This person who herded horses from Han lands gave Tulku Dapu a beautifully packaged wooden box, which on the outside was still tied with brightly coloured ribbons. He saw the surprised eyes of Tulku Jianggong and hurried to explain, "Revered Tulku, I am the leader of the caravan team called 'Lucky Blessed Fortune' that comes from Teng Chong in Yunnan Province. My name is Zhao Tiecheng. Happily encountering this enthronement ceremony of the Tulku whilst we drove horses through this auspicious land is truly a blessing from the previous life. Now I offer a phonograph produced in England, which I brought in my pack back from India. I ask that the revered Tulku kindly accept my gift."
"Phonograph?" asked Tulku Jianggong intently. This was a word that he had never heard of in his decade of study. People said that these horse herders had two tongues as they could speak the languages of both the Tibetan people and the Han Chinese. They also said that their ears were a storehouse for the world, for they would bring with them information discovered in any corner of the earth that nobody else had heard before.
"Ah, it's a type of singing box." Zhao said as he opened the box, "May I give it to you for you to listen to?"
The old monks standing beside Tulku Jianggong, including Tulku Dapu, watched Zhao with dissatisfied eyes. They generally thought that this Han Chinese, with his tongue as sweet as a lark, would destroy the harmony of the enthronement ceremony by offering up an object that nobody understood. Who knew whether or not this was an instrument of evil spirits? But they were surprised to hear Tulku Jianggong's reply, "Then please go ahead."
Ah, Tulku Dapu sighed inwardly. Even though he had become a formal Tulku in the enthronement ceremony, Tulku Jianggong had not completely eliminated the secular world from his heart!
In front of the ceremonial stage, the monks were surprised to hear that, following the rotation of a black object as thin as a biscuit, a music that they had never heard before issued forth from the wooden box. All the monks opened their mouths and did not close them again for a long time.
"This is truly an instrument of the spirits, ah!" Jianggong sighed, got up and wanted to descend from the ceremonial stand and lean in and get a closer, careful look at the object.
"Tulku Jianggong." Tulku Dapu said at his side, neither gentle nor harsh.
"Aiya." Jianggong sat back down again. He felt that his master was unhappy, "Duoji, accept this precious gift from the Han Chinese."
But Lama Duoji didn't know how he ought to pick up this contraption called phonograph, and it was as if he were afraid that it would bite his hand. His helpless appearance made people laugh. Zhao then quickly said, "Or I will bring it. I'll wait for the tulkus to go into retreat, and then I'll teach you how to use it."
Tulku Jianggong hurriedly said, "That's it, that's it. There is always new wisdom in the world that we have not fully studied. Revered Han Chinese donor, you are welcome to come to my temple and drink tea with us."
The day of the horse racing had always been an auspicious day which gods and humans enjoyed together. On the plains, the men raced horses and shot arrows, showing their full-blooded elegant manner in front of the Buddha and the ordinary people. And as for the women, they all wore costumes that made them look just like mountain nymphs. And, of course, for Tulku Jianggong, what most drew his gaze was the beautiful sight of Sister Yangzong.
Over the last few years, Tulku Jianggong had been able to see Yangzong a few times a year. Sometimes it was when Yangzong followed her mother to the temple to offer joss sticks and sometimes it was when there was a great Buddhist ceremony in the summer. He was always able to capture the figure of Yangzong even if the crowd around her swarmed like ants. He saw her eager, awe-filled gaze, saw that she was growing taller and plumper by the day, but it was not like the old days and he could no longer sit in front of her and listen to her singing, or eat the delicious snacks that she had brought, nor could he even take a single step away from his seat. Whenever these nostalgic thoughts rose up in Jianggong's heart, he could not help sighing quietly in the depths of his heart. The white pulu cloth had already been dyed with red, the arrow that has been shot cannot be retrieved and a monk sniffing at the flowers of youth has already made a mistake.
In the step-by-step process of training under Tulku Dapu to become a tulku who had purified the six illusions[25], the hazy feelings towards the opposite sex were always raised just after discussing the earthly, secular mind. Tulku Jianggong was taught that he must dispel the feelings immediately. Tulku Dapu had an unique teaching method. He decorated the pillars in Little Jianggong's meditation room in advance, covering them with thangkas[26] of every type of beautiful women. They were colourful and lifelike, with some of them ascending to the sky and others bathing in the waters, but each of them was utterly enchanting. He then asked Little Jianggong whether they were beautiful. Of course they were beautiful. Who could reject beauty? Fine, look at the back of the picture. Tulku Dapu turned over the pictures of the beautiful women, and on the opposite side were pictures of skeletons, exactly like the wind-dried skeletons in the skull wall at the back of the temple. Their loveliness, delicate as a flower and precious as a jade, their beauty, like that of a nymph descended to earth, was all an illusion. Behind the face of the most beautiful woman in the world is a skull and that's it. Now, the loveliness of beautiful women had become something to be feared.
