From the book “Land of Vajrapani” written by Khamba Lama, Honorary Medical Doctor, Natsagdorj.D
I would like to tell a story that happened to me a while ago, that I have been sharing with my close friends and students for the past few years but I felt a strong need to share it with everyone while I was writing my book “Land of Vajrapani”.
This event has been on my mind for 25 years and I remember it till this day. I was born and raised in Tsagaanchuluut soum, Zavkhan province and went to primary school in both Tsagaanchuluut and Bulnai soum in Tosontsengel, followed by middle school in Ulaanbaatar. During my teenage years, being fascinated by Buddhist sutras eventually led me to start self-learning Tibetan scripts through Mongolian traditional script in 1975, after joining Institute of Water Farm in 1974.
In 1975, I was blessed to meet my Dharma teacher Chadraabal in 1975 and since then I started to study more about traditional medicine and Buddhist astrology. Passing the entrance exam with distinction made it possible for me to enter Buddhist Religious University at my own will in 1980.
Following my teacher’s recommendation in 1981, I began to make herbal medicine, see patients and heal them despite the hard time during socialism. At that time, I had many opportunities to meet many other Dharma teachers and traditional medical doctors that taught me about secret mantras. Traditional medical doctor Sanjaijav from Zavkhan province was one of my close friends with whom I used to share knowledge of medicinal plants as well as methods of making them.
Being young and inexperienced, I missed a chance to find out more about a plant named “za ava” from Sanjaijav and many other teachers. Little did I know that such plant would be sought after in the coming years.
Because I needed more information on this herb, I had to find someone experienced with this plant. Eventually, I managed to contact a man who picked this plant for Sanjaijav, living in Zavkhan province. I then flew to Zavkhan province on 9th of July, 1988, in search of a plant “za ava” to make herbal medicine for many others suffering from an illness.
One of my relatives lived in Zavkhan province at the time, agreed to give me a lift and we headed to Dayanga mountain ranges, near Otgontenger Mountain, hoping to find a local man who knew the exact location of the plant we searched. We kept on driving to Dayang mountain ranges by UAZ 469 after stopping at the local man to have lunch and to pick up a kid who would help us picking plants.
When we were driving up and down the hills near the children’s summer camp, I suddenly heard a voice in my head saying “car crash” over and over again. As a Buddhist monk, I did pay homage to Buddha through prayer, but the voice still went on for the next 15-18 minutes in my head but others didn’t seem to notice anything.
The voice eventually went quiet after about 20 minutes and I realized that we had reached mountain foot. I asked the driver if the car was capable of driving up the slope, he replied yes. Soon after we reached the back of Dayan Mountain ranges and I noticed a few trees at the foot of the mountain. As we began to drive up the mountain slope, we suddenly started to fall backwards when the driver tried to change the gear from 2nd to 1st and sat in the backseat, did I try my best to calm down the driver.
I don’t remember exactly what happened for the next few minutes but at that very moment, something happened to me that I will remember for the rest of my life. For some reason, I instinctively called out “master” and then all of a sudden I had a vision of giant Vajrapani in the form with bright red fire in the background. I believe that we were all saved from a very unfortunate event by Vajrapani and I cherish everything that happened that day and I’m sure we were blessed by him. From that day, i wish to be reincarnated to be one of the deities with compassion, just like him.
When we got out of the car safely, we realized that the car had rolled down the hill at least 7-8 times but no one was seriously injured except for the minor bruises on driver’s arms. I remember the driver telling us that we should have checked out the road beforehand and also the road itself was quite rocky and almost impossible to drive on.
We drove back to the town by a different car that came along the way and the people went to pick up our car were quite surprised to see us all survived the crash, after seeing our wrecked car.
It was a time when anyone could get into trouble, if they spoke of anything religiously, so we all decided to keep quiet and also we managed to collect the herb “za ava”.
In the subsequent years, I found out that no car was able to get to Dayan Mountain ranges as the place was so sacred that many of the deities such as 10 Khangal believed to dwell on there.
To sum it all up, I believe that,
Firstly, we were going places for the benefit of all other beings
Secondly, when I heard the “voices” about the crash, I prayed to him
Thirdly, I could think of my own master at that very moment with sincere heart and did pay homeage to him for all the compassion and love that he shows for his students and all other beings.
To the healer of all beings of this world
To the great compassion that he shares
To the protector of all beings
I pay homeage to thee, Vajrapani.