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All that I saw and learned at the lung-gom training centre of nyang-t枚 kyi-phug (n膩峁�- stod kyid-phug), which means 'the Happy Cave in the Upper Nyang Valley' (near Shigatse), confirmed my conviction that the aim of lung-gom goes far beyond the attainment of magic powers, like trance walking or levitation, and that this training is certainly not a playground of personal ambition or aggrandisement, because the first thing that is demanded of a prospective lung-gom-pa is complete anonymity.

When entering the ts'hang-khang, the meditation cubicle, he has as good as died to the world; his name, his family, or even the place from where he came, is not revealed to anybody. He has given up his personality and when after many years he emerges from his cubicle, nothing of his former personality has remained and nobody knows who he was. He is like a new-born being, one who has not only died to his past, but one who has consciously gone through death and has been reborn to a new life, a life purified from all personal attachments and wholly dedicated to the welfare of his fellow-beings.

This is also borne out by the popular belief that lung-gom had its origin in a saint's attempt to overcome death by sacrificing his own self.

This saint was the famous historian Buston, who was born near Shigatse in 1289 and was the Great Abbot of the monastery of Shalu, which became the first training centre for lung-gom. Not far from this place lived a great magician, known as Yungt枚n Dorj茅 Pal, who cried to propitiate the Lord of Death (g艢inrje, pron. 'Shinj茅'; Skt. yama) in a special ritual in order to persuade him to spare the life of human beings for twelve years. The Lord of Death consented under the condition that somebody would offer his own life as a compensation (the underlying thought being that one life offered willingly was worth thousands of lives surrendered under compulsion). None of those present during this fearful ritual were ready to sacrifice themselves, except Buston (pron. 'But枚n'), This revealed to the magician that this saintly man was the only one capable of performing this ritual, and therefore, instead of accepting his offer, he enjoined upon him and his successors the duty to perform the same ceremony every twelve years.

As it was necessary to invite to this ceremony the terrible tutelary deities of the main sanctuaries of the central provinces of Tibet, 脺(dBus) and Tsang (gTsa峁�), and only a messenger who is fearless of death, and able to perform the pilgrimage to these sanctuaries within twenty-four hours, is suitable for this task, the training of lunggom was instituted at Samding and Nyang-t枚 Kyi-phug, from where the runners were dispatched alternately every twelve years.

This is the story which I heard at Kyi-phug and which has also been related by Alexandra David-Neel. I was not able to visit Samding, but some years ago I came across a very moving report by Sven Hedin^[1] , in which he describes a cave in a valley 'above linga and pesu' in which a Lama was immured, and which he visited on a cold winter day. The cave was at the foot of a rock-wall and was called Samde-phug. It had neither window nor door, but a spring welled up in its interior and its water emerged from a small opening under the wall, which closed the mouth of the cave.

'When three years ago this mysterious Lama Rimpoch茅 had come to Linga, he had taken a vow before the monks of the monastery to go for ever into the darkness. By consulting the holy scriptures, the date of the immurement had been fixed. On that day, all the monks assembled to convey him to his grave. Silently and solemnly, like a funeral, the monks moved through the valley, slowly, step by step, as if they wanted to prolong the last minutes in which the unknown hermit could still see sun, light and colours. He knows that he leaves the world for ever, that he will never again see the mountains which hold vigil at his grave. He knows that he will die in the cave, forgotten by all.

'After the entrance of the cave has been walled up, the light is extinguished for him, for ever. He is alone and will never hear a human voice again, only the closed-in echo of his own. But when he says his prayers, there will be nobody who listens to them, and when he calls, nobody will answer. For the brethren, who have buried him alive, he is already dead. The only bond between them and the immured hermit is the duty to supply him with his daily food. A bowl of tea and tsampa is daily given him through the little opening under the wall, which is so thick and solidly built that neither a sound nor a ray of light reaches the hermit. The only way to ascertain whether he is alive or dead is to observe whether the food has been consumed or not. If for six days the food remains untouched, the wall has to be broken open. This had already been done in previous cases, as for instance three years ago, when a hermit, who had spent twelve years in the cave, died; and fifteen years ago, at the death of another one, who at the age of twenty entered the cave and lived there for forty years.'

Sven Hedin then pictures to himself the endless years in total darkness, which the immured hermit has to endure. 'He cannot count the days, he only feels the cold of the winter and the milder air of the summer, but soon he forgets to count the years. The only thing he counts are the beads of his rosary and with them his prayers. But finally, after many long years, someone knocks at the entrance to his cave. He opens his arms, to receive the friend for whom he has been waiting so long: it is Death! The blind hermit, who through decenniums had lived in impenetrable darkness, suddenly sees a brilliant light --- He is freed from the cycle of life and death.

