the corpse and leaving the components in a high open place to be consumed by jackals and carrion birds.
“Death, decay, and transmigration: the three fundamental facts of existence,” said His Holiness.
“I want to go home,” I said, my eyes watering and my brain reeling from the foulness of it all. The stench was itself a kind of raptor, pecking at my sinuses, nibbling at the lining of my throat.
“The sorrowful cycle of samsara,” Chögi Gyatso persisted. “The wretched wheel of life, turning and turning in the widening gyre, but there is no rough beast, Taktra Kunga, no Bethlehem, only more turning, more suffering, more turning, more suffering. Sean Connery is reborn as George Lazenby, who is reborn as Roger Moore, who is reborn as Timothy Dalton, who is reborn as Pierce Brosnan, who is reborn as Daniel Craig, who is reborn as Brian Flaherty. It can be much worse, of course. A person might spend his life deliberately harming other sentient beings. Owing to this bad karma, he will come back as an invertebrate, a miserable crawling thing, or else a hungry ghost, or maybe even a hell being. Agent Double-O-Seven, if he truly existed, would probably be a dung beetle now. So it goes, Taktra Kunga. You can’t win, you can’t break even — but you can get out of the game.”
“You didn’t get out of the game,” I noted, staring at my feet. “You keep opting for reincarnation.”
“That doesn’t mean I like it.”
“If your brother sends a troop train into the gorge, how may lifetimes will he need to discharge his karmic debt? A hundred? A thousand? A million?”
“I don’t want to talk about my brother,” said Chögi Gyatso, placing his open palm beneath my shaggy simian chin and directing my gaze toward the open-air ossuary. “Behold.”
Bearing a narrow palanquin on which lay a robe-wrapped corpse, a solemn procession shuffled into view: monks, mourners, tub-haulers, and a team of specialists that His Holiness identified as rogyapas, body cutters. Expectant vultures arrived from all points of the compass. After finding a relatively uncluttered space, the palanquin-bearers set down their burden, whereupon the rogyapas secured the corpse with ropes and pegs, “lest the birds claim it too soon,” His Holiness explained. Availing themselves of the tub, the monks next washed the body in a solution scented with saffron and camphor, “thereby making the flesh more pleasing to the nostrils of its feathered beneficiaries.”
“Your religion is good with details,” I noted.
“In giving his body to scavengers, the deceased is performing an act of great charity,” Chögi Gyatso explained. “Even as we speak, that person’s hovering consciousness negotiates the bardo, the gap between his present life and his next incarnation. He is presently confronting a multitude of confusing sights, sounds, smells, textures, and tastes, as well as hordes of tantric deities, some peaceful, others wrathful, each spawned by his mind. It’s all in the Bardo Thodol.”
“We should try selling it to the movies.”
“Taktra Kunga, shut up.”
After drawing out their sharp gleaming knives, the body cutters went to work, opening up the corpse’s chest, removing the internal organs, and slicing the flesh from the skeleton. The rogyapas mashed up the bones with stone hammers, then mixed the particles with barley flour, a proven vulture delicacy.
“What are we doing here?” I moaned, seizing His Holiness by the shoulders.
“We are here to relieve the suffering of other sentient beings. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“No, I mean what are we doing here? Why are we in this demented alfresco cemetery?”
“We are here to meditate on tathata — suchness — the true nature of reality.”
Only after a large quantity of flesh and bone had been prepared were the vultures allowed into the ceremony, a precaution that kept them from fighting among themselves. The rogyapas carried the offerings to a large slab of rock decorated with a geometric representation of the universe, then systematically pitched the portions, one by one, toward the center of the circle. Meanwhile, one particularly athletic rogyapa swung a large rope across the inscribed outcropping, discouraging the raptors from entering the mandala before the proper time.
“Take me away!” I wailed. “I can’t stand this place! Class dismissed!”
“Is that truly your wish?” asked His Holiness.
“Yes! It’s over! Allons-y! I’m the worst student you ever had!”
“That would appear to be the case.”
The rope-swinger stilled his cord and stepped aside. Fluttering, shrieking, squawking, and — for all I knew — chanting praises to their patrons, the appreciative vultures descended.
“I don’t want to be enlightened!” I cried. “I want Gawa! I want my cousins! I want onion bagels and pineal-gland tea and Prokofiev and Fred Astaire and the Marx Brothers! I want all my stupid, worthless, impermanent toys!”
The bodhisattva shrugged and, taking my paw in his hand, began leading me toward Gangtok. “Taktra Kunga, I am disappointed in you.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Let me offer a word of counsel,” said His Holiness. “When lying on your deathbed, strive mightily to release these negative energies of yours. You won’t be reborn a buddha, but you won’t come back an insect either. Speaking personally, I hope you remain a giant ape. You do that very well.”
The Earth turned, the wheel of life revolved, and, exactly one year after hearing Dorje Lingpa declare his intention to wreck a Mao-Mao troop train, my cousins and I once again found ourselves huddled drowsily behind his yurt on the eve of Mönlam Chenmo. We did not expect to get much sleep. Chögi Gyatso and his half-brother had stayed up late arguing over the necessity of destroying the Brahmaputra bridge. They had found no points of accord. Bad karma suffused the gorge like the stench of a charnel ground.
I awoke shortly after sunrise, tired, bleary, and miserable, then stumbled into the yurt. My cousins occupied the dining table, playing seven-card stud. His Holiness and Dorje Lingpa sat in the breakfast nook, eating oranges and drinking buttered tea.
“A flush,” said Cousin Jowo, displaying five hearts.
“Beats my straight,” said Cousin Nyima, disclosing his hand.
The plaintive moan of a diesel horn fissured the frosty air.
“A troop transport,” noted Dorje Lingpa. “Over the years I’ve come to know each train by its call, like a hunter identifying different species of geese by their honks.”
A second mournful wail arose, rattling the circular roof.
“The train is exactly nine miles away,” said Dorje Lingpa. “It will be here in six and a half minutes.”
“Dear brother, your mind is crammed with useless knowledge,” said Chögi Gyatso.
“That horn is a death knell,” Dorje Lingpa continued. “Listen carefully, brother. The train is pealing its own doom.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
A long, malevolent, Za-like grin bisected Dorje Lingpa’s melon face. “I’m talking about a bridge bristling with sticks of dynamite. I’m talking about a detonator attached to the high-speed track. I’m talking about headlines in tomorrow’s Beijing Times and the next day’s Washington Post.” He brushed his brother’s shaved head. “And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”
Nothing. His Holiness’s favorite concept. Long live Double-O-Seven. You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when Chögi Gyatso leapt up, fled the yurt, and dashed toward the railroad siding.
“Bad idea!” I yelled, giving chase.
“I think not,” His Holiness replied.
I