His voice was especially hoarse, but his enunciation was very clear. I briefly explained the situation, also mentioning this person's background and my relationship with him.

Ethan Brooks showed a slightly surprised expression, took off the gloves made from a white towel, and walked out of the boiler room. “You must be mistaken. This oil painting was done twenty years ago. You were only a few years old at the time.”

I was a bit surprised; I hadn’t expected the painting to be that old, though it did look rather worn. As for his question, I didn’t know how to answer, since it really wasn’t something that could be explained in a sentence or two. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to truly want to know, and continued, “This person has nothing to do with me.”

He pointed again in a direction outside the door, where everything was snow white—a snow-capped mountain in the distance. “I saw that painting over there. If you want to know more, you can go ask the lamas there.”

I looked in the direction he pointed and saw, through the swirling snow, a building faintly hidden in the silvery white.

“What is that place?” I asked.

“That’s a lama temple,” Ethan Brooks said. “I copied that painting in that lama temple.”

“Did anything strange happen at the time? Or is there something special about that lama temple?” I asked. Usually, wherever he appeared, strange phenomena would occur. Or perhaps, the temple itself was unusual in many ways.

Ethan Brooks just shook his head, thought for a moment, and said, “There was nothing strange. The only odd thing was that the lama insisted I copy that painting.”

“Why?”

“Lamas can see karma. He asked me to paint, so I painted. There’s no reason. He could see everything that would happen because of this painting, but I couldn’t.”

Ethan Brooks told me that the silent man in the painting was probably an honored guest of the lama temple. The original oil painting was done by the head lama three days before people were made to leave Motuo, and his version was a later copy. That winter, he stayed at the temple for a long time. By chance, he saw the painting in the head lama’s room, and the head lama insisted he copy it, so he tried to reproduce it.

Only then did I understand why the use of color in the painting was so bold and vivid, yet the technique seemed clumsy.

Many lamas in Tibet have very high aesthetic sensibilities and professional knowledge. Many head lamas hold multiple degrees from prestigious foreign universities. I attribute this to the focus that comes from a life of asceticism and self-discipline.

Thinking about this, and about what might have happened to him on the snowy mountain, I became a little distracted.

“Do you want to go? Three hundred yuan, and I’ll take you.” he said. “That lama temple—if you’re not a local, you can’t get in.”

Maybe the karma the head lama saw was just this three hundred yuan.

藏海花Ⅰ Chapter Eight: A Lama Temple

Led by Ethan Brooks, we climbed upward through the scattered snow. On the snow-covered mountain steps, only a very narrow path had been cleared, just wide enough for one person to go up or down. The steps were extremely steep, almost vertical. I brought two assistants with me; they insisted on coming along, but now they regretted it bitterly.

By noon, we finally arrived at the entrance of the lama temple that Ethan Brooks had been endlessly talking about.

I had visited all kinds and sizes of temples before, including quite a few lama temples, but I had never seen one like this.

First, there was an extremely dilapidated temple gate, very small, the wooden door only half a person wide. But behind it was a tiny courtyard, the snow swept away to reveal many stone mills, stone tables, and stone benches. At the end of the courtyard was a building built against the mountain, stretching upward so far you couldn’t see the top—quite a spectacular sight.

Even so, I knew that there wasn’t much space inside such temple buildings. Although they looked expansive, because they were built against the mountain, the interior space was actually quite small.

Three young lamas were sitting around the stone mill warming themselves by the fire. When they saw us come in, they didn’t show much surprise and remained still and silent.

Ethan Brooks stepped forward to explain our purpose, speaking in Tibetan, which I couldn’t understand. One of the lamas then led us inside.

The first building was the largest; it was where the lamas performed rituals. Behind the building was a wooden ladder leading upward. We climbed up, level by level, not knowing how long it took or how many rooms we passed, until the leading lama finally stopped. I realized we had arrived at a pitch-black room.

Ethan Brooks and the lama respectfully withdrew, leaving only me and my two assistants standing in the darkness. Looking around, I found that this seemed to be a meditation room, with only one spot in the whole room letting in a bit of light.

We carefully walked over. As our eyes gradually adjusted to the dimness, I slowly saw many blurry shapes around us—all piles of scriptures. We wound our way through them, heading toward the light, and found it was a window.

The window was covered with a thick woolen blanket, but the blanket was so old and rotten that it had many tiny holes, and the light was streaming in through them.

I thought about pulling the blanket aside to let the daylight in. Just as I was about to move, a voice came from the darkness: “No light. Come here.”