I hadn't been to Nepal for twelve years. It seemed the right time to return last fall when I heard that Chagdud Rinpoche was leading a pilgrimage there and that we would accompany him in a Vajrakilaya long-life retreat at sacred Parping. It had long been my wish to practice there, where Guru Rinpoche realized Vajrakilaya at the Asura Cave (and left his handprint in the rockface!). I wanted also to see for myself the "self-arising" image of Tara on a rock there, which had become increasingly clear in recent decades.
In the accounts of prehistory, the Kathmandu Valley was originally an inland sea surrounded by mountains, drained when Manjushri cut open a passage with his sword to form the sacred valley. On arrival at the airport we could see the Swayambhunath stupa, perched on a hill on the western outskirts of Kathmandu. Swayambhu means "self-arisen." The stupa is said to have existed in the sky at the time of the first buddha, below the earth during the second buddha and partially hidden in the depths of the earth during Shakyamuni's day. Rinpoche told us that when he lived in Kathmandu, everyone could see a stupa in the sky above it on the fifteenth day of the sixth month. Now bands of monkeys cavort about the stupa and enclave of temples where Manjushri's throne once was and where Nagarjuna is said to have brought the texts of the Prajnaparamita when Shakyamuni taught the second vehicle of the Mahayana. Here, as well as at the Great Stupa of Boudhanath, Chagdud Tulku and our group offered thousands of butterlamps, dedicated to the benefit of all beings.
Ancient monuments–such as the small stupas symbolizing the enlightened mind that stand at every cross street in older sections of the medieval cities of Bhaktapur, Patao and Kathmandu–abound throughout the Kathmandu valley, testimony to the flourishing Buddhist culture of the past. Yet the life around the Great Stupa at Boudhanath is permeated with the vibrant devotion of today's practitioners as well. On my first visit to Nepal, the Great Stupa quietly dominated a sea of rice paddies and cultivated fields. It is now packed within a metropolis of monasteries, businesses and homes, and crowded streets. Boudhanath is inconceivable: blessings radiate beyond its extremes of rich and poor, vast and immediate, immaculate and dust-covered.
We stayed a short walk from the stupa and awoke each morning to the sound of deep booming horns of morning pujas in surrounding monasteries. At dawn, in morning fog, our street bustles with entrepreneurs, monks and nuns, families, and friends on their way to circumambulate the Great Stupa. There one looks for an opening to join the stream of people, who are murmuring Mani mantras and spinning the prayer wheels that ring the entire base of the stupa. Entering a courtyard where yogis sit and chant, one can offer butter-lamps within a large tent blazing with scores of flames and then ascend the stairs that lead up three tiers to the base of the stupa's dome. The great dome is inset with alcoves housing the panorama of tantric deities and surrounded by the "all-seeing eyes," which bestow their compassionate gaze in the four directions.
On our first day, the enthronement of the late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche's tulku occurred at his monastery outside the Boudhanath stupa. A crowd of dignitaries, monks and other disciples crushed into the courtyard, awaiting the tulku's arrival. His Holiness's "heart sons" and the fortunate few who could fit, waited in the temple where mandala and other offerings would be made; in the days following, a variety of sacred Tibetan dances would be performed. That night an enormous full moon illuminated the stupa, upon which a magical array of candles burned.
After the enthronement, we attended a three-day ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche's parinirvana and the one-year anniversary of his cremation in Bhutan. The ceremony took place at Shechen Tannyi Dargye Ling, the monastery His Holiness built near Boudhanath which radiates his vast vision. The ceremonies were presided over by Trulshig Rinpoche and attended by many great lamas, including H.E. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Rabjam Rinpoche, Chagdud Tulku, Tulku Pema Wangyal and Kongtrul Rinpoche. The assembly practiced the treasure revealed by His Holiness, the Essence of Siddhi, that Chagdud Gonpa conducts in its annual drubchen ceremony. On the final night, thousands of butterlamps were lit on all the tiers of the Boudhanath stupa, from which one could see the monastery illuminated with strands of colored lights like a magical palace floating in the darkness.
Rinpoche kindly arranged meetings for our group with such great teachers as Penor Rinpoche and Urgyen Tulku, as well as with the Sangyum Kushog, wife of the late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche. He encouraged us to use this precious opportunity by performing meritorious practice throughout our visit. While there are many practitioners and solitary yogis around the stupa at Boudhanath, we attracted attention when our group of thirty met early in the morning or late at night to do group practice or the Tara tsog. We aspired to fulfill Rinpoche' s request to accumulate 100,000 repetitions of Lama Mipham's prayer from our Red Tara practice ("Buddhas and bodhisattvas altogether ..."), chanting in small groups at the stupa over several hot, dusty days.
