ON THE HISTORY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF THE 'DAS-LOGonly slightly "older" than they, although still closely identified with them (the
blind leading the blind), inasmuch as she will not indulge in satisfying her oral
drives with what is tantamount to excreta. This contention is not only based
upon the form of the foods (pill-like solids and soiled water), but by the explicit
notion of such authorities as Dpal-sprul Rinpoche who proclaims it is even meri-
torious to dedicate excrement to pretas ( 1971: 407).
Finally, she meets her mother:
Again in the same instant, I arrived there. There was mother, circum-
ambulating the mchod-khang of the monastery. I said to her, "Please
give me some food and water!" Mother, saying nothing at all, and
acting as if she hadn't seen me, went on circumambulating. Again I
thought, "In former times, I'd have ridden a horse, and before me there
would have gone a train of servants bearing gifts. Mother would have
said, "Welcome," and I'd have been given reception-beer and been
waited upon specially. But now Mother doesn't even look at me. Did
she receive a letter from Sde-pa-drung before I came?" I thought, "She
doesn't think of her own children, but others' children instead," and I
became sad. Again, looking back at the temple, I went there and
grasped her robe. I thought, "Previously I agreed with the advice that
you, my parents, gave me about the world. I kept in my mind as much
advice as you gave me. I thought I was Sde-pa-drung's young woman
and his support. Even though he beat me much to discipline me, I
thought one with a woman's form must undergo these difficulties, and
so I did, without bothering you about them. Now, because I have no
children, I've been expelled from his company. Since he did not think
of the future, he did many spineless things to me, and I have nothing
else to do but the dharma. Now since I have not made difficulties for
you by arguing and disputing with you, give me something to eat. I will
go to do dharma."This entire sequence is highly marked by precisely the sort of behavior we would
find in a child in the throes of separation: mood swings, the conflict of omnipo-
tence in her demands to be fed and the denial of the wish-fulfilling mother,
pushing away and clinging to object figures, leave-taking difficulties, a wish to
manage the self and partake in the company of others at the same time and inde-
cision. At any rate, her "fault" is now plain. Karma-dbang-'dzin believes she is
being punished for not having achieved social maturation( ... I have no children
· · .) and she is unable to cope with her ambiguous social position. Unable to
become fully committed to one path of maturation-full-fledged religious
COmmitment, or another-the full resolution of a respectable social role, the 'das-
log is subject to stresses which occasion a regressive, dissociated state.
Karma-dbang-'dzin seems to effect here the typical child's ploy of the hurt
innocent, stating that she never caused her parents any problems and that they