Tough Love

So eight letters on my laptop's keyboard decided to go on strike (or, perhaps, non-strike?), and all the khan's horses and all the khan's men, at the end of a valiant day trying to salvage the board, solemnly declared themselves to have reached the zenith of their technical expertise and inventory, and advised me to get a replacement keyboard installed in Beijing, to which I'm fortunately jetting come the dawn. Thus I'm sweltering among the fervent IM crowd in a local internet cafe, gnashing my teeth because this rig doesn't have photo-processing software. Unable to compress photos, I can't show you the fabulous pic that ran in yesterday's UB daily, Zuunii Medee, of me snuggled up with Floki. Next week, promise.

In the meantime, I had a truly amazing experience last evening.

Last post I mentioned I'd been nagged for a couple of days by a low fever. This persisted, breaking in a shirt-soaking drench at night, and returning the next day for three or four days. The last couple days, in a bit of perverse poetry, I began to experience a steadily deepening pain in my neck, so relentless I couldn't sleep. Two nights ago, feeling this was not ordinary illness (I hadn't done anything to injure my neck), I abandoned my bed at 3AM to sit at my altar and spend most of the rest of the night with the purification practices of Buddha Vajrasattva.

I didn't receive any physical relief, but toward dawn a clear, strong thought formed: "See Chantsal Eksh."

Now, probably none of you recall me mentioning her, but this is the older woman lama who profoundly impressed me when I met her at Erka and Sharavdorj's house last December. I knew her to be a Buddhist healer with real clairvoyance, and in this case felt I needed her special skills.

Erka, bless her, arranged for us to go that evening without complaint. We entered her apartment on the far east side of town, and were ushered into a sitting room fairly bursting with hundreds of collected tsotchkes, arrayed floor to ceiling. But their wasn't much time to marvel at them. Chantsal Eksh is all business.

I had just gotten out a few words to describe my condition, when Erka interrupted me: "Nevermind. Just give her your wrists to feel your pulses." This I did, and Chantsal proceeded to not only precisely describe all my current ailments, but my general feeling of tiredness the past month, as well as my body's propensity to burn super-hot. OK, she said, let's get to work.

Step one was to severely dig in to the pectoral muscle above my heart, with Erka at my side like a midwife commisserating with my expressions of agony, and assuring me it would all be over soon and I'd feel much better. I had little choice but to trust her.

After slathering my heart area and head with some sort of vodka mixture (good thing I didn't have to return to an actual monastery and explain that smell!), she chanted some prayers and then had me turn around and sit with my back to her. My fears were correct -- the front side workover was mere prelude.

Chantsal tentatively rubbed the site where my neck meets my shoulders. I'm used to this area becoming tight sometimes; it's the traditional gathering point for my stress. But this was different. It felt like she was gripping cable on a suspension bridge and it was excrutiatingly painful. She called her granddaughter to fetch some gear. "Oh," said Erka. "She's going to burn something."

Um...eep!

Turned out it was moxibustion time, using the method of "cupping," applying heated glass cups which attach to the muscles through a simple vacuum. Chantsal attached cups to either side of my neck, near the spine. This created a pretty remarkable tension. Said tension then devolved into something a little more medieval dungeon when she forced the cups, firm vacuum well-intact, from the side neck muscles to the upper spine and back, several times over.

And then she popped the cups off, gently rubbed my neck a little, and it was over. I experimentally shrugged my shoulders a bit and...wow.

I told her the pain was nearly all gone, except for a faint echo, very deep. She said let's watch it a couple of days, and gave me some other medicine to take.

She agreed this was a "lama situation," and felt I was experiencing something to do with someone who felt very jealous of me. I found this hard to imagine, but we all know how inscrutable are the minds and emotions of others. Then she really touched me by saying, "I know it's hard to be this far away from your teachers, working alone. It seems almost everyone wants something from you, but few offer to help you. I'm here to help you." This was true, and I was so, so grateful, and told her so.

I asked her many other questions, some of which prompted her to do a simple divination with dice. She warned me that as one born in a snake year, this pig year could present some difficulties, as apparently these animals are oppositional (what we call a pig is actually, I think, more like a wild boar). She advised me to ramp up my practice and be a little more careful. I decided not to mention that, as far as my mother was concerned, I was a pig myself.

When I returned home, I felt like the work wasn't quite done, and I needed to administer the coup de grace right then. I chanted through the wrathful practice of Vajrakilaya with protector prayers. When I finished that, I beamed in on the bod. Now the pain and everything had utterly vanished and I slept like a baby. The only remaining evidence of the episode are two extraordinary, perfectly circular bruises about the size and color of a small, halved pomegranate. I'll have Erka take photos tomorrow.

OK, babies are wailing, my cafe neighbor on one side smells like he bathed in nicotine, and the one on the other is chatting on a webcam in Korean like she's in her own living room. Gotta bail.

But before I do, a little add-on entertainment for you.

Brother Jay writes in to inform about a Belgian-directed film about Mongolia called Khadak (awesome homepage photo!), and sangha sister KT sends a link to warm a birder's heart about none other than a navigationally-challenged Monk Vulture (oh, you can call it Cinereous if you like) being flown from Thailand to Ulaanbaatar!

Dispatch from Beijing unlikely. Check in for new stuff Wednesday.

Comments

[Palzang]

Wow, that was an awesome story about Chantsal! Wish there was someone like that in Sedona instead of all the "wannabes"...

I also checked out the Khadag site. Looks interesting. Wonder if it'll ever play in the US?

[Bolor]

Yeah some lamas in UB are capable of some pretty amazing things as far as healing goes... personal experience. I'm glad you're OK.

[Kay]

Someone is jealous of you? Shall I attack at the source? Prayers and meditation are now in progress for whoever-this-is. Oh, yes, and for you too!

[kmkat]

I'm so glad you found her -- sounds like it was just in time. I'm a science-based Westerner in most of my medical beliefs, but I know there is more in this world than my meagre philosophy encompasses. I'd really like to understand how neck tension causes night fevers, though.

[janet]

We're all here to help you, too, your loyal readers! You posts mean the world, half a world away!

Glad it was a cuppable ailment (my first thought was "uh oh, meningitis." Actually, I just went and did a search on Mongolia and meningitis, and there is an active incidence of meningitis there, but also a recommendation for all travelers to be immunized, so I'm sure you had that taken care of... or will RIGHT NOW, right????

[Adam Byrn Tritt]

I once took part in a march for Tibet. Several Monks. A nun. My wife was the official doctor.

At the end of the first evening she worked on Ani, who looked to be in her fifties. She was barely forty. Working on her sore ankles, she knew something was wrong. One then the other. Through an interpreter, she learned both has been pulled until broken while she was in prison. She would not say what they wanted her to so they pulled. Ankles and wrists. She became a better doctor after that.

[sis Laura]

And I wish you'd get a TB test, but am thrilled that the intervention was a healing one. Post soon to let us know how you are, and if you're truly better.

[Zendette]

I hope you're feeling ok. It's been a couple of days since we last heard from you. Did you have a post treatment reaction? Are you still ill?

Sending positive thoughts your way -