During the 1980s and early 1990s, a man named Yeshi was a personal secretary to a Tibetan Buddhist Lama, whose western base of operations was deep in New York’s Catskill Mountains. What’s generally not known by many Americans is most of the great Tibetan masters all left Tibet in the 1950s and 1960s. Many took up residence in the mountainous regions of the United States. Yeshi accompanied his Lama on teaching trips all over the country.
One day back in early fall of 1988, the Lama wanted to go for a long walk on the expansive property of his mountainous retreat. At one point in their hiking trek, the two monastics sat down on a large rock near a scenic overlook. Yeshi said the scenery was the most awesome beauty of the Catskills, with the onset of the transformation of the fall foliage. There in the silence of the mountains, the two monks quietly ate the small lunch Yeshi had packed.
After eating, the Lama closed his eyes and sank into a meditative state. Yeshi said he chose not to meditate because he wanted to be alert for wild animals. After about 20 minutes, the Lama whispered, “We have company.”
Puzzled, Yeshi asked his teacher, “Where?” The lama opened his eyes and pointed across the valley toward another peak. Just behind the mountain top, Yeshi could see a silver object bobbing up and down behind the peak. The closer he looked, he could see the object was saucer-shaped. Yeshi quickly estimated that the saucer had to be half the size of a football field in diameter.
Then he heard his teacher whisper, “Please show yourselves?” Moments later, the disc moved upward and showed its full profile. Yeshi said he was in awe of the craft’s size and its mere presence.
The Lama was relaxed and continued to calmly make small requests. “Please move to the right,” the Lama said.
The massive saucer gently moved to the right. The Lama asked Yeshi, “Are you enjoying our new friends?”
Yeshi said he was at a loss for words and was frankly a bit scared only answering “uh huh.” The Lama just whispered small requests, such as, “Please move back to the left, but do it diagonally.”
Again the enormous disc shifted to the left and climbed a few hundred feet higher. Finally, Yeshi heard the Lama say, “Thank you for your visit, go in peace.”
A few minutes later, the giant craft for a moment seemed to flash, and as Yeshi put it, “They just winked out … gone in a flash!”
About six years later, the lama passed away while in deep mediation. When I used to hang out with Yeshi in the late 1990s, he was getting ready for a three year retreat, which is a big deal for a monastic. We’ve lost track of each other over the years since, but during our last dinner together, he remarked that, “Perhaps someday I’ll be lucky enough to call down some friendly folks from the heavens, like Lama-la did.”
The Lama and the Flying Saucer
By
Posted on
Columnist Cheryl Costa tells the story of Yeshi, a personal secretary to a Tibetan Buddhist Lama, and his encounter.
Images provided by David Thyberg and gl0ck via Thinkstock
