Prayer wheels are very common in the Himalayas. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are hand held, some are mounted along spiritual sites such as stūpas. They can be very small, or big as a telephone booth (or even bigger), made of wood or metal. A mantra, usually oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ (ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུཾ་ –…
Tag: Meditation
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 – 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…
PdV | Photos & Art 