would never leave Tibet in this reincarnation's lifetime.  His captivity was the key towards taking ultimate control of the hearts and minds of Tibet--thus, control of the country.  This convoluted political mess must have been a pretty heavy concept for the fourteen year old reincarnated master.

The Karmapa

We figured there was a very slim chance that two wayward Westerners on a whim would get to sit down with The Karmapa without lots of strings being pulled and lots of advance notice.    The Chinese government was incredibly protective about foreigners interacting with The Karmapa.  Nothing good could come out of it as far as they were concerned.  Westerners would fill his mind with silly Western ideas and plots of escape and freedom.  That's what Westerners do.  Dr. Ken and I decided to make the trek to Tsurphu anyway and try to meet The Karmapa.  Four weeks of charity work in Tibet had to have made a decent sized deposit in our collective Karma banks. We had nothing to lose by trying.  We'd been regularly monitored by a low-level spy since we arrived in Tibet and deemed (as far as we knew) acceptable, well-behaved Westerners.  The spying on foreign charity workers is standard operating procedure.  We had done all that our Chinese government hosts has requested.  Nothing to fear from us.  Nobody tried to stop us as we left our translator and spy behind.  We walked to the city center of Lhasa and hired a local taxi to Tsurphu Monastery.


The road was decent for a change.  It wound around the foothills outside of Lhasa ever upward into the clouds.  Every few miles a twenty foot golden drawing of Buddha could be found on a large flat rock on the roadside.  In lieu of  a GPS this seemed to be the way to find Tsurphu.  Once at the great white gates of the monastery our taxi driver stopped and pointed forward.  Tsurphu was in front of us.  It was a giant village cut into a wide mountain plateau with a great red temple in the center.  As we left the car our driver parked and decided to follow behind us to see what we were up to.  Only a handful of Westerners make this trip.  I'm sure he was just curious, but four weeks of being spied upon made me twitchy and a little more paranoid than usual.  Dr. Ken and I decided to split off and walk different directions.  After successfully ditching the driver we met up at the great steps to the Temple.  We stood and stared at the steep pyramid-shaped steps that led inside.  I know I must have smiled the smile of someone whose dream was about to transition into reality.  This must have been the Buddhist equivalent of what it felt like to enter Yankee Stadium when Babe Ruth was still playing.  I knew that whatever happened next would stay with me forever.


You could feel and smell nine hundred years of existence in the walls of the great temple.  This was not just a tourist icon of a temple, but the center of Buddhist development for one of the most sacred cities in the world.  Hundreds maroon robed monks from ages five to eighty went about their day cleaning floors or sitting in class or chanting mantras that echoed from wall to wall.  We stood in the middle and watched all the activity circle around us.  It smelled of cold stone, sweet burning butter lamps and dusty  cloth.  We sat down to meditate and pray with some of the monks in the back.  When we were finished a   monk approached us.  He was old, but his closely cropped hair was still brown.  He spoke surprisingly good English and asked us why we were here.  We told him the story of our visit to Tibet and about our four weeks of travel and work through Eastern Tibet.  We told him that we'd worked in the prefecture of Kham and in the cities of Markam, Chamdo and others.  We talked for a few minutes, but it was the kind of conversation that only passes the time until you ask what is really on your mind.  I think it was Dr. Ken who finally said,

Tsurphu Monastery.  Where the
magic happens.....

"Sooooooo, Is The Karmapa here today?"
"Oh yes," said the monk.  "He lives here, you know.  He is very busy in study."
"Oh,"  said Dr. Ken, "I'm sure he's always busy. I understand, but please give him our regards."
"I will.  Thank you for coming to Tibet to help Tibetan people.  Too-jee-jay (thank you in Tibetan)."


And with that he placed his hands together, bowed his head and walked away.  We felt a little dejected for a moment, but only as dejected as you can feel in a nine hundred year old sacred temple of your dreams.  This may have not been the quest, but it was still a quest.  We'd made it Tsurphu.  It was unlikely we'd ever be back.  Not in this lifetime anyway. We wandered around the temple for another half hour in the shadow of twenty foot, hundred year old carved deities. This was a once in a lifetime chance to experience a living, breathing, ancient museum.   As we left the temple we saw the English speaking monk waiting on the steps.


