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Kasia Vincunas / The Dartmouth Staff
Kasia Vincunas / The Dartmouth Staff
While quests for everlasting life usually only occur in storybooks, writer and photographer Thomas Shor said he believes he has found a true story of a quest for immortality deep in the heart of the Himalayas.
In his lecture, "A Crack in the World: The True Story of a Journey to a Land of Immortality," Shor described the book he is currently working on and his own journey to uncover the story of Tulshuk Lingpa, an eccentric Buddhist lama who in the 1960s lead an expedition to find a land of immortality.
While living in the Sikkim region of Northern India, nestled in the heart of the Himalayas and bordering Tibet, Shor first encountered the story of the lama Tulshuk Lingpa's journey through a conversation with a street painter.
"My mother-in-law has a story that you won't believe and will make you question your view of reality," the street painter told Shor, Shor said.
The account that Shor ultimately discovered was that of a Tibetan lama who, in the face of ever-increasing encroachment into his native land by the forces of communist China, led an expedition to find the mysterious valley of Beyul, the Tibetan land of immortality hidden by the Buddhist sage Padmasambhava in the eighth century.
