By Jamyang Norbu | Phayul

Lhasang Tsering was born in Tradun, in Western Tibet, in the Water Dragon year (1952). His father was a Nyingma ngakpa, or tantric master, from the Taklung Kagyu monastery in Riwoche near Chamdo. On his way to Mount Kailash, the ngakpa stopped at Gyangtse, where he took a young maid, Jhanjup, from the Tara aristocrat family as his spiritual consort. One account mentions that he may have successfully treated a member of the Tara family for a severe ailment, though this is not certain. On their long pilgrimage west, this spiritual couple had three sons — Ugyen, Karma Choephel, and Phurba Lhasung (later changed to Lhasang Tsering at Mussoorie school) — all born on the immense and wild Changtang plateau. Lhasang once told me of his fleeting memories of life there: of living in a banak, the black yak-hair tent of the nomads, and of eating dresel, s...