Sorry and sad for his bad deed, Mila decided to leave to search for a master who could free him from guilt and teach him buddhism. After a long travel, he met in a valley a monk who was plowing, asked him where the famous lama Marpa was and the monk answered: "I'll go to inform the lama, go on plowing and when you have ended come into the house you see on the hill."

Entering the house, Mila found the man he believed to be just a monk who was sitting on a high pillow and instructing his disciples instead. Bowing down before the lama's feet, he told him his crimes and asked to receive his teaching. Marpa answered that he would satisfy him in exchange for the construction of a round tower in honour of his son on the eastern top of the mountain, since he did not have material assets to offer.

But when after a month the tower was ready, the lama told him to take it down and build another one in the shape of a half-moon. The same thing happened for a triangular tower on the northern top and a square one on the southern.

Then Mila said to Marpa: "I have built the towers in honour of your son without even a companion who carried a single stone as big as a goat head, a single basket of earth, a single bucket of water, a single tub of lime. You have promised to teach me the doctrine and for this I am here." And Marpa answered: "Great wizard (tu-chen), the turret you made is only as big as an arm and is not worth the doctrine I brought from India with difficulty. If you have the price for the teaching, bring it, otherwise go away. Then the lama gave a slap on my ear and, pulling my hair, he threw me outside. I would better die and I cried all night."

The next morning the lama asked to built a ten storey tower as a sanctuary in exchange for instruction and Mila engaged tenaciously in the new job.

After some months he presented himself to Marpa with his back covered with sores, plagues and pus, but the lama tore Mila's garment apart, ordered him to use it as the rag that is applied to the wounds of donkeys and to go on with the job. Mila tried to do it, but he fell ill and decided to give himself up and flee back to his country.."