Dr. Levy’s Account The Early Illness “I first saw His Holiness in May of 1980. Now he had cancer and had come to America to get worked on and to see if he had any further cancer in his body. His cancer was on top of serious diabetes, which he had had much of his life. I was engaged as his primary physician at that time. “When he arrived, we did a full workup on him. That was somewhat uneventful. A few things do stick out in my mind about that period. First of all, there was a thread that began here and ran through all the rest of my contact with him as physician. There was nothing other than a feeling of business as usual from His Holiness’ point of view. This was just another experience, and this happened to be an experience of finding out whether his cancer was going to kill him or not. But, in a way, to him, it didn’t make any difference one way or the other. You could have been talking about chicken soup. “From this time until ...
This is not a namthar (spiritual biography) at all; it's just a series of mishaps. I was born in eastern Tibet in 1932. My father was a roaming bandit, a highwayman. He beat, robbed, and even killed people. I didn't really know my father, because he abandoned his family when I was very young. This father was like the kind of people you see in a cowboy movie, outlaws riding on horses; he habitually lived in the wilderness of Kham in eastern Tibet. In my immediate family there were three boys and seven girls. Two of the brothers were very strong and rough, like their father; he strongly favored those two tough boys. I was the third boy, and a bit of a wimp. So my father put me down, often saying that I was like a girl, of no use at all. My father taught his children to fight, but the daughters and I didn't like to fight very much so our father ignored us. My mother was a very gentle and loving soul, a very Dharmic (religious) person with a lot of patience and forbearance. Sh...