"Tashi delek, doctors.  I am glad I found you.  Are you leaving to go back to Lhasa?"
"In a little while," I said.
"Can you spend a little more time at Tsurphu.  The Karmapa would like to meet you."
I don't think we could speak through the smiles on our faces.  It happened just like that.


The monk led us to the back of the temple through a long, dark, winding hallway.  I was thinking that we should be memorizing how many left and right turns we were taking, but then again finding our way out after getting lost in Tsurphu could be  fun.  We stopped at an old red door and waited.  An older monk met us here.  He looked at us for a minute trying to sort us out in the dark hallway.  He said,


"This way, this way."

Yak Burger:  Before

We climbed two flights of the narrow stairs.  At the top the old monk met a younger monk carrying two white ceramic tea cups.  He barked a few commands to the younger monk, pointed at us and grunted.  The younger monk nodded and squeezed past us down the stairs.  We went slowly up another flight of steps and into a room with small Chinese style table, yellow painted walls and old hand printed weathered Tibetan "thangkas" hanging on the walls.  The thangkas must have been over three hundred years old.  I motioned at them  with my eyes to Dr. Ken and he nodded his head.  We were both too excited to speak.  Do we even speak at all?  We'd never really considered the protocol when speaking to a nine hundred year old Buddhist master in the form of a fourteen year old Tibetan boy.  I never imagined we'd get this far.   The monk pointed to the floor and we obediently sat down at the small table.  Then he left through a second door in the back of the room

Yak Burger:  After

We sat silently in that room for about twenty minutes.  The room was losing its light as the mid-afternoon sun headed down through the cloudy sky.   The sun sets early in Tibet and driving back to Lhasa at nighttime was going to be twice as dangerous on the mountain roads. It didn't matter.  It was getting dark and we were hungry, but were staying in Tsurphu for as long as it took.  You don't drop a quest because you might miss dinner (though we had already discussed getting a legendary Yak Burger at the Snow Lion Pizza restaurant in central Lhasa. Highly recommended).


The old monk appeared at the door again and stared at us.  We stared back at him.  After about twenty seconds he motioned for us to follow him.  He walked into a short dark hallway and stopped at a door at the end.  As he walked to the door he stopped and pulled the second door open towards us.  There behind the door was a snarling Tibetan Mastiff on a short rope tied to a hook on the wall.   As soon as he saw us he went crazy.  He was vicious and he was angry.  The dog was about three feet tall with matted, dusty brown fur and he was pulling on the rope so hard that his front legs were off the ground.  He was growling and snapping a pair of foaming jaws into the air.  The rope that tethered him to the wall was exactly long enough to let an average sized person slip between the dogs crushing teeth and the doorway, but only if that person turned perfectly sideways.  Beyond the door was a narrow dark stairway.  The monk was a tiny old man.  He slipped by without regard to the dog, like he'd done this hundreds of times. He dissapeared up the steps beyond the dog.  I had a long string of white, bone prayer beads around my wrist.  I pulled them in close not only to pray, but to keep anything from dangling down low for the dog to bite.  I looked at Dr. Ken and said:




"Damn.  He looks angry."
"We better hurry up.  The longer we stand here the angrier he's getting.  I don't like the look of that rope either.  You go first."

"May I please know your intentions with The Karmapa before I chew your leg off?"

I quickly, instinctively decided to pass through with my back to the dog.  That way I could cling to the wall and avoid being castrated.  As I got close to him he went even crazier.  I turned sideways, slowly stuck my leg past the dogs nose and planted it on the first step past the door. I could feel the heat of his breath through my pants.  Then I pushed off hard with the leg still in the room and slid by quickly. I jammed myself up against the staircase as far away as possible.


"I"m in!"


I walked up the steps far enough to make room for Dr. Ken to follow.  He came flying through and slammed against the wall.  We whooped and high-fived.  The old monk was at the top of the next stairs looking both bored and impatient.  He walked through a door and we followed.  And just like that, there at the front of the large room was The Karmapa.  He was wearing a golden jacket over his robes and sitting in front of a simple red table.  Though he was only fourteen years old, the light, the shadows and the moment made him seem eight feet tall.  We walked slowly into the room, bowed and prostrated to The Karmapa and took a seat on the floor in front of him.  


stay tuned for part II.......................................

In the sacred hallows of the Master