My First Guru and the Lost Passage of the Dying – Ch. 2.1

I shouldn't have been grinning, but Drakos’ expression cracked wide open—a peculiar blend of mockery and something more luminous. The aura of the moment wasn’t just white but carried spectrums of light, as if hues from a shattered prism had fused with the air.

How thrilling it is to confess—I’ve aged, not in years but in spirit. From a fourteen-year-old girl to someone who feels eighteen, within the breath of forty-eight hours. And all because of the whirlwind that is Drakos’ dreamscape and Master’s journey of icy peril.

For the past two nights, Drakos, in my opinion, was the main character, receiving the bestowal from the luminous, mappy, cosmic-vehicle-like jade chakra dragon amidst the avalanche phenomenon. (You’d have to revisit the mountains when the avalanche nearly claimed us all to truly understand.)

Once my dog-shaped guardian, now transmuted into a being of natural talent, he had taken delight in mocking me while imparting profound lessons about our mind wind, mind breath, and the cycles of living and dying.

So, now...Master is gonna to be my Frist Guru, and probably it’s gonna to be titled: First Guru Being a Great Aunt: My Master…

…So, now, Master and I had begun our journey across these icy peaks to save the soul of Tashī Dalāi—perhaps already beyond saving.

As in, dead.

Yeah, we still had to walk for a distance to reach his stone house when we found Tashī Dalāi, already in rigor mortis.

“Probably not rigor, Master?” I said. I had no medical training, traditional or otherwise.

Not at my age. But still, Tashi Tashī made me think about my dad’s death—it’s still so clear in my head..

Back then, I was too young to question much. My mother and grandmother held the handles of their Sutra Scrolls, mumbling prayers to our goddess in a solid, deliberate rhythm to ensure every breath contributed to the count of their chants.

“Om Mani Padme Hum”—likely Avalokiteshvara, the compassionate one who hears the cries for the impending sufferers on the earth.

But what lingered most in my memory was the odor of putrefaction and the discoloration of flesh.

The same was happening to Tashī now.

He had been severely injured, his limbs broken and hanging by bloody flesh, after falling from high ground while traveling to sell his handmade crafts on the other side of the mountains. That much I knew.

It left an impression on me. My peers never asked such questions, but I… I wondered.

“Why was I never allowed to see anything else, Master?” I leaped softly over stones as we walked. “Why?”

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Without telling me anything, Master and I approached the broken hut in the Himalayas, where snow blew through gaps in the walls, some melting onto the orthodox bonfire indoors.

Master ascended the stone stairs briskly, his breath steady, while mine came in uneven gasps.

I could hear the labored breathing of Tashī’s ninety-year-old father as he made his way to the front stairs to support Master by the elbow. The scent of old age lingered in the air.

Strangely, another sound of labored breathing reached my ears. It wasn’t just breath—it was the gurgling of Tashī’s own murmuring breaths, growing louder as we drew closer, carrying with it an odor I could scarcely endure. But the family gathered by Tashī’s bedside seemed too consumed by their grief to notice.

The cries of two women pierced the air, their sorrow wrapping around me like a suffocating fog.

It’s difficult to imagine how such overwhelming sadness could manifest in such loud, anguished sobs. They mumbled chants, or perhaps mere words, as if to keep something at bay. Of them all, Tashī’s wife was the most inconsolable.

The father sat silently, his face etched with deep wrinkles; his eyes distant as if his mind were already slipping away.

The candlelight flickered in the room; the air heavy with the scent of wax. Candles were placed in the three corners, casting a soft glow across the stone house, their light dancing on the white blanket draped over Tashī’s body.

The blanket, white as death itself, seemed to echo the grief in the room.

And now the smell of blood—blood in flesh—thick, coppery, and clinging to the back of my throat. It coiled through the air, unseen yet suffocating, stirring something deep within me. My stomach lurched, my breath quickened. A cold sweat broke across my skin, prickling like a thousand tiny needles. My vision swayed, the flickering candlelight stretching into elongated shadows that pulsed with the rhythm of my unsteady heart. The scent—it was familiar, disturbingly so. Like the raw, iron tang I had sensed when Drakos (the Shepphard) needed my rescue back in the middle of the Sky Funeral Corpse Slaughtering Site of the Bön Religion tradition.

Drakos-Novice now stood near, his gaze sharp yet unreadable.

Not quite alarmed, not yet intervening, but watching—watching too closely. His violet eyes darkened, flickering with the same eerie depth I had seen in him before, when I had first realized that he was not merely a companion but something more—something that saw beyond what I wished to show.

Eventually, the father wiped his eyes while others continued to sob. Master stood tall, raising his hands in a commanding gesture.

“Do not cry,” he said firmly yet his voice was soft. “It will not help. Tears will only confuse his mind and soul as they transition.”

Master, stout and wrapped in his reddish-brown robe, looked almost surreal. His tone and posture were noble, even regal.

The father and mother glanced at him briefly.

The father’s eyes lifted just for a second before lowering again, his focus on the rosary he held tightly. He chanted softly, the beads clicking rhythmically in his fingers. The wife’s sobbing slowed as she opened her eyes wide, the weight of the moment silencing her.

The tears fell like beads of sesame-pearls of a rosary breaking loose from its thread, scattering across the room, each drop a reflection of their heartbreak.

“Has he ever learned any of the Phowa instructions?” Master faced him and nodded; his tall hat, resembling that of a sorcerer, was brown instead of black.

Phowa? I barely had time to form the thought before Drakos' voice threaded through my mind, steady and knowing.

So, this was the first time he engaged telepathy to communicate with me.

It’s a passage, Śri. A way to move consciousness at death—like the Wind Element, but final. No coming back. A launch, not a drift. Some guide themselves. Others… need help.

Like….passage verse to guide the passing of the spirit or the release of the soul…?But, Drakos, this is more confusing. Now, shush, let’s focus.

The whole scene in front of me seemed to pause, a brief rewind before resuming with the soft, weary voice of Tashī’s mother.

It was exactly what had happened on 2025.1.1, when you unpaused a YouTube MP4, causing it to rewind for a fraction of a second before continuing—just enough to make sure you never missed even a flash-second of time.