Rampa Lobsang - Doctor From Lhasa.pdf

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Doctor From Lhasa
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Doctor From Lhasa
CONTENTS
Author’sForward
1
1 Into the Unknown
7
2 Chungking
23
3 MedicalDays
42
4 Flying
58
5 The Other Side of Death
82
6 Clairvoyance
102
7 MercyFlight
116
8 When The World Was Very Young
135
9 Prisoner Of The Japanese
154
10 How To Breathe
170
11 TheBomb
189
Author's Foreword
WHEN I was in England I wrote The Third Eye , a book
which is true, but which has caused much comment. Letters
came in from all over the world, and in answer to requests
I wrote this book, Doctor from Lhasa.
My experiences, as will be told in a third book, have
been far beyond that which most people have to endure,
experiences which are paralleled only in a few cases in
history. That, though, is not the object of this book which
deals with a continuation of my autobiography.
I am a Tibetan lama who came to the western world in
pursuance of his destiny, came as was foretold, and en-
dured all the hardships as foretold. Unfortunately, western
people looked upon me as a curio, as a specimen who
should be put in a cage and shown off as a freak from the
unknown. It made me wonder what would happen to my
old friends, the Yetis, if the westerners got hold of them—
as they are trying to do.
Undoubtedly the Yeti would be shot, stuffed, and put in
some museum. Even then people would argue and say that
there were no such things as Yetis! To me it is strange
beyond belief that western people can believe in television,
and in space rockets that may circle the Moon and return
and yet not credit Yetis or “Unknown Flying Objects,” or,
in fact, anything which they cannot hold in their hands and
pull to pieces to see what makes it work.
But now I have the formidable task of putting into just
a few pages that which before took a whole book, the details
of my early childhood. I came of a very high-ranking
family, one of the leading families in Lhasa, the capital of
Tibet. My parents had much to say in the control of the
country, and because I was of high rank I was given severe
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training so that, it was considered, I should be fit to take
my place. Then, before I was seven years of age, in accord-
ance with our established custom, the Astrologer Priests of
Tibet were consulted to see what type of career would be
open to me. For days before these preparations went for-
ward, preparations for an immense party at which all the
leading citizens, all the notabilities of Lhasa would come
to hear my fate. Eventually the Day of Prophecy arrived.
Our estate was thronged with people. The Astrologers came
armed with their sheets of paper, with their charts, and with
all the essentials of their profession. Then, at the appropri-
ate time, when everyone had been built up to a high pitch
of excitement, the Chief Astrologer pronounced his find-
ings. It was solemnly proclaimed that I should enter a
lamasery at the age of seven, and be trained as a priest,
and as a priest surgeon. Many predictions were made about
my life; in fact the whole of my life was outlined. To my
great sorrow everything they said has come true. I say
“sorrow” because most of it has been misfortune, and
hardship, and suffering, and it does not make it any easier
when one knows all that one is to suffer.
I entered the Chakpori lamasery when I was seven years
of age, making my lonely way along the path. At the
entrance I was kept, and had to undergo an ordeal to see
if I was hard enough, tough enough to undergo the training.
This I passed, and then I was allowed to enter. I went
through all the stages from an absolutely raw beginner,
and in the end I became a lama, and an abbot. Medicine
and surgery were my particular strong points. I studied
these with avidity, and I was given every facility to study
dead bodies. It is a belief in the west that the lamas of Tibet
never do anything to bodies if it means making an opening.
The belief is, apparently, that Tibetan medical science is
rudimentary, because the medical lamas treat only the
exterior and not the interior. That is not correct. The
ordinary lama, I agree, never opens a body, it is against
his own form of belief. But there was a special nucleus of
lamas, of whom I was one, who were trained to do opera-
2
tions, and to do operations which were possibly even beyond
the scope of western science.
In passing there is also a belief in the west that Tibetan
medicine teaches that the man has his heart on one side,
and the woman has her heart on the other side. Nothing
could be more ridiculous. Information such as this has
been passed on to the western people by those who have
no real knowledge of what they are writing about, because
some of the charts to which they refer deal with astral
bodies instead, a very different matter. However, that has
nothing to do with this book.
My training was very intensive indeed, because I had to
know not only my specialized subjects of medicine and
surgery, but all the Scriptures as well because, as well as
being a medical lama, I also had to pass as a religious one,
as a fully trained priest. So it was necessary to study for
two branches at once, and that meant studying twice as
hard as the average. I did not look upon that with any great
favour!
But it was not all hardship, of course. I took many trips
to the higher parts of Tibet—Lhasa is 12,000 feet above
sea level—gathering herbs, because we based our medical
training upon herbal treatment, and at Chakpori we always
had at least 6,000 different types of herb in stock. We
Tibetans believe that we know more about herbal treatment
than people in any other part of the world. Now that I have
been around the world several times that belief is
strengthened.
On several of my trips to the higher parts of Tibet I flew
in man-lifting kites, soaring above the jagged peaks of the
high mountain ranges, and looking for miles, and miles,
over the countryside. I also took part in a memorable
expedition to the almost inaccessible part of Tibet, to the
highest part of the Chang Tang Highlands. Here, we of the
expedition found a deeply secluded valley between clefts
in the rock, and warmed, warmed by the eternal fires of
the earth, which caused hot waters to bubble out and flow
into the river. We found, too, a mighty city, half of it ex-
posed in the hot air of the hidden valley, and the other half
buried in the clear ice of a glacier. Ice so clear that the other
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