The Skull Mantra Read Online Free

reach the
kenpo’s
face. His hands appeared in the light, and began the evening teaching. It was a prison ritual, with no words and no music, one of the many that had evolved since Buddhist monks began filling Chinese prisons four decades earlier.
    First came the offerings to the invisible altar. Choje’s palms were pressed together facing outward, his index fingers curled under his thumbs. It was the sign for
argham,
water for the face. Many of the
mudra,
the hand symbols used to focus inner power, still eluded Shan, but Trinle had taught him the offering signs. The bottom two fingers of Choje’s disembodied hands withdrew into the palms and the hands aimed downward.
Padyam.
Water for the feet. Slowly, gracefully, Choje deftly moved his hands to offer incense, perfume, and food. Finally he closed his fists together, the thumbs extended upward like wicks from a bowl of butter. It was
aloke.
Lamps.
    From outside a long moan of pain punctuated the silence. A monk in the next hut was dying of some internal ailment.
    Choje’s hands gestured toward the invisible circle of worshipers, asking what they brought for the glory of the inner deity. A pair of thumbless hands appeared in the light, the index finger of each hand touching at the tip, the other fingers folded. A tiny murmur of approval moved through the room. It was the golden fish, an offering for good fortune. New hands appeared, each after sufficient time to silently recite the dedication prayer that accompanied the prior offering. The conch shell, the treasure flask, the coiled knot, the lotus flower. It was Shan’s turn. He hesitated, then extended his left index finger upward and covered it with his right hand flattened. The white umbrella, another prayer for good fortune.
    The room filled with the tiny, remarkable sound, as if ofrustling feathers, that had become a fixture of Shan’s nights, the sound of a dozen men silently mouthing mantras. Choje’s hands returned to the circle of light for the sermon. He began with a gesture Shan had not often seen, the right hand raised with palm and fingers pointing up. The
mudra
of dispelling fear. It cast an uneasy silence on the room. One of the young monks audibly sucked in his stomach, as though suddenly aware that something profound was happening. Then the hands shifted, clasping together with the middle fingers pointing upward. The diamond of the mind
mudra,
invoking cleansing and clarity of purpose. This was the sermon. The hands did not change. They floated, un-moving, as though carved of pale granite, while the devotees contemplated them. The message could not have been more intensely communicated if Choje had shouted it from a mountaintop. The pain was irrelevant, the hands said. The rocks, the blisters, the broken bones were inconsequential. Remember your purpose. Honor your inner god.
    It wasn’t clarity that Shan lacked. Choje had taught him how to focus like no teacher before. Through the long winter days when the warden kept them in—not for fear of losing prisoners, but for fear of losing guards—Choje had helped him reach an extraordinary discovery. To be an investigator, the only job Shan had ever known before the gulag, one had to have a troubled soul. The exceptional investigator could have no faith. Everything was suspect, everything transitory, moving from allegation to fact to cause to effect to new mystery. There could be no peace, for peace only came with faith. No, it wasn’t clarity he lacked. In moments like this, with dark premonition weighing heavy, with his prior life pulling him like a man tangled in an anchor line, what he lacked was an inner god.
    He saw there was something on the floor below Choje’s hands. The bloody rock. With a start, Shan realized that he and Choje were thinking about the same thing. The
kenpo
was reminding his priests of their duty. Shan’s tongue went dry. He wanted to blurt out a protest, to beg them not to put themselves