NAMO BUDDHA

NAMO BUDDHA

NAMA BUDDHA STUPA

Coming in a taxi from Kathmandu we finally ascend what may be the most badly maintained road I have ever been on.  From the beginning I worry about the suspension and the tyres on the old vehicle; but the driver doesn’t seem worried at all and appears to know every rut and pothole on the road.  The ruts are up to half a metre deep and as well as potholes there are small boulders sprinkled around.  At times, the car is lying at a 45 degree angle.  

For reasons beyond my ken, we arrive at the top after the one and a half hour steep ascent with the suspension and exhaust intact:  and the driver sometimes makes two-journeys a day from the capital. The last 500-metres are paved and we arrive at the Namo Buddha monastery with some relief though slightly addlepated by the journey.

The gompa is built on the site where Buddha in a previous life offered his body to a tiger and her five cubs and then returned to be born in Lumbini as Gautama, the crown prince of a stately family.  At the top of a hill annexing the main centre is an endearing platform on which an inexplicably black Buddha sits with a knife in front of the tigress while its “children” are huddled together in a line, not looking the least bit concerned about the fact that Buddha seems about to cut off a limb to feed the mother. I suppose, why should they? 

The main temple sits on a hill and is surrounded by a warren of residences for the monks, a school for several hundred little monks and numerous other multi-storied teaching halls and residences for the rinpoches and visiting lamas.  One hall in particular seems to be particularly sacred with a large Tara idol and glass cases containing various aspects of gods and goddesses in poses of enlightenment. 

Our bedroom is on a northern perimeter next to a corn field.  From the flat roof reached by a spiral staircase, its central pole topped by a large, black metal umbrella, we should be able to see the full range of the Himalayas but so far have only been able to view an adumbrated outline with the snowy peaks jutting through the clouds in the morning.  

Tonight is a full moon and there is some hope that the clouds will disperse and we may see the range though this is doubtful as the monsoon is still in its last throes.

The wall paintings in the gompa are a feast for the eye.  There are depictions of previous saints – Atisha, Gampopa, Marpa – as well as black-hatted Karmapas.  I was pleased to see the thirteenth Karmapa whose name I was given when I took refuge, Yeshe Dorje.  He reigned from 1676 to 1702 and died at the young age of 26 though he managed to do a lot for the revival of Buddhism in Tibet.   

This morning there was a special puja in the main temple for the full moon that lasted for a few hours though half way through my knees seized up and I had to leave, walking like Groucho Marx without the cigar. The energy level was extremely high with lots of banging of a drum, cymbals and bells.  The main Lama chanted through a microphone in a deep bass voice that literally shivered in the solar plexus. 

Now I sit in the kitchen surrounded by freshly cooked food waiting for Fulmaya to return from her prostrations and looking forward to tomorrow when I leave early for a 3-hour trek to Panauti to visit a student I taught about 25-years ago, Deepak Humagain. I was last there with Colin Touche from Nova Scotia and remember quite distinctly having cannabis seed achar and a corn-cob chillum with his father. Sweet memories.