Sci-fi Novel - The Dream Artist - Part 35

At 9:00 in the morning, I flew from Istanbul to the Shanghai Pudong Airport. I met with Zou Kai, who Qian Chen commissioned to accompany me at the International Terminal. After having dinner at the airport with Zou Kai, we took the jet to Gonggar Airport in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region. Lhasa Gonggar Airport, located at the height of 3500 meters on the roof of the world, was busy due to the increasing interest in the Himalayas in recent years. We left the airport in an old quadcopter.

“Your friends did a good job of finding the most important master of Dream Yoga, rather than taking lessons in temples in the city center,” said Zou Kai.

“This is not surprising to me; I've been researching for almost a month.”

"Dawa Chodak is in the Temple of Ngawang, 5,000 meters high, where breathing is a problem,” said Zou Kai.

Our quadcopter was buzzing like a fly and flying over small mountain lakes, forests and small villages with pointed roofs. A summit appeared on the mountains behind every hill, and as our quadcopter ascended, the trees shrunk. Now, the landscape was like a huge mouth of rocks, and the snowy hills began to dominate. We flew over the rocks and went over a goat.

“We are close to the temple of Ngawang, the difficulty of breathing can make us suspicious and irritable, and if you wish, we should take one of these pills,” said Zou Kai.

I took the pill and threw it in my mouth without question. It dissolved quickly in my mouth and left me a cinnamon flavor. Temple of Ngawang was a smaller building than I had imagined where eagles wandered over it. The walls of the Ngawang temple could not be distinguished from the rocks that extend into the sky, like a saw blade.

When we crossed the walls and went down to the courtyard behind the building, we saw a mountain lake at the back of the temple. The lake was covered with a thin layer of ice. When we opened the quadcopter door, there was no one to greet us. We took our bags and started moving towards the gate of the temple, which was opened to the courtyard. A man was watching us with curious eyes behind the sofa inside. The chunky bald man stood up when we entered. He nodded forward and greeted us. Zou Kai responded to the greeting the same way. The bald man signaled to us the room to the left of the large hall. We jumped over the wooden threshold and went into the room. The man lifted the wooden door on the floor, and we saw the small ladder. We went down the stairs with Zou Kai, and we looked at our room. Our room was small and unobtrusive, and the lake we saw just before the window looked ice-cold. I took my sleeping bag out of my suitcase and knocked it down. Zou Kai took a long roll out of his briefcase and threw it on the floor. Although I've been on the road for hours, it's not even noon because of the time difference. We went back to the ground floor using the little ladder. This time there was no one in the main hall. We sat in the corner where the candles were lit.

The silence was only interrupted by the sound from the wooden veneers. We were already adapting to the seriousness of the temple and the pace in which no one was rushing for anything. I closed my eyes and started to feel every point of my body from top to bottom in order. The tension on my shoulders loosened. Before my eyes, the dots began to appear, then the blurred shapes. I could hear the sound of my heart, almost feel the blood it pumped into my veins. Footsteps came down the stairs to the main hall. I opened my eyes as footsteps approached us.

“My Name Is Dawa Chodak, welcome to our temple, let's have a walk on the lake,” he said.

"Thank you for accepting us; I think your headset has a translation function.”

“I don't want my children to be an orphan. I will follow you from the shore, " said Zou Kai.

I was put forward with the curiosity of measuring the thickness of the ice.

Dawa Chodak said, “It would not be broken if we walk at a comfortable pace without squeezing ourselves.”

As soon as I stepped into the surface of the lake, I heard the ice cracking. Almost every step of the way, the ice was breaking, but it was supposed to be a test of confidence. On the opposite shore of the lake, a flock of goats crossed through the rocks with a comfortable walk. The air was clean and bright, and I felt lightened. When we reached the middle of the lake, Dawa Chodak suddenly stopped, sitting on the ice in a cushioned seat. So I sat down, imitating him, ignoring the violent crackdown of the ice. I wasn't cold because of my climber suit and my thermostatic shoes, but I could the ice beneath me and the depth of the lake. “Now let's do 61 point yoga, and let's get the tension out of our bodies,” said Dawa Chodak. He pointed out the places I had to feel in my body with his hand. Then I tried to memorize their positions to apply them; most of them were joints. I decided to focus on all the power of my mind on the points that were pointed out to adapt to the game entirely.

“What Selim Özben has exactly learned here?,” I asked.

He seemed to be immersed in deep thoughts, and he didn't answer for a while. “There are six stages of dream yoga. The first stage focuses on the orientation of the dream. In the second phase, the soul is free from all fears about the dream. At the next stage, it is learned that life is just an illusion because everything changes without stopping. Once it is learned that life and dreams are not different from each other, we begin to live as if dreams were real life and life is a dream. Then we begin to replace the great objects of his dream with the small ones and the heavy ones with the light ones. In the fifth stage, we realize that our body can change shape or become invisible in the dream. Finally, in the sixth stage, we take a mystical journey through the dreaming religious symbols, which can now be considered to have fully opened the doors of perception, and complete enlightenment takes place, and the facts about the essence of the universe appear clearly,” said Dawa Chodak.

”A dream master like him must have grasped the subject quickly. “

“I can tell you that he couldn't learn anything, he couldn't take the necessary patience to grasp the essence of the work. Ngawang may have added color and depth to his dreams, but it did not help his soul attain peace,” said Dawa Chodak.

We both didn't talk on the way back. Because the air had cooled a bit, the ice was safer. Zou Kai wasn't on the Lake Shore; I thought he might be cold and come in. As I entered the temple, I saw our quadcopter approaching Ngawang across the mountain. Apparently, Zou Kai was bored, and he was exploring the environment. Zou Kai came to us as we turned the rollers buried in the walls that represented the endless loop.

“There's a frozen waterfall in the back of the hill up there, I've seen the ice columns that reach five meters, and exquisite forms that look like crystal chandeliers have formed,” said Zou Kai.

“It is the most beautiful season of the waterfall; it freezes more because it looks North. We will visit the waterfall for morning yoga,” said Dawa Chodak.

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/meditation-buddhism-monk-temple-2214532/