This dramatic account haunted me for a long time, and I often wondered whether any human being could possibly endure a life in total darkness and complete absence of fresh air, deprived even of movement, quite apart from the psychological effect of being cut off from all human contact. Could anybody really believe that by shutting out the light of the sun he could find the inner light or attain to Enlightenment? Did not the Buddha himself condemn the extremes of asceticism as much as he condemned the extreme of worldly pleasures?

Physical self-immolation, as a means for attaining one's own salvation, has never been regarded a virtue by Buddhists. And Tibetans, in spite of their belief in supernatural and transcendental powers, show a lot of common sense in their daily life as well as in their religious training methods. They are eminently practical people, and their conception of religion is neither gloomy nor suicidal.

Thu is borne out even in a place like Nyang-t枚 Kyi-phug, which is known for the seriousness of its practices and the strictness of its rules. Li Gotami and I visited this place in 1947. All that we saw there thoroughly refuted the idea that lung-gom has to be practised in complete darkness (as even David-Neel seems to believe^[2]) and under inhumanly unhygienic conditions. Quite on the contrary we found to our pleasant surprise that the meditation cubicles, which rose on the slopes of the ascending valley, just above the main temples and shrines of the monastery, were well-kept and built in a most sensible and practical way, as much with a view to preserve the health of body and mind as to ensure the complete silence and seclusion of the hermits. 'Mens Sana in corpore sano'.

Each cubicle was built in such a way as to give access to air, water, and sun, to allow for physical exercise as well as for the contemplation of infinite space, the wide open sky with its heavenly bodies, its wandering clouds and the moods of the seasons. These hermitages were not meant to be places of self-torture or penance, but as abodes of peace and undisturbed meditation. Far from being grave-like, they were meant to be places conducive to happiness, as even the name Kyi-phug, 'the happy cave', indicated; and the general impression I had, was such that I felt a strong desire to retire myself one day into one of these cubicles for a longer spell of introspection and unbroken S膩dhan膩.

Gomchens were not precluded from taking with them into their cubicle books, images or thankas, related to their S膩dhan膩, or things connected with their daily rituals, like vajra, bell and 岣峚maru, the usual altar-vessels and butter-lamps, as well as a little chogtse on which to place them. From this it became clear that the Gomchen's time would be carefully regulated and fully employed by study, worship, and meditation, interrupted by regular physical exercises, meals, and the necessary little chores in preparing them and in keeping body, place, and utensils clean. There was a little kitchen with a few pots and pans, to heat the butter-tea which is an indispensable part of the normal Tibetan diet (it is almost impossible to swallow dry tsampa! ) and to prepare simple meals, because devotees often brought merely raw materials which, like other gifts of prepared food, would be placed into the little opening at the bottom of the wall, next to the sealed entrance of the hermitage. Next to the kitchen was a small room, through which the water of a brook had been channelled, providing water for all domestic purposes and serving at the same time as a W.C.

The actual meditation chamber was airy and spacious, with a wide-open skylight. It rather resembled a courtyard, surrounded by a covered gallery of which one side was wider than the others and served as a sleeping-and-sitting place (indicated by a raised stone or mud platform, on which a mattress or meditation rug could be placed), while the other wall-spaces were used for stacking up fuel, a very important item in a cold climate like that of Tibet, where hot tea is the only way to keep one's body warm in a cold room. Fuel in Tibet is far too precious to be used for heating a room, and in this case the open skylight would have made it impossible anyway. Besides the fuel, which was used in these hermitages, was not the usual yak-dung, in which often worms or beedes are found (and which therefore would not be suitable for one who is engaged in generating love and compassion towards all living beings), but consisted either of brushwood or of a fungus-like woody growth, perhaps a hardened kind of giant moss, that was found in big hemispheric clumps on the surrounding mountain slopes. It was said that this fuel did not contain any animal life. A ladder led from the courtyard, or rather through the skylight, on to the flat roof of the galleries, which thus formed a terrace on which the Gomchen could walk around. This perambulatory, however, was screened from the outside world by a high parapet, so that the Gomchens meditation and privacy would not be disturbed even while taking exercise. This perambulatory corresponds to the chankama (from P膩li: 肠补峁卥补-尘补迟颈, to pace up and down) of ancient Buddhism, as used even to the present day in the countries of Southern Buddhism (like Ceylon, Burma, and Thailand), where monks are accustomed to pace up and down while meditating or memorising and reciting sacred scriptures. For recluses, practising lung-gom, these perambulatories are mainly used to keep physically fit, as they provide the only opportunity for regular walking in the open air.

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

Published in the magazine Die koralle and also in his book Abenteuer in Tibet. My subsequent translation is made from an extract of the original article.

[2]:

'After their seclusion in darkness for three years, those monks …proceed to Shalu where they are immured in one of the grave-like huts …' (With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet, Penguin, p. 191.)