For my birthday, I was to be blessed by a wooden phallus once owned by the Divine Madman, also known as the Saint of Five Thousand Women

In Bhutan, when an Indian colleague wanted to take me for a phallic blessing on my birthday, I thought it was another of his jokes on the newcomer. But he claimed that there was a wooden phallus in a monastery about five kilometres away, below Metshina, which many local people visited to be blessed by it. The phallus was said to belong to Drukpa Kunley, a legendary maverick fifteenth-century saint of Bhutan. He was born in western Tibet, trained as a monk, then renounced his robes and headed down the dharma trail with his dog, Sachi. They travelled through western Bhutan, Tibet and Sikkim. Kunley recited bawdy poetry and songs, and spontaneously taught lessons of spiritual life in