DEDICATION

Other titles by David Michie

Fiction

The Dalai Lama’s Cat series

The Dalai Lama’s Cat

The Art of Purring

The Power of Meow

The Four Paws of Spiritual Success

Matt Lester Spiritual Thrillers

The Magician of Lhasa

The Secret Mantra

Other Fiction

The Queen’s Corgi

The Astral Traveler’s Handbook & Other Tales

Nonfiction

Buddhism for Busy People: Finding Happiness in an Uncertain World

Buddhism for Pet Lovers: Supporting our Closest Companions
through Life and Death

Hurry Up and Meditate: Your Starter Kit for Inner Peace
and Better Health

Enlightenment to Go: Shantideva and the Power of Compassion
to Transform Your Life

Mindfulness is Better than Chocolate

•••

First published in 2020

Copyright © 2020 Mosaic Reputation Management (Pty) Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, or otherwise be copied for public or private use (other than for ‘fair use’ as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews) without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents appearing in this work are the sole expression, opinion and product of the author’s imagination only, are entirely fictitious and do not represent and are not based on any real life views of any character or event in any way whatsoever; any resemblance is strictly coincidental. Any and all references and depictions appearing in this work to real life persons, living or deceased, are based solely and entirely on the author’s imagination and are in no way a representation of, or bear any resemblance to, the actual views, events or opinions of such persons.

Conch Books, an imprint of Mosaic Reputation Management (Pty) Ltd

Cover and book design: Sue Campbell Book Design

Author photo: Susan Cameron

ISBN 978-0-6488665-2-7 (print)

ISBN 978-0-6488665-3-4 (e-book)

DEDICATION

With heartfelt gratitude to my precious gurus:
Les Sheehy, extraordinary source of inspiration and wisdom;
Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden, peerless master and embodiment of the Dharma;
Zasep Tulku Rinpoche, precious Vajra Acharya and yogi.

Guru is Buddha, Guru is Dharma, Guru is Sangha,
Guru is the source of all happiness.
To all gurus I prostrate, make offerings and go for refuge.

May this book carry waves of inspiration from my own gurus
To the hearts and minds of countless living beings.

May all beings have happiness and the true causes of happiness.
May all beings be free from suffering and
the true causes of suffering;
May all beings never be parted from the happiness that is without suffering, the great joy of nirvana liberation;
May all beings abide in peace and equanimity, their minds free from attachment and aversion, and free from indifference.

Author Note

Dear Reader,

You can read The Secret Mantra, without having read the first book in the series, The Magician of Lhasa.

If you haven’t yet read The Magician of Lhasa, or if it’s been a while since you did, you’ll find the following summary helpful. And just so you know, it contains no spoilers!

Warm wishes,

David

The Magician of Lhasa: Summary

Tibet. March 1959. Novice monk Tenzin Dorje is summoned by his teacher, Lama Tsering, and told that the long-feared Red Army invasion of Lhasa has begun. Monasteries are being ransacked and monks brutally killed. Tenzin and his brother and fellow novice, Paldon Wangpo, have just minutes to decide if they wish to go home to their parents, or join their elderly teacher on a perilous journey through the mountains—and to freedom in India.

The fleeing monks are poorly clothed, dependent on villagers for food, and must walk at night to avoid Red Army soldiers. Things go from bad to worse—at one point they are only moments from capture. Lama Tsering leads his novices to a cave, one used as a place of retreat by the 8th century master Padmasambhava, famous for his prophecies. Here he reveals that their special purpose is to carry a precious scroll, or terma (meaning treasure), to freedom. The scroll, sealed in a metal tube for over 1,200 years, may be opened only under auspicious circumstances by the right person. Motivated by the importance of their mission, the novice monks are devastated when, soon after leaving the cave, Lama Tsering is trapped beneath a snow avalanche and can’t move. Further disaster strikes the escaping monks, who face overwhelming odds if they are to complete their mission.

•••

The focus of the present-day story, running in parallel, is Matt Lester, a brilliant, good-looking, thirty-something scientist with a vivacious girlfriend, Isabella. He faces a dilemma. His boss at the Imperial Science Institute in London, the insightful but chaotic Harry Saddler, tells him that his brainchild Nanobot research program, a potential game-changer for cancer treatment, has been snapped up by U.S. biotech investor Bill Blakely. Blakely loves Nanobot, plans massive investment to accelerate it, and wants Matt to lead the program. But Matt will have to relocate to Los Angeles. Will Isabella be willing to leave her senior marketing job and London behind—especially with her dad having just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s?