One day, we walked through luminous fields of rice and up a mountainside to the shrine of Namo Buddha, where in a previous life Shakyamuni Buddha had offered his flesh to feed a starving tigress and her cubs. We also bathed in the healing, pristine clear spring that spontaneously flowed from where Vajrayogini meditated at Godawari. After the richly fulfilling retreat in Parping, we went to lesser known sites near Kathmandu, to temples sacred toEkadzati, Garuda and Dorje P'hagmo, and to an image of Dipankara Buddha in the ancient city of Bhaktapur. In the twilight of a long day of travel, we entered the dark courtyard of a temple in Patan that dated from the days of Guru Rinpoche and then visited a large stupa across the road built by a king renowned for building one million stupas in a day.
Being in the axis mundi of the Great Stupa at Boudhanath infused my practice with greater diligence and scope. I remember the joy, in the midst of heartfelt prayers, of seeing a seven-year-old girl leading her younger brother in full prostrations around the stupa and I felt compassion for the scarred brown dogs with torn ears who lived at the stupa, sat with us during our practice and followed as we circumambulated.
The gracious hospitality of Tulku Sang-ngag and many members of Rinpoche's sangha made this pilgrimage possible for our group of thirty wayfarers from around the world. At the end of the Vajrakilaya practice in Parping, we made an offering to Tulku Sang-ngag which enabled him to purchase the land adjoining our practice site in order to build a temple. Our group also planted seeds for the possible purchase of land in Parping by Chagdud Gonpa for future retreatants. May the many prayers of aspiration at the Asura Cave and Boudhanath stupa bear fruit.
Suzanne Fairclough
I hadn't been to Nepal for twelve years. It seemed the right time to return last fall when I heard that Chagdud Rinpoche was leading a pilgrimage there and that we would accompany him in a Vajrakilaya long-life retreat at sacred Parping. It had long been my wish to practice there, where Guru Rinpoche realized Vajrakilaya at the Asura Cave (and left his handprint in the rockface!). I wanted also to see for myself the "self-arising" image of Tara on a rock there, which had become increasingly clear in recent decades.
In the accounts of prehistory, the Kathmandu Valley was originally an inland sea surrounded by mountains, drained when Manjushri cut open a passage with his sword to form the sacred valley. On arrival at the airport we could see the Swayambhunath stupa, perched on a hill on the western outskirts of Kathmandu. Swayambhu means "self-arisen." The stupa is said to have existed in the sky at the time of the first buddha, below the earth during the second buddha and partially hidden in the depths of the earth during Shakyamuni's day. Rinpoche told us that when he lived in Kathmandu, everyone could see a stupa in the sky above it on the fifteenth day of the sixth month. Now bands of monkeys cavort about the stupa and enclave of temples where Manjushri's throne once was and where Nagarjuna is said to have brought the texts of the Prajnaparamita when Shakyamuni taught the second vehicle of the Mahayana. Here, as well as at the Great Stupa of Boudhanath, Chagdud Tulku and our group offered thousands of butterlamps, dedicated to the benefit of all beings.
Ancient monuments–such as the small stupas symbolizing the enlightened mind that stand at every cross street in older sections of the medieval cities of Bhaktapur, Patao and Kathmandu–abound throughout the Kathmandu valley, testimony to the flourishing Buddhist culture of the past. Yet the life around the Great Stupa at Boudhanath is permeated with the vibrant devotion of today's practitioners as well. On my first visit to Nepal, the Great Stupa quietly dominated a sea of rice paddies and cultivated fields. It is now packed within a metropolis of monasteries, businesses and homes, and crowded streets. Boudhanath is inconceivable: blessings radiate beyond its extremes of rich and poor, vast and immediate, immaculate and dust-covered.
We stayed a short walk from the stupa and awoke each morning to the sound of deep booming horns of morning pujas in surrounding monasteries. At dawn, in morning fog, our street bustles with entrepreneurs, monks and nuns, families, and friends on their way to circumambulate the Great Stupa. There one looks for an opening to join the stream of people, who are murmuring Mani mantras and spinning the prayer wheels that ring the entire base of the stupa. Entering a courtyard where yogis sit and chant, one can offer butter-lamps within a large tent blazing with scores of flames and then ascend the stairs that lead up three tiers to the base of the stupa's dome. The great dome is inset with alcoves housing the panorama of tantric deities and surrounded by the "all-seeing eyes," which bestow their compassionate gaze in the four directions.
