Pharping is a town south of Kathmandu. It goes by a few different names: The Nepali call it Pharping (sometimes pronounced Farping); The Tibetans call it Yangleshö (ཡང་ལེ་ཤོད་); and it was also called Phamting, because some say it is the birthplace of Phamtingpa (11th century CE), who together with his brothers was a close disciple…
Category: Buddhist Sunday
A Buddhist Sunday – Everybody Dance Now…
For special occasions, usually for Losar (ལོ་གསར་ – Tibetan New Year) or the Tshechu festival in Bhutan (ཚེས་བཅུ་ – Tshechu – literally Day Ten, celebrated on the tenth day of a lunar month), the lamas (བླ་མ་ bla ma – Tibetan Buddhist teachers or Gurus) perform a set of sacred dances. The monks dance dressed in…
A Buddhist Sunday – Sankhu Vajrayoginī temple
In the area near Sankhu according to legend there used to be a huge lake where Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and great masters came to meditate. Sankhu was also the home of Śakya Demma. Unwanted and discarded by her family she had to fend for herself in the wild with the monkeys in the jungle. Still…
A Buddhist Sunday – Chusya Bahal
Chusya Bahal is a Buddhist temple not too far from the busy tourist area of Kathmandu (around the corner from Chhetrapati Chowk), but once inside the inner courtyard you enter in an oasis of peace and tranquility. The entrance is guarded by two formidable lions and Prajñāpāramitā (Prajña: Wisdom and Pāramitā: Perfection) is displayed above the…
A Buddhist Sunday – Punakha Dzong and Lopön Tsechu Rinpoche
Punakha Dzong was built in the early 17th century, making it the one of the oldest Dzongs in Bhutan. As with any other Dzong (རྫོང་) it houses government administrative offices and a monastery. A Dzong is shaped as a fortress with a very high wall surrounding it and a tower in the middle of the courtyard….
A Buddhist Sunday – Kyichu Lhakhang (སྐྱེར་ཆུའི་ལྷ་ཁང་)
Not too far from Paro (སྤ་རོ་) is the oldest temple in Bhutan. Dating back to the 7th century C.E. (common era), the temple (lha khang) has been in constant use. The floor boards inside the lha khang have the foot prints of very diligent practitioners prostrating to the altar to venerate the Buddha where over time…
A Buddhist Sunday – The Tiger’s Nest (སྟག་ཚང་)
In 2010 I had the opportunity to visit Bhutan. Like every other visitor we visited the Taktsang or Tiger’s Nest (སྟག་ཚང་) near Paro (སྤ་རོ་). The monastery sits precariously on the side of a cliff at an altitude of 3,120 meters, 900 meters above the valley. You cannot reach the monastery by car, so it is…
A Buddhist Sunday – Temples in Singapore: The Buddhist Lodge
Only the gate around the Buddhist Lodge in Singapore suggests that this is not an ordinary building. The ornate stone carved panels show several Buddhist stories. The main entrance is through a beautiful arch in Chinese style. The Buddhist Lodge was founded in 1943, originally with roughly 100 members. They came together in a traditional…
A Buddhist Sunday – Temples in Singapore: The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple
The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple may look centuries old; in fact a lot of effort has gone in to make it look like a Tang dynasty (7th-10th century C.E.) Chinese temple. In truth the building was completed in 2007 with the help of modern building methods. The columns at the front of the temple look…
A Buddhist Sunday – The Temples of Chiangmai (เชียงใหม่)
Chiangmai is the largest city in the north of Thailand and with 300 Buddhist temples (or วัด –wat in Thai). It was he former capital of the Lanna Kingdom and was founded by King Phaya Mengrai as Nopburi Si Nakhon Ping Chiang Mai (shortened to Chiang Mai – New Walled City). The biggest temple is…
PdV | Photos & Art 