Matt and Isabella move to L.A. Despite the money, smart car and sunshine, problems pile up from the start. Work pressure for Matt is relentless and Isabella can’t get a job. With tensions between them escalating, the most positive thing in Matt’s life is a meditation center next door. He feels drawn to Geshe-la, the founding lama of the center, who singles him out for special teachings, and Alice Weisenstein, a calm and beautiful meditation teacher, whose day job is doing mind-body research. Matt visits Alice at her laboratory where the two discover shared research interests. The meditation center becomes a refuge when Isabella decides to go on a wine-making course in Napa Valley, a seven hours’ drive away.

Matt’s situation at work becomes intolerable and there’s a massive showdown. His relationship with Isabella is on a knife-edge.

At the moment that Matt seems at risk of losing everything, Geshe-la reveals a story about a secret, 8th century scroll smuggled out of Tibet in 1959. He explains why all Matt’s scientific training and growing meditation experience have qualified him for an extraordinary purpose. Matt also discovers a connection to this mission that is more intensely personal than he could have imagined. The real reason he moved to L.A.—though he didn’t know it at the time.

Humbled to be the person chosen to undertake a task envisioned over 1,200 years before, Matt sets out for the Himalayas with a burning sense of purpose.

Chapter One

Approach to Tiger’s Nest Monastery

Bhutan, The Himalayas

Dusk was already falling—and the last part of our journey was still to come. I knew about the dangers of nightfall on the mountains. How it was better to stop and wait out the darkness than risk a single, false step on sheer cliff tracks. But I didn’t want to stop—I’d been working towards this moment for too long.

‘Return on the full moon in May,’ Lama Tsering had told me, his expression bright with significance. ‘Then it will be time.’

When we’d set out from the valley floor earlier, our objective had looked like nothing more than a white speck on a distant rock face. Following the goat track that picked its way through the foothills, jack-knifing around increasingly precipitous crevices, many hours later we approached a place where the mountain curved sharply away revealing an altogether different view of our destination.

A few steps ahead, my guide Sangay reached the bend. And despite his familiarity with the scene, even he felt compelled to stop, gazing directly ahead as I scrambled up beside him. For there, only a hundred yards away, was Tiger’s Nest Monastery, magnificent and other-worldly, built on an impossibly narrow ledge jutting from a sheer rock face that plunged three miles to the valley floor. A series of high-towered buildings with elaborate wooden shutters, the monastery’s gold pagoda roofs glowed in the long, slanting rays of the sun, like a vision from some other realm of consciousness.

Between the buildings and where we stood was a chasm, giving the monastery an even more illusory appearance, like a mirage that might, at any moment, evaporate into mist. All that connected us were ribbons of multi-colored prayer flags crossing the gulf to the most remote monastery in the Himalayas.

Despite my aching legs, I felt an involuntary welling up of emotion—the powerful tug of homecoming. I had first come here five years ago in my early thirties, a Londoner and research scientist who knew little about the mysteries of the Himalayas. Five years later I was in no doubt that the most transformative experiences of my life had occurred in this special place. It was also the home of one of the most revered masters in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition—my kind and much-loved teacher, Lama Tsering.

After the briefest pause, Sangay gestured that we should continue. Lengthening fingers of darkness were already stretching towards the final approach to Tiger’s Nest, a narrow ledge cut into the dramatic zigzag cliff. Sangay was vigilant, directing me along the rock-strewn path. There was no margin for error. Legs shaking, I battled to place one foot in front of the other as the pathway tapered sharply and footholds were swallowed up in the deepening shadows.

Sangay pulled out a torch from his tunic and used it to point the way to safety. Concentrating so completely, step by step, when we reached the solid, stone walls of the fortified gatehouse it was almost by surprise. Suddenly the path widened to a much broader ledge, lush with grass.

I sank to the ground, stretching gratefully on the softness of the lawn. Sangay tugged on a brass chain hanging outside the massive, locked gates. Inside, a duty monk would alert Lama Tsering to our arrival.

‘Just in time,’ said Sangay, looking up at where the clear, May sky rapidly darkened.

•••

I remembered my first visit, how I’d arrived bright with expectation and busyness. Excited about my purpose, I had expected Lama Tsering to be equally eager for me to fulfill my mission. Even though we had never met, I felt I had come to know him through Geshe-la, who was his student. I was in no doubt that my visit was significant. In his mid-nineties, I believed that Lama Tsering had been biding his time for much of the second half of his life to meet me.

Which only showed how much I had to learn! To begin with, it had been a full day before I was admitted to his presence. We might be in the most isolated monastery in the Himalayas but there were protocols. Finally ushered into his room at sunset on the day after I’d arrived, that first encounter had been unlike anything I had expected. I had already played out this scene in anticipation many, many times—Lama Tsering as the wizened, rheumy-eyed old monk greatly relieved at the appearance of me, the youthful Westerner, the Chosen One, to whom he could pass on the torch of some very specific wisdom.

Instead, the door opened onto a small room in which the monk, sitting in meditation, didn’t seem to be of any particular age. Greeting me with a smile, he gestured I should sit in front of him, before lowering his gaze. Several minutes had passed before he spoke, leaving me plenty of time to observe him. He had a longer face than the traditional rounded features of Tibetans, with prominent cheekbones and a high forehead. His hair, shaven close to the head, was dark, with only traces of grey. There was a gentle suppleness about his features and his arms, which were folded in meditative posture in front of him. His face and neck barely lined, there was an astonishing agelessness about him.

This being the first time I’d ever been in his presence, after scrutinizing his appearance, I took in the low table in front of him on which were placed several books, the small window behind him to the left, and the incense burner from which a steady blue-grey ribbon of smoke curled elegantly upwards. It was only then that I became aware of my own mental agitation. Here I was, in the presence of one of the tradition’s most revered masters, and where was my mind? Not settled in a state of ease—expansive, relaxed, and open to the wisdom of a guru. But instead looking around at his room, his books, the incense.

It was as if, without saying a word, Lama Tsering invited me into a different state of being. Lowering my gaze, I tried to meditate the way I had been shown by Geshe-la in recent months, focusing on being simply here and now, in the present moment. I felt my mind settle, to an extent that had eluded me in the past. Instead of constant thoughts and distracting chatter I felt myself slip into an awareness that was peaceful and benevolent. I had experienced some enjoyable meditation sessions in the past, but the sense of profound wellbeing I felt even that first time in Lama Tsering’s presence was so absorbing, so oceanic that I didn’t want it to end.

Eventually I sensed a movement and, looking up, I met his eyes.

‘I am very happy to see you,’ he folded his hands together at his heart and bowed towards me.

Unsure what to do, I reciprocated. Then feeling awkward in the unfamiliar stillness, I felt compelled to tell him how I’d met Geshe-la, and the sequence of events which had led to my coming here, as well as my eagerness to undertake the specific purpose for which I was visiting.

After I finished speaking, the silence that followed seemed to underline how unnecessary it had been. ‘Before starting on our important work,’ his expression was warm with compassion. ‘It is necessary to cultivate some meditative concentration.’

‘Yes, Lama.’

‘Knowledge is very good. But experience is better. A little practice and then we will be ready.’

I had guessed, from the way he said it, that his definition of ‘a little’ practice went beyond a couple of sessions.

I found myself engaged in an intensive study and meditation program that had started out at weeks, then stretched into months. More and more as I understood the magnitude of the truths I was being trained to reveal, my sense of purpose only grew stronger. Months had turned to years.

Lama Tsering had personally supervised my preparation, the culmination being the three-month solitary retreat which I had just completed.

“Return on the full moon in May. Then it will be time.” Time to pass on the very special knowledge of which he’d been custodian for the previous half-century but which, he had once told me, was much older than that. It had been kept secret for over a millennium, in exactly what form I could only guess, but secured in a hidden repository in the Himalayas for the time of its revelation—a time when it would be of maximum benefit to the world.

And I was the person chosen to reveal it.

Quite how it turned out to be me was something that still left me humbled. And tonight, in particular, filled with a sense of greater awe and anticipation than I had ever experienced. I could hardly believe that the time had finally come. The moment of transmission. The event, I realized now, to which my whole life had been leading me. And in accordance with the Buddhist view of rebirth, not only this lifetime, but many lives before it.

