Watch the interview between Robin Lee Hoffman with Seren Drusket, a Ladakhi Lhamo, on YouTube

In a recent episode of the podcast Still Human, host Robin Lee Hoffman spoke with Seren Drusket of Chantang, a village in Ladakh, through translator Rittik. What emerged was a rare window into a tradition that sits at the crossroads of Himalayan Buddhism, local belief, and the universal human search for meaning.

What Is a Lhamo?

The term lhamo (Tibetan: ལྷ་མོ།) can be confusing to Buddhists familiar with its more common usage. In Tibetan Buddhist contexts, lha refers to deities or divine beings, and lhamo is often used for goddesses, most famously Palden Lhamo (Śrī Devī), the fierce protector of Tibet and the Dalai Lamas.

In Ladakh, however, the word carries a distinct local meaning: a lhamo is a spirit medium, typically a woman, who enters trance states during which a spirit, called a devta in the local vernacular, speaks through her. This is not the same as a Buddhist oracle (like the Nechung Oracle of Tibet), though there are parallels. Nor is it identical to lha worship in the strict Buddhist canonical sense.

The devta in this context should not be confused with the Sanskrit devatā (Tibetan: lha), which in Buddhist philosophy can refer to gods in the desire realm, beings still bound by saṃsāra. Here, the term is used more loosely by the local community to describe a divine or spirit entity, "a form of God," as Seren explained through her translator, that operates outside the standard Buddhist cosmological hierarchy. This is a local Ladakhi religious phenomenon, one that exists alongside and sometimes within the framework of Himalayan Buddhism.

A Calling Across Generations

Seren's story began in childhood. She behaved unusually, wandering, sometimes running away from home, and her grandfather, who had himself served as a medium for the same spirit, took her under his guidance. When he passed away, the spirit chose her.

"I am the one," the spirit would announce when it entered her, even during ordinary moments like dinner. Her parents would ask, "Who are you?" and the voice that answered was not their daughter's.

She was terrified. "She sometimes thought like, 'I wouldn't be back me,'" Rittik translated, a fear that she might lose herself entirely to the spirit.

It was a Buddhist lama from the local monastery who helped her. Through prayers, chanting, and ritual, she learned to control when the spirit came and went. Certain chants invite the presence; certain rituals release it. The randomness of her childhood possession gave way to a structured practice.

"She's not scared anymore," Rittik explained.

The Mechanics of Trance

Seren describes the spirit's arrival as "like an air" that takes over her being. The world blurs. She loses consciousness of herself. The spirit speaks, and she is the medium.

This raises an important question for Buddhists: What is the nature of this spirit? Is it a lha, a deva, a preta (hungry ghost), or something else? The tradition does not neatly map onto Buddhist taxonomy. What matters, perhaps, is the function: the spirit comes "to help the people."

And help they come seeking. People arrive with depression, anxiety, material despair. The spirit, through Seren, speaks against greed and materialism, urging people to "take control of their life." The one's life, the spirit says, is supreme.

Why Her?

Why would a spirit choose a poor, illiterate woman from a remote Himalayan village?

Seren's answer is simple: because she thinks of others before herself. "If there is a lizard or a small ant," Rittik translated, "she thinks about how difficult her life may be." She cares for small things, for small beings. "She has a pure heart."

This resonates deeply with Buddhist ethics. The Bodhisattva ideal, to work for the benefit of all sentient beings, is not reserved for the educated or the monastic. It is available to the illiterate, the poor, the marginalized. Seren's purity of heart, not her knowledge of texts, is what qualifies her.

When Robin asked who takes care of the healer, Seren's answer was immediate: "The spirit takes care of her." She believes that the care she extends to others returns to her. This is not unlike the Buddhist teaching on karma, action and its fruits, though Seren frames it in personal, devotional terms.

A Buddhist Reflection on Suffering and Healing

When asked about the global mental health crisis, depression, burnout, anxiety, Seren spoke through her spirit's voice: people chase money and possessions, and suffering follows. The remedy is to "think less about them and think about their own life and own mental being first."

This is not so different from the Buddha's diagnosis in the Dharmacakrapravartana Sūtra: craving (tṛṣṇā ) leads to suffering (duḥkha). The path to liberation involves letting go of grasping and attending to what truly matters.

Yet Seren's work is not therapy in the Western sense. It is ritual healing, a communal, embodied practice that addresses suffering through the mediation of the sacred. For many Ladakhis, the lama and the lhamo are the first responders to mental distress. This is changing as modernity brings new pressures and new forms of suffering, but the tradition persists.

What the World Can Learn from Ladakh

Seren's message is not complicated. "You have to live in harmony," she said. "All are one. Humanity is above all else. Don't think about the differences, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, or from a certain country. Don't think about the differences much."

She speaks of equality, how in Ladakh, unlike much of India, girls are not devalued. She speaks of simplicity, of caring for small things, of living in peace. These are Buddhist principles, yes, but they are also universal.

Her daily practice is equally simple: she wakes at 4 a.m. and prays for one hour, for herself, her family, everyone in the world, even animals. "For the well-being of everyone."

The Pure Heart

Seren never learned to read. Sometimes she wishes she had. But the Dalai Lama himself, she says, blessed her. "You have to be pure at heart," he told her. "That's what matters the most."

It is a fitting conclusion to a life lived between worlds, between the ordinary and the transcendent, between the human and the spirit, between the small village of Chantang and the universal longing for peace.

In a world increasingly divided by ideology, wealth, and identity, the lhamo of Ladakh offers a radical alternative: purity of heart, care for others, and the simple recognition that all beings suffer and all beings deserve compassion.

This is not a message that requires literacy. It requires only the willingness to open one's heart, to the spirit, to the suffering, to the possibility that healing comes not from grasping but from letting go.

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Robin Lee Hoffman's full interview with Seren Drusket and translator Rittik is available on the podcast Still Human.