LEAVING NAMO BUDDAH
Last evening here and it
seems a pity to have to leave such a peaceful place for the pollution and chaos
of Kathmandu, although I’m staying near Buddhanilkantha, a quiet suburb to the
north of Kathmandu.
The founder and root guru of
the gompa is the Ninth Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche. He was the teacher of my own guru, Ringu
Tulku Rinpoche. Apart from the monastery
there are several other projects in various places in Nepal.
In the far distant past
when the moon was full, a tiger would approach the stupa to be seen by the
caretaker and local people who lived around.
But when electricity and cars arrived, the tiger failed to appear.
The monastery is active in
promoting environment protection activities, observing World Environment Day by
cleaning the monastery and planting trees.
There is also a school with 76 students learning Tibetan, English and
other mainstreams subjects.
The gompa itself is extremely beautiful and decorated in the Kagyapa tradition with the most exquisitely executed wall paintings of the past Karmapas and various saints.
Today, the monks are
playing football and sweating in the sun.
They have a day off their studies…as they did yesterday when they
started to pull a truck back up the hill.
Someone had left the truck in neutral and put a couple of small bricks
under the wheels, obviously not enough to stabilise it and the result was it
rolled down the hill and over the edge of a cliff ending up as a
write-off. On Friday, an unofficial
holiday was declared and the school kids turned up with their books in their
hands to watch the fun. Julie, their teacher,
made sure of making use of the incident by asking them to write an essay about
it. |
| THE TRUCK WINCHED TO THE TOP |
Now, rather sorry to leave the gomba and return to the seemingly endless round of meals in in-laws’ houses, although there is a real joy in the range of hyolmu food served up…and I end up eating far too much.
 |
| FULMAYA, JULIE AND TSERING |