On our first day, the enthronement of the late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche's tulku occurred at his monastery outside the Boudhanath stupa. A crowd of dignitaries, monks and other disciples crushed into the courtyard, awaiting the tulku's arrival. His Holiness's "heart sons" and the fortunate few who could fit, waited in the temple where mandala and other offerings would be made; in the days following, a variety of sacred Tibetan dances would be performed. That night an enormous full moon illuminated the stupa, upon which a magical array of candles burned.
After the enthronement, we attended a three-day ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche's parinirvana and the one-year anniversary of his cremation in Bhutan. The ceremony took place at Shechen Tannyi Dargye Ling, the monastery His Holiness built near Boudhanath which radiates his vast vision. The ceremonies were presided over by Trulshig Rinpoche and attended by many great lamas, including H.E. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Rabjam Rinpoche, Chagdud Tulku, Tulku Pema Wangyal and Kongtrul Rinpoche. The assembly practiced the treasure revealed by His Holiness, the Essence of Siddhi, that Chagdud Gonpa conducts in its annual drubchen ceremony. On the final night, thousands of butterlamps were lit on all the tiers of the Boudhanath stupa, from which one could see the monastery illuminated with strands of colored lights like a magical palace floating in the darkness.
Rinpoche kindly arranged meetings for our group with such great teachers as Penor Rinpoche and Urgyen Tulku, as well as with the Sangyum Kushog, wife of the late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche. He encouraged us to use this precious opportunity by performing meritorious practice throughout our visit. While there are many practitioners and solitary yogis around the stupa at Boudhanath, we attracted attention when our group of thirty met early in the morning or late at night to do group practice or the Tara tsog. We aspired to fulfill Rinpoche' s request to accumulate 100,000 repetitions of Lama Mipham's prayer from our Red Tara practice ("Buddhas and bodhisattvas altogether ..."), chanting in small groups at the stupa over several hot, dusty days.
One day, we walked through luminous fields of rice and up a mountainside to the shrine of Namo Buddha, where in a previous life Shakyamuni Buddha had offered his flesh to feed a starving tigress and her cubs. We also bathed in the healing, pristine clear spring that spontaneously flowed from where Vajrayogini meditated at Godawari. After the richly fulfilling retreat in Parping, we went to lesser known sites near Kathmandu, to temples sacred toEkadzati, Garuda and Dorje P'hagmo, and to an image of Dipankara Buddha in the ancient city of Bhaktapur. In the twilight of a long day of travel, we entered the dark courtyard of a temple in Patan that dated from the days of Guru Rinpoche and then visited a large stupa across the road built by a king renowned for building one million stupas in a day.
Being in the axis mundi of the Great Stupa at Boudhanath infused my practice with greater diligence and scope. I remember the joy, in the midst of heartfelt prayers, of seeing a seven-year-old girl leading her younger brother in full prostrations around the stupa and I felt compassion for the scarred brown dogs with torn ears who lived at the stupa, sat with us during our practice and followed as we circumambulated.
The gracious hospitality of Tulku Sang-ngag and many members of Rinpoche's sangha made this pilgrimage possible for our group of thirty wayfarers from around the world. At the end of the Vajrakilaya practice in Parping, we made an offering to Tulku Sang-ngag which enabled him to purchase the land adjoining our practice site in order to build a temple. Our group also planted seeds for the possible purchase of land in Parping by Chagdud Gonpa for future retreatants. May the many prayers of aspiration at the Asura Cave and Boudhanath stupa bear fruit.
Suzanne Fairclough
I hadn't been to Nepal for twelve years. It seemed the right time to return last fall when I heard that Chagdud Rinpoche was leading a pilgrimage there and that we would accompany him in a Vajrakilaya long-life retreat at sacred Parping. It had long been my wish to practice there, where Guru Rinpoche realized Vajrakilaya at the Asura Cave (and left his handprint in the rockface!). I wanted also to see for myself the "self-arising" image of Tara on a rock there, which had become increasingly clear in recent decades.
In the accounts of prehistory, the Kathmandu Valley was originally an inland sea surrounded by mountains, drained when Manjushri cut open a passage with his sword to form the sacred valley. On arrival at the airport we could see the Swayambhunath stupa, perched on a hill on the western outskirts of Kathmandu. Swayambhu means "self-arisen." The stupa is said to have existed in the sky at the time of the first buddha, below the earth during the second buddha and partially hidden in the depths of the earth during Shakyamuni's day. Rinpoche told us that when he lived in Kathmandu, everyone could see a stupa in the sky above it on the fifteenth day of the sixth month. Now bands of monkeys cavort about the stupa and enclave of temples where Manjushri's throne once was and where Nagarjuna is said to have brought the texts of the Prajnaparamita when Shakyamuni taught the second vehicle of the Mahayana. Here, as well as at the Great Stupa of Boudhanath, Chagdud Tulku and our group offered thousands of butterlamps, dedicated to the benefit of all beings.
