Namo Buddha

view from the top...

decorations on the temple buildings

Thrangu Rinpoche leaving to go to Canada

My nomadic friend, Angela






It was recommended to me by a couple of people that i try and make it up to Namo Buddha. It is only about an hour and a half by taxi from Kathmandu – about 3 and a half hours and a sore neck by bus... :\ So, i decided to head up there for a kind of self-retreat, remove myself from tourism for a while.
Namo Buddha is an important pilgrimage site, as it is said that in the historical buddha’s previous life he came across a tigress and her five cubs that were in the process of starving to death. What he did was he fed himself to the tigress, and so the tigers were able to survive, and in his next incarnation he became what we know to be the historical Buddha shakyamuni.
The Thrangu monastery where i was staying at Namo Buddha, is perched on a hilltop, from where you are able to see all the surrounding villages, and on a clear day the snow-capped Himalayas (these i did not see because of the haze and clouds).
Looking out onto the valley is like being inside a painting, where one section is on pause while the other is able to be on play – there was a time warp kind of feel to the place. On one of the days that i was looking out at the scenery, two 100meter long string of prayer flags had come loose at one end, and were suspended in space across the valley, trying to reach the other hilltops until the wind could hold them no more and they gently came back down to earth.
I was fortunate to meet Thrangu RInpoche while there and receive some teachings from him in the form of a transmission to begin the preliminary practices. I also met some other wonderful people there including fellow nomad, Angela, who helped me realise my inner nomad and to embrace that aspect of myself. Angela is retired and is currently teaching English and computers to the monks at the monastery. Angela and her students are busy making a DVD to show potential sponsors what a day in the life of a monk is like – as they are needing people to sponsor a monk for a year.
While I was there, they were filming part of a Bollywood movie – fortunately not the part with all the singing and dancing!! Some of the monks were extras, and the rest were fixated on watching the goings on.
There were some amazing thunder storms while i was there, and i really got a sense that the monsoon is on its way... this will be my first monsoon experience... ;-)
I enjoyed my time there so much that i am contemplating spending another week there before i leave Nepal. Right now though, I am back in Boudha in Kathmandu, and am going to venture out a bit more this time and see what else there is to see in the surrounding valley.