HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies
Volume 37 Number 1 Article 31
June 2017
Review of Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Tertön Sogyal by Matteo Pistono
Alyson Prude Georgia Southern University
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Recommended Citation Prude, Alyson. 2017. Review of Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Tertön Sogyal by Matteo Pistono. HIMALAYA 37(1). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol37/iss1/31
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. This Review is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 20th century. A life-force stone later unseals it to discover medicinal discovered by Sogyal was worn pills and a scroll (pp. 74-5). In by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama on another episode, Sogyal elicits a his escape from Tibet in 1959, and reaction from a painting of Tibet’s the Vajrakilaya rituals that Sogyal protector deity, Palden Lhamo. When revealed are practiced in Dharamsala he threatens the painting with his today by monks at the Dalai Lama’s dagger, Palden Lhamo’s mule comes personal chapel. Fearless in Tibet to life and kicks its leg into the air, at retells the spiritual life-story of the which point an angry black serpent Treasure-revealer, combining the appears with yet another Treasure oral histories that Pistono collected casket (p. 101). The accounts of during his decade of travels in Tibet, Sogyal’s Treasure discoveries make Nepal, and India with a Tibetan- for a lively narrative, and brief language hagiography written by excerpts from Sogyal’s prophecies one of Sogyal’s disciples. and revelations introduce the reader to the basics of the Tibetan Treasure The book begins with a tradition. reconstructed account of Sogyal’s childhood, including elements Sogyal’s life-story includes common to the biographies of numerous interactions between Buddhist adepts: Sogyal’s father the unrefined Nyingma yogi from wanted him to become a strong Nyarong and Tibet’s political leader hunter; his mother secretly and highest-ranking Gelugpa supported his desire to practice monk, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. the Dharma. Unfortunately, the Over the course of his life, Sogyal Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the narrative is embellished with trite is repeatedly summoned to Lhasa Mystic Tertön Sogyal dialogue, such as when Sogyal’s to perform rituals for the long father states, “My son... is not gonna life of the Dalai Lama and to ward Matteo Pistono. Carlsbad, CA: be a monk—he’s ridin’ sidekick with off the advancing British army. Hay House, 2014. 351 pages. ISBN me” (p. 2). After this rocky start, the Perhaps without exaggeration, 9781401941468. story picks up with descriptions of Pistono describes Sogyal as “Tibet’s Sogyal’s numerous and fantastical tantric defense minister” (p. 88). Reviewed by Alyson Prude Treasure discoveries. One night, for Unfortunately, Fearless in Tibet does example, Sogyal gets up just after not attempt to contextualize Sogyal Tertön Sogyal (1856-1926), also midnight to begin climbing to a or his practices within larger social known as Lerab Lingpa, was a prolific mountain cave. He arrives at dawn or religious movements, and thus Treasure-revealer from eastern to meditate, and when the moment it passes without comment that Tibet who acquired the patronage is right, withdraws his ritual dagger Sogyal seems to have encountered of none other than the Thirteenth causing the rock wall of the cave to little resistance or competition as he Dalai Lama. Sogyal’s influence on open and reveal a bronze Treasure traveled, revealing and propagating Tibetan religion and politics did casket. Sogyal takes the casket and his Treasures. Instead, the book not, however, end in the early
HIMALAYA Volume 37, Number 1 | 161 … is a lively and highly readable introduction to a powerful tantric yogi, a different sort of religious specialist from the scholar-monk who occupies much of the Western imagination.
Alyson Prude on Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Tertön Sogyal
claims that “the British were… the Shadow of the Buddha reports context in which Sogyal lived unable to march on Lhasa because an episode in which Sogyal and and conveyed useful information of the yogis’ protective shield and the Dalai Lama send a letter and about the continued importance of the Tibetans’ collective storehouse diamond pendant “westward” by blessings and relics within Tibetan of positive merit” (p. 98) and that tying them around the neck of a Buddhism. Details of the many what made the country vulnerable raven. Three months later, the raven interviews Pistono conducted would to Chinese forces was the worship returns with a locket containing have preserved information about of Dorje Shugden (p. 172). Lost blonde hair and a letter, written Tibetan lamas, such as Khenpo is an opportunity to probe the in English, which enable Sogyal to Jigme Phuntsok and Khenpo Ajam, intersections of history, religion, and decode a particularly important now passed, as well as the ways that polemic in Tibetan hagiography. Treasure teaching (pp. 174-6). narratives of religious masters’ lives Surprisingly, this account is left out are remembered, recorded, and Despite Pistono’s extensive field of Fearless in Tibet where we are told celebrated. This would be especially research, scholars will find Fearless that Sogyal offered the Treasure valuable given the current state of in Tibet disappointing. Pistono teachings in question to the Dalai affairs in which travel to the places credits the “spiritual biography” of Lama as soon as he arrived in Lhasa Pistono visited is restricted and great Sogyal’s disciple Tsultrim Zangpo as (p. 162). Why was the story of the monasteries like Larung and Yachen- his primary source yet states that raven omitted from Fearless in Tibet? gar are being destroyed. he read through the 725-page text with the help of a Tibetan monk Given the importance of the physical Fearless in Tibet captures the flavor over the course of just six weeks landscape to Treasure revelation, and excitement of Tibet’s tradition of spread out between Dharamsala Pistono could have enhanced the Treasure revelation and lays a useful and Washington, D.C. The extent narrative with vivid depictions of groundwork for further studies of to which Pistono himself reads the many places mentioned in the an important religious figure whose Tibetan is unclear, but a reader gets text, thus adding an awareness of collected revelations fill twenty the sense that the monk skimmed environment not found in Tibetan volumes. For the Tibetan Studies the text and offered Pistono an hagiographies. Photographs of the scholar, the book lacks the requisite abbreviated summary. This in and places mentioned in the text, such as specificity and documentation of of itself is not an insurmountable Trom and Dzongsar, and descriptions sources, and the absence of notations weakness; Tibetan hagiographies of the monasteries Sogyal visited in the text to indicate corresponding often contain little in the way of would have complemented the black- endnotes is particularly frustrating. biography and lots in the way of and-white photographs of paintings Put out by a non-academic, “self- Dharma. When read in conjunction and statues that are interspersed help and transformational” with Pistono’s previous book which throughout the text (and which publisher, the book’s intended also sketches the broad outlines would be more useful if their origin readership seems, however, to be of Sogyal’s life, In the Shadow of the and approximate date of creation well-read Dharma practitioners Buddha (New York: Dutton, 2011), were provided). The addition of with some background knowledge however, a reader is left to wonder socio-cultural information that of Tibetan tantric Buddhism (
162 | HIMALAYA Spring 2017 introduction to a powerful tantric yogi, a different sort of religious specialist from the scholar-monk who occupies much of the Western imagination. Alyson Prude is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Georgia Southern University. Her research focuses on women’s religious practices in Tibet and the Himalayas.
HIMALAYA Volume 37, Number 1 | 163