Ancient monuments–such as the small stupas symbolizing the enlightened mind that stand at every cross street in older sections of the medieval cities of Bhaktapur, Patao and Kathmandu–abound throughout the Kathmandu valley, testimony to the flourishing Buddhist culture of the past. Yet the life around the Great Stupa at Boudhanath is permeated with the vibrant devotion of today's practitioners as well. On my first visit to Nepal, the Great Stupa quietly dominated a sea of rice paddies and cultivated fields. It is now packed within a metropolis of monasteries, businesses and homes, and crowded streets. Boudhanath is inconceivable: blessings radiate beyond its extremes of rich and poor, vast and immediate, immaculate and dust-covered.
We stayed a short walk from the stupa and awoke each morning to the sound of deep booming horns of morning pujas in surrounding monasteries. At dawn, in morning fog, our street bustles with entrepreneurs, monks and nuns, families, and friends on their way to circumambulate the Great Stupa. There one looks for an opening to join the stream of people, who are murmuring Mani mantras and spinning the prayer wheels that ring the entire base of the stupa. Entering a courtyard where yogis sit and chant, one can offer butter-lamps within a large tent blazing with scores of flames and then ascend the stairs that lead up three tiers to the base of the stupa's dome. The great dome is inset with alcoves housing the panorama of tantric deities and surrounded by the "all-seeing eyes," which bestow their compassionate gaze in the four directions.
On our first day, the enthronement of the late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche's tulku occurred at his monastery outside the Boudhanath stupa. A crowd of dignitaries, monks and other disciples crushed into the courtyard, awaiting the tulku's arrival. His Holiness's "heart sons" and the fortunate few who could fit, waited in the temple where mandala and other offerings would be made; in the days following, a variety of sacred Tibetan dances would be performed. That night an enormous full moon illuminated the stupa, upon which a magical array of candles burned.
After the enthronement, we attended a three-day ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche's parinirvana and the one-year anniversary of his cremation in Bhutan. The ceremony took place at Shechen Tannyi Dargye Ling, the monastery His Holiness built near Boudhanath which radiates his vast vision. The ceremonies were presided over by Trulshig Rinpoche and attended by many great lamas, including H.E. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Rabjam Rinpoche, Chagdud Tulku, Tulku Pema Wangyal and Kongtrul Rinpoche. The assembly practiced the treasure revealed by His Holiness, the Essence of Siddhi, that Chagdud Gonpa conducts in its annual drubchen ceremony. On the final night, thousands of butterlamps were lit on all the tiers of the Boudhanath stupa, from which one could see the monastery illuminated with strands of colored lights like a magical palace floating in the darkness.
Rinpoche kindly arranged meetings for our group with such great teachers as Penor Rinpoche and Urgyen Tulku, as well as with the Sangyum Kushog, wife of the late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche. He encouraged us to use this precious opportunity by performing meritorious practice throughout our visit. While there are many practitioners and solitary yogis around the stupa at Boudhanath, we attracted attention when our group of thirty met early in the morning or late at night to do group practice or the Tara tsog. We aspired to fulfill Rinpoche' s request to accumulate 100,000 repetitions of Lama Mipham's prayer from our Red Tara practice ("Buddhas and bodhisattvas altogether ..."), chanting in small groups at the stupa over several hot, dusty days.
One day, we walked through luminous fields of rice and up a mountainside to the shrine of Namo Buddha, where in a previous life Shakyamuni Buddha had offered his flesh to feed a starving tigress and her cubs. We also bathed in the healing, pristine clear spring that spontaneously flowed from where Vajrayogini meditated at Godawari. After the richly fulfilling retreat in Parping, we went to lesser known sites near Kathmandu, to temples sacred toEkadzati, Garuda and Dorje P'hagmo, and to an image of Dipankara Buddha in the ancient city of Bhaktapur. In the twilight of a long day of travel, we entered the dark courtyard of a temple in Patan that dated from the days of Guru Rinpoche and then visited a large stupa across the road built by a king renowned for building one million stupas in a day.
Being in the axis mundi of the Great Stupa at Boudhanath infused my practice with greater diligence and scope. I remember the joy, in the midst of heartfelt prayers, of seeing a seven-year-old girl leading her younger brother in full prostrations around the stupa and I felt compassion for the scarred brown dogs with torn ears who lived at the stupa, sat with us during our practice and followed as we circumambulated.
The gracious hospitality of Tulku Sang-ngag and many members of Rinpoche's sangha made this pilgrimage possible for our group of thirty wayfarers from around the world. At the end of the Vajrakilaya practice in Parping, we made an offering to Tulku Sang-ngag which enabled him to purchase the land adjoining our practice site in order to build a temple. Our group also planted seeds for the possible purchase of land in Parping by Chagdud Gonpa for future retreatants. May the many prayers of aspiration at the Asura Cave and Boudhanath stupa bear fruit.
Suzanne Fairclough
I hadn't been to Nepal for twelve years. It seemed the right time to return last fall when I heard that Chagdud Rinpoche was leading a pilgrimage there and that we would accompany him in a Vajrakilaya long-life retreat at sacred Parping. It had long been my wish to practice there, where Guru Rinpoche realized Vajrakilaya at the Asura Cave (and left his handprint in the rockface!). I wanted also to see for myself the "self-arising" image of Tara on a rock there, which had become increasingly clear in recent decades.
In the accounts of prehistory, the Kathmandu Valley was originally an inland sea surrounded by mountains, drained when Manjushri cut open a passage with his sword to form the sacred valley. On arrival at the airport we could see the Swayambhunath stupa, perched on a hill on the western outskirts of Kathmandu. Swayambhu means "self-arisen." The stupa is said to have existed in the sky at the time of the first buddha, below the earth during the second buddha and partially hidden in the depths of the earth during Shakyamuni's day. Rinpoche told us that when he lived in Kathmandu, everyone could see a stupa in the sky above it on the fifteenth day of the sixth month. Now bands of monkeys cavort about the stupa and enclave of temples where Manjushri's throne once was and where Nagarjuna is said to have brought the texts of the Prajnaparamita when Shakyamuni taught the second vehicle of the Mahayana. Here, as well as at the Great Stupa of Boudhanath, Chagdud Tulku and our group offered thousands of butterlamps, dedicated to the benefit of all beings.
Ancient monuments–such as the small stupas symbolizing the enlightened mind that stand at every cross street in older sections of the medieval cities of Bhaktapur, Patao and Kathmandu–abound throughout the Kathmandu valley, testimony to the flourishing Buddhist culture of the past. Yet the life around the Great Stupa at Boudhanath is permeated with the vibrant devotion of today's practitioners as well. On my first visit to Nepal, the Great Stupa quietly dominated a sea of rice paddies and cultivated fields. It is now packed within a metropolis of monasteries, businesses and homes, and crowded streets. Boudhanath is inconceivable: blessings radiate beyond its extremes of rich and poor, vast and immediate, immaculate and dust-covered.
We stayed a short walk from the stupa and awoke each morning to the sound of deep booming horns of morning pujas in surrounding monasteries. At dawn, in morning fog, our street bustles with entrepreneurs, monks and nuns, families, and friends on their way to circumambulate the Great Stupa. There one looks for an opening to join the stream of people, who are murmuring Mani mantras and spinning the prayer wheels that ring the entire base of the stupa. Entering a courtyard where yogis sit and chant, one can offer butter-lamps within a large tent blazing with scores of flames and then ascend the stairs that lead up three tiers to the base of the stupa's dome. The great dome is inset with alcoves housing the panorama of tantric deities and surrounded by the "all-seeing eyes," which bestow their compassionate gaze in the four directions.
On our first day, the enthronement of the late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche's tulku occurred at his monastery outside the Boudhanath stupa. A crowd of dignitaries, monks and other disciples crushed into the courtyard, awaiting the tulku's arrival. His Holiness's "heart sons" and the fortunate few who could fit, waited in the temple where mandala and other offerings would be made; in the days following, a variety of sacred Tibetan dances would be performed. That night an enormous full moon illuminated the stupa, upon which a magical array of candles burned.
After the enthronement, we attended a three-day ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche's parinirvana and the one-year anniversary of his cremation in Bhutan. The ceremony took place at Shechen Tannyi Dargye Ling, the monastery His Holiness built near Boudhanath which radiates his vast vision. The ceremonies were presided over by Trulshig Rinpoche and attended by many great lamas, including H.E. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Rabjam Rinpoche, Chagdud Tulku, Tulku Pema Wangyal and Kongtrul Rinpoche. The assembly practiced the treasure revealed by His Holiness, the Essence of Siddhi, that Chagdud Gonpa conducts in its annual drubchen ceremony. On the final night, thousands of butterlamps were lit on all the tiers of the Boudhