Beautiful Ghosts Read Online Free PDF

mountains.
    The sight of the bag released a new flood of emotion. Not long after he had returned to Yerpa from the north the month before, Shan had fallen gravely ill, burning with fever, lapsing in and out of consciousness for three days. When he recovered, Gendun had been very quiet around Shan, as if troubled. Something had happened that no one would speak of. Fearful that a new danger had arisen for the monks, Shan had pressed Lokesh until the old Tibetan had explained that in his fever one night Shan had called for Gendun like a frightened child, crying, saying he had to go home, saying he had to be free now.
    The words from Shan’s sickness had strangely shaken Gendun and Lokesh. It was why Shan’s fever had lasted so long, Lokesh had explained, leaving him so weak he could barely sit up, because his spirit had become so imbalanced, because he had what the Tibetan doctors called heart wind.
    Shan had no home beyond Yerpa, no real family but the monks and Lokesh. But Lokesh explained that the fever had burned away into a dark place inside Shan, a desperate place that had not been touched by the Tibetans’ healing, a place the Tibetans did not know how to reach. It had hurt Shan beyond words to see the self-doubt on the countenances of Gendun and Lokesh, and it had been days before he could bring himself to speak about it, to try to explain it away, as a dream perhaps, one of the recurring dreams of himself as a boy looking for his father. Don’t believe that voice, he had wanted to tell them, don’t believe that part of me doesn’t want to stay with you, don’t believe that you are incomplete as teachers.
    “You must journey inside,” Gendun had finally told him, using one of his phrases for a long-term meditation. “You must find a way to stop imprisoning yourself. I know a cave,” he had announced, and they had spent more than a week preparing, meditating together, selecting the items to accompany Shan. A few butter lamps. Two blankets. A pouch of barley, a small pot, a pouch of yak dung for fuel. And his old heirloom throwing sticks, used by Shan and several generations of his family before him to contemplate the Tao te Ching, the ancient Chinese book of wisdom.
    “How could I leave now?” Shan asked in a whisper, not even sure Gendun could hear, but knowing what the answer would be. “The soldiers will tell Colonel Tan about the festival now. There will be danger for the monks of Yerpa, danger like never before.”
    “For us there is nothing more important than meeting these people, for whom the Buddha has been but a shadow all these years. For you there is nothing more important than reaching that cave.”
    There was movement behind them. They rose and discovered Liya, gazing at them hesitantly. The shy young woman seemed somehow stricken. Lokesh appeared behind her, glancing with a worried expression toward Shan, trying to calm Liya with a hand on her shoulder.
    The big ox-like herder emerged from the shadows, leading Jara and most of the other hill people.
    “Soldiers!” he barked, pointing to the old stone tower. “Between us and our homes!” The Tibetans were murmuring excitedly, fear back in their eyes. “The whole world knows of your secret festival!” the big herder snapped at Liya in an accusing tone. “You may as well have sent a personal invitation to that damned colonel.”
    Liya turned toward Gendun, and her eyes grew wide in surprise. Shan followed her gaze to discover that Gendun had settled onto the long lintel stone. He was in the lotus position, feet folded under him, his right hand open, fingers pointing downward, in the earth witness mudra, one of the ritual hand gestures. He was facing the western ridge, in the direction of the soldiers. One of the old women who had been sitting at the chorten pushed forward and settled to the ground in front of the lama. “If soldiers are coming today,” she declared, “here is where they will find me.”
    Liya stepped to the woman’s