•••

The monastery gates finally opened to reveal Kelsang, assistant to Abbot Lhamo. His usual cheerful features were drawn. ‘Welcome back, Matt,’ he inclined his head politely. Before saying, ‘The abbot will see you now.’

‘The abbot?’ I raised my eyebrows.

‘He has something to tell you,’ he frowned.

Sangay followed us into the monastery and returned to his quarters as Kelsang set an unusually brisk pace through the maze of corridors. Why wasn’t I being taken directly to Lama Tsering? Where was Dorje, Lama Tsering’s attendant, who I had expected to greet us? Was the abbot also to be present for the revelation?

Abbot Lhamo was standing alone on the worn, embroidered carpet in the middle of his office, his gaze calm and unwavering when I was ushered in. Tall, ascetic, highly regarded for his scholarship, he was considered remote by some, but this evening his expression was full of compassion.

‘Lama Tsering has been looking forward to your return today,’ he told me after Kelsang left the room, closing the door behind him. ‘Several times in the past few weeks he has spoken to me about it. A few minutes ago, when you arrived, Dorje went looking for him.’ He stepped closer towards me. ‘He found him in the main temple.’

The abbot took my left hand and held it between his. As he made that simple gesture, I felt my heart thundering. I suddenly knew exactly what he was going to tell me before he said it.

‘Matt, I am very sorry to have to tell you this sad news. Lama Tsering is dead.’

Chapter Two

It seemed impossible to believe: my kind guru dead? As I stood facing the abbot, an eternity passed. What he’d said made no sense at all. I felt so numb, for a while I could do nothing except stand in shock.

Lama Tsering had been the center of my world for the past five years. Everything in both our lives, it seemed, had been propelled by a special purpose, leading to this particular time and place, here and now. How could this be happening?

A short while later I was following Kelsang and the abbot. We passed through dimly lit corridors and up flights of stairs. What if Dorje had been mistaken? What if Lama wasn’t dead at all, but in a state of deep, meditative Samadhi? It wouldn’t be the first time such an error had been made.

The main temple at Tiger’s Nest was surprisingly small—not much larger than the dining room of an average home and far less regularly proportioned, being built around a cliff face. Its walls bulged around protruding boulders, the ceiling curved in a dramatic warp.

As we arrived, Jangbu, the monastery First Aid attendant, was on his knees. Dorje was standing next to him, holding a hissing gas lamp. On the floor, Lama Tsering looked small and frail, a bundle of bones in red robes.

I knelt down immediately, studying those familiar features, wanting so much to find a sign that this wasn’t what I’d been told. But the moment my knees touched the stone floor, I knew. Eyes closed and features expressionless, Lama’s face was a pale reminder of what had once been. The consciousness that had defined him with such immense benevolence in life was no more.

Jangbu gently rolled the body so he was lying on his back. The left side of his head was dark, the skin of his cheek grazed. The movement of his body caused Lama’s wooden mala beads to rattle from his robes onto the stone. The abbot quickly swooped to collect them, handing them to me in a fluid gesture. ‘I am sure Lama Tsering would have wanted you to have this.’

Wordlessly I accepted the rosary with both hands, pressing them in prayer mudra to my heart. Even in my numbed state, the significance of the abbot’s gesture wasn’t lost on me.

As Jangbu studied the left side of Lama’s head, concentrating on the graze to his face, Dorje murmured something. Placing Lama’s head back on the floor with infinite care, Jangbu quickly rose, seizing the gas lamp and holding it to where Dorje was gesturing towards the wall. The abbot and I both stepped forward, staring at the same spot.

It was evident that Lama’s head had struck the wall with some force. This was not the mark of an elderly man falling to his side in the throes of a seizure.

The abbot stepped away, his eyes meetings Dorje’s with an expression I had never seen before. A look of such darkness, such deep foreboding, I felt a chill pass through my body.

‘Were there visitors today?’ he asked.

‘Only two this afternoon, Abbot. They were Khampas.’

The Khampas! Massive, fearless men from the Kham province of Tibet, it was said that Khampas had been the fiercest warriors in Genghis Khan’s Mongol army. Sangay and I had passed by two of them, less than an hour from the monastery, dark shadows moving with unusual haste. I explained how we’d seen them, clambering across a precipitous ledge. We had thought they were descending quickly on account of the failing light. Now I realized the true reason for their furtive maneuvers.

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