The 18^th century Tibetan Buddhist Dagpu Luvsan Dambiijaltsan was the reincarnation of the Indian Prince Dharmanand. [3] Somewhere between 1735 and 1737, at the request of his students, Dagpu Luvsan Dambiijaltsan wrote down the dreams and visions he had since he was 11 years old. The book was titled, “The Tale of the Moon Cuckoo with a Blue Voice.” Its aim was to help readers understand the significance of compassion. About a century later, Noyon Khutagt Danzaravjaa wrote an opera based on this story in Mongolian. It is a legend about why the song of the cuckoo bird ushers in the beginning of spring.

About 470km South East of Ulaanbaatar, a towering eight-meter bronze sculpture of a scorpion looks out onto the intersection of three roads that scatter in separate directions like the thin traces of a firework over a boundless space of golden dust. They are but a small burst of countless trails that extend over the mystical land of Northern Shambhala, the legendary kingdom of earthly paradise. It is said that abundance, peace and enlightenment can be achieved in this kingdom. Its territory is shaped like the lotus flower with eighteen petals. In each of them, a particular art or a science of the inner or outer universe have been cultivated to perfection. The infinite repository of Shambhala’s riches is replenished by the planets and the stars. It can be accessed by the human mind and spirit. (G. Mend-Ooyo, 279)

Doctors inflict us pain and give us bitter pills, so that we may carry on with our lives for a little longer and, hopefully, better. Philosophers are like doctors of the mind and soul — they make us think hard, so that we may live more, mindfully, with a wider perspective on the world and ourselves. The symptoms and ailments of modern societies may differ from those that Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) saw in their lifetime, but the pertinence of their wisdom testifies that we might be dealing with the same problems under different circumstances. Maladies like loss of self, herd mentality, loneliness, greed, blind faith, vanity are as tangible now as ever in societies around the world.