Doctor from Lhasa (1959)

T. LOBSANG RAMPA DOCTOR FROM LHASA (Edition: 22/04/2021) Doctor from Lhasa — (Originally published in 1959) The story continues with Lobsang leaving Lhasa and living in Chungking, China. Here he furthered his medical studies, learns to fly a plane and finally getting captured and tortured by the Japanese. Lobsang spent much time living in concentration camps as the official medical officer until the day he escaped. Lobsang was one of the very few people to survive the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. How to use a crystal ball and exercise in breathing to improve one's wellbeing. 1/311 It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. The Coat of Arms is surrounded by a Tibetan rosary made up of one hundred and eight beads symbolising 2/311 the one hundred and eight books of the Tibetan Kangyur. In personal blazon, we see two rampant seal point Siamese cats holding a lit candle. In the upper left-hand of the shield we see the Potala; to the right- hand of the shield, a Tibetan prayer wheel turning, as shown by the small weight which is over the object. In the bottom, left-hand of the shield are books to symbolise the talents of writer and knowledge of the author, whereas to the right-hand side of the shield, a crystal ball to symbolise the esoteric sciences. Under the shield, we can read the motto of T. Lobsang Rampa: ‘I lit a candle’. Table of contents Table of contents ....................................................... 3 Publishers' note.......................................................... 4 Author's foreword...................................................... 5 Chapter One Into the unknown .............................. 15 Chapter Two Chungking ........................................ 39 Chapter Three Medical days .................................. 68 Chapter Four Flying ............................................... 93 Chapter Five The other side of death ................... 130 Chapter Six Clairvoyance .................................... 162 Chapter Seven Mercy flight ................................. 183 3/311 Chapter Eight When the world was very young .. 211 Chapter Nine Prisoner of the japanese ................. 241 Chapter Ten How to breathe ................................. 264 Chapter Eleven The bomb .................................... 294 Publishers' note When Lobsang Rampa's first book The Third Eye was published, a very heated controversy arose which is still continuing. The contention of the author that a Tibetan lama was writing of his life ‘through’ him, and had in fact fully occupied his body following a slight concussive accident, was not one to which many readers in the West were likely to give credence. Some, remembering similar cases in the past, although not from Tibet, preferred to keep an open mind. Others, and it is likely that they formed the majority, were openly sceptical. Many of them, however, whether they were specialists on the Far East or ordinary readers who enjoy an unusual book, were confounded by the author's obvious mastery of his subject, opening wide a door on a fascinating and little-known part of the world, and by the absence of any record of previous literary ability. Certainly no one was able to disprove his facts. 4/311 The present Publishers believe that, whatever the truth of the matter should be (if it is ever ascertainable), it is right that The Third Eye and now Doctor from Lhasa should be available to the public, if only because they are highly enjoyable books on their own merit. On the larger, fundamental issues which they raise, every reader must come to a personal decision. Doctor from Lhasa is as Lobsang Rampa wrote it. It must speak for itself. ******************************* Author's foreword WHEN I was in England I wrote The Third Eye, a book which is true, but which has caused much comment. Letters came in from all over the world, and in answer to requests I wrote this book, Doctor from Lhasa. My experiences, as will be told in a third book, have been far beyond that which most people have to endure, experiences which are paralleled only in a few cases in history. That, though, is not the object of this book which deals with a continuation of my autobiography. 5/311 I am a Tibetan lama who came to the western world in pursuance of his destiny, came as was foretold, and endured all the hardships as foretold. Unfortunately, western people looked upon me as a curio, as a specimen who should be put in a cage and shown off as a freak from the unknown. It made me wonder what would happen to my old friends, the Yetis, if the westerners got hold of them—as they are trying to do. Undoubtedly the Yeti would be shot, stuffed, and put in some museum. Even then people would argue and say that there were no such things as Yetis! To me it is strange beyond belief that western people can believe in television, and in space rockets that may circle the Moon and return and yet not credit Yetis or ‘Unknown Flying Objects’, or, in fact, anything which they cannot hold in their hands and pull to pieces to see what makes it work. But now I have the formidable task of putting into just a few pages that which before took a whole book, the details of my early childhood. I came of a very high-ranking family, one of the leading families in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. My parents had much to say in the control of the country, and because I was of high rank I was given severe training so that, it was considered, I should be fit to take my place. Then, before I was seven years of age, in accordance with our established custom, the Astrologer Priests of Tibet were 6/311 consulted to see what type of career would be open to me. For days before these preparations went forward, preparations for an immense party at which all the leading citizens, all the notabilities of Lhasa would come to hear my fate. Eventually the Day of Prophecy arrived. Our estate was thronged with people. The Astrologers came armed with their sheets of paper, with their charts, and with all the essentials of their profession. Then, at the appropriate time, when everyone had been built up to a high pitch of excitement, the Chief Astrologer pronounced his findings. It was solemnly proclaimed that I should enter a lamasery at the age of seven, and be trained as a priest, and as a priest surgeon. Many predictions were made about my life; in fact the whole of my life was outlined. To my great sorrow everything they said has come true. I say ‘sorrow’ because most of it has been misfortune, and hardship, and suffering, and it does not make it any easier when one knows all that one is to suffer. I entered the Chakpori lamasery when I was seven years of age, making my lonely way along the path. At the entrance I was kept, and had to undergo an ordeal to see if I was hard enough, tough enough to undergo the training. This I passed, and then I was allowed to enter. I went through all the stages from an absolutely raw beginner, and in the end I became a lama, and an abbot. 7/311 Medicine and surgery were my particular strong points. I studied these with avidity, and I was given every facility to study dead bodies. It is a belief in the west that the lamas of Tibet never do anything to bodies if it means making an opening. The belief is, apparently, that Tibetan medical science is rudimentary, because the medical lamas treat only the exterior and not the interior. That is not correct. The ordinary lama, I agree, never opens a body, it is against his own form of belief. But there was a special nucleus of lamas, of whom I was one, who were trained to do operations, and to do operations which were possibly even beyond the scope of western science. In passing there is also a belief in the west that Tibetan medicine teaches that the man has his heart on one side, and the woman has her heart on the other side. Nothing could be more ridiculous. Information such as this has been passed on to the western people by those who have no real knowledge of what they are writing about, because some of the charts to which they refer deal with astral bodies instead, a very different matter. However, that has nothing to do with this book. My training was very intensive indeed, because I had to know not only my specialised subjects of medicine and surgery, but all the Scriptures as well because, as well as being a medical lama, I also had to pass as a religious one, as a fully trained priest. So it was 8/311 necessary to study for two branches at once, and that meant studying twice as hard as the average. I did not look upon that with any great favour! But it was not all hardship, of course. I took many trips to the higher parts of Tibet—Lhasa is 12,000 feet above sea level—gathering herbs, because we based our medical training upon herbal treatment, and at Chakpori we always had at least 6,000 different types of herb in stock. We Tibetans believe that we know more about herbal treatment than people in any other part of the world. Now that I have been around the world several times that belief is strengthened. On several of my trips to the higher parts of Tibet I flew in man-lifting kites, soaring above the jagged peaks of the high mountain ranges, and looking for miles, and miles, over the countryside.

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