Woetoe’s Reviews > The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel: A Biography of the Explorer of Tibet and its Forbidden Practices > Status Update
Woetoe
is on page 20 of 329
‘Skeptic, rational mystic, indefatigable traveler, and explorer — here was a woman who had gone to India and Tibet, lived there for fourteen years among a wide variety of types from maharajas to bandits to naljorpas (adepts), and returned to write intriguing but dispassionate accounts of what she had observed. Here was the world of Tibet before the Chinese occupation, indeed before the wheeled vehicle.
— Aug 05, 2025 03:28AM
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Woetoe’s Previous Updates
Woetoe
is on page 293 of 329
‘Walk Straight on Following Your Heart’s Desire.’
— Aug 15, 2025 02:57AM
Woetoe
is on page 202 of 329
‘His foot was swollen out of shape and could bear no weight. What was to be done? Turning back was impossible, and so the mother wished to hurry to the nearest village for help. But this would be Po country, and the Popa inhabitans were famous as bandits, even cannibals.’
— Aug 12, 2025 07:20AM
Woetoe
is on page 192 of 329
‘Alexandra soon found herself a guest of ordinary Tibetans while posing as a beggar. Already she had adopted certain habits of the country, such as blowing her nose with her vingers, sitting calmy on a dirt floor spotted with grease and spit, or whiping her soiled hands on her dress.’
— Aug 09, 2025 09:42AM
Woetoe
is on page 160 of 329
‘The Tibetan books from which she copied were actually collections of block-printed single sheets. Nagarjuna’s most famous work, The Diamond Sutra, is contained in one hundred such volumes of a thousand pages each.’
— Aug 08, 2025 02:50AM
Woetoe
is on page 158 of 329
‘One morning Alexandra awoke to find a few severed heads impaled on a wall in front of her door. Bandits, she was told, but their contorted faced looked no more guilty than those of the government soldiers. She heard that in warfare between Tibetans and Chinese troops that continued sporadically along the frontier, winners of a battle made a stew of the losers’ hearts — they ate them with rice.’
— Aug 08, 2025 02:10AM
Woetoe
is on page 128 of 329
‘Traditionally, graduates of this course were tested on a frosty night with a hard wind blowing. They set cross-legged on the bank of an ice-encrusted river or lake while sheets were dipped in the water and one was draped over each man’s torso; using tumo, he was expected to dry it. By daybreak the succesful practioner might have dried as many as forty sheets.’
— Aug 07, 2025 05:52AM
Woetoe
is on page 127 of 329
‘Tumo was the most vital practice of the anchorites, enabling them to survive brutal weather without fuel, of which there is little in the mountains, naked or clad only in a light shift. The transcendental yogi Milarepa, it’s foremost exponent, praised tumo as the best clothing.’ Tumo is a pracitce of breathing that generates body heat.
— Aug 07, 2025 05:46AM
Woetoe
is on page 123 of 329
‘The Gomchen and Alexandra would sit together in silence in a darkened room, focused on the same object. The goal was en entirely unified mental state. Later, whilst camping in the wilds, Alexandra would record instances of the use of telepathy at great distances, of receiving messages the Tibetans termed “written on the wind”.
— Aug 07, 2025 12:54AM
Woetoe
is on page 103 of 329
‘Before he arrived Chinese armies under the capable general Chao Erh-feng had invaded his country, looted and set fire to monestaries, melted sacred images for bullets, murdered hundreds of monks, and ripped up ancient books to sole the boots of their soldiers. They were planning a military road from Batang in Kham province to Lhasa. It was a preview of the pillage of Tibet in 1959 and afterward.’
— Aug 06, 2025 02:55AM
Woetoe
is on page 75 of 329
‘Soon everyone became entranced by the wild, magnificent scenery. As the Army approached Lhasa and caught sight of the golden roofs of the Potala Palace, a race developed to be, in Macdonald’s words, “the first living European to set eyes on the Forbidden City of the Lamas.” On August 4 the British entered, tearing aside the veil of centuries.’
— Aug 06, 2025 02:55AM
