When Master meets Master

In a tea-room one day she heard about the Khampa warriors and instantly became intrigued. These deadly fighters were from the remote region of eastern Tibet called Kham. They are famous all over the Himalayas for being tough, fearless and focused warriors. After the Chinese invaded Tibet the Khampa’s went into hiding. They are scattered about the vast region of Tibet continuing the fight.

Warriors on horseback so intrigued Pamela that she could think of nothing else. She wanted to meet these masters of warfare face to face. Her desire burned within her heart and would not leave her mind. She finally planned a trip deep into the Tibet region of Mustang. She would drop everything she was doing just for the chance to meet these fighters face to face.

When she arrived on the outpost of Tibet she was told that the region was closed to all outsiders. No one would be allowed in. Pamela returned to her hotel in total despair. She believed it was her Karma to meet these fearless horsemen.

She would not be deterred from her destiny. In the café, while she was eating her rice and sipping on a hot cup of tea she overheard a couple of truck drivers talking about a trip deep into the Himalayan region of Tibet.

What does a Karate Master have in common with a Khampa warrior? How does a pocket billiards master figure into this? They seek to build strength and endurance, to polish technical skills, to conquer aching muscles and to overcome fear of failure and serious injury.

Pamela does not prepare for a contest or show she trains to fight to the death. In a fight to the death there can be no excuses and there are no time outs, you live or you die. To hold the idea of mortal combat unceasingly in your mind, to mentally face death during every exercise, every technique, this is the highest standard of karate practice. What could be more challenging?

Pamela would find that same code of honor in the Khampa warriors. She would find people who lived this death-facing ideal, a mentality that for so many years she had been trying to instill in her Karate training. A true warrior! These men and woman of the Kham region had not only faced death many times in the course of the guerrilla war against the Chinese, but they have been raised from childhood to destroy their enemies instantly, unwaveringly, completely.

She approached the truck drivers with an offer to pay for a ride. They agreed to carry her within five hundred miles of Kham. She would have to ride the rest of the way on her bicycle. She would come face to face with men who were notorious for banditry and mayhem all over the Himalayas. At any moment she could be stopped by the unsympathetic soldier and sent back, or even incarcerated in a foreign prison. She rode in the back of the truck for twenty-one hours through the cold winter winds. Then she rode across the rugged Tibetan plateau and finally she had to find a guide to trek across the mountains to the little village of Kham.

On her first day after arrival she made her way down the steep rugged path that lead into the small village. It was there when she came upon a Khampa warrior.

This was against all odds. She could hardly keep her breath. There he stood, tall, proud, his hair braded, swirling down around his shoulders. He walked with his feet slightly apart, as if to trample the grass to extinction. Like all Tibetans he had a heavy gate, used for climbing mountains and rugged terrain, yet he walked with the grace of a cat. Each step was measured. All of his movements were calculated. Nothing was wasted. The Khampa warrior was moving in a line directly towards Pamela. Unlike the inhabitants of the Lhasta region, his features were not mongoloid, but straight, with large fierce eyes set between a beaklike nose. He was a desperado, destined for certain death. He was the only man willing to stand up to the invading Chinese.

She did not come here to question the warrior or find out what his method of training was. She did not come here to talk to the warrior. She trekked for months through the Tibetan plateau only to find out how it would feel to meet a Khampa warrior face to face!

Amongst the turmoil of the forbidden city of Lhasta, they came face to face. Their eyes met each other from a distance of twenty feet. The warrior continued towards her. She was calm, sure, willing to encounter what ever would came her way. Her twenty plus years of training prepared her to encounter

anything with the total conviction she would prevail. He walked within five feet of her and their eyes locked on each other, a gentle, knowing stare face to face between two strangers. In those eyes, in that instant exchange, a lifetime of experiences passed from one to another. They were not strangers at all. A complete recognition transpired from one master to another master.

Pamela did not flinch. She did not waver. There were no words necessary to speak the volumes of their life experiences. It was all exchanged in an instant.

He closed the gap between them and then passed her by. Nothing was said.

Pamela found out what it would be like to come face to face with the greatest warrior alive. Two complete equal masters will share a lifetime in one chance meeting. This was her awakening. This moment, in the village of Kham deep in Tibet she experienced her enlightenment. That drive she felt to meet a Khampa warrior was her calling to enlightenment. It was her final Kata. In that one glance a million lifetimes suddenly had meaning. Her thirty “special assignments” and her twenty years of Karate training all came together in that one moment. She was ready to return to her homeland.

And so it is with the rare and complete master of pocket billiards. Enlightenment is that all knowing exchange and can only occur when equal masters meet face to face.

In pocket billiards today, we have few masters. The exchange of harsh words never occurs between masters for when they meet, they embrace a journey of a thousand lifetimes. To master self is to experience enlightenment. Once you reach this level, it then becomes’ an issue of what you do with this mastership. All to often, in the green rooms of America a potential master is throwing away his enlightenment for a few dollar bills. How sad it is that we spend a lifetime to master the intricate skills of this game, only to discard it over monetary gain.

In the halls of the green room a player will think back to the moment that this game intoxicated him with the bliss of pure perfection, when the expression of the shot itself was more than enough to fill him with peaceful satisfaction for which there are no words and he will wonder why no one told him he had reached the pinnacle of pocket billiards.

His only chance for redemption is to get out of the green room and back to the shot at hand. A pool player shoots the shots, a master experience the shots. A master is prepared to fight to the death in each match, a pool player is willing to lose games and give up his pride for just a few dollar bills. To reach the pinnacle of pocket billiards is worth a trek across the Tibetan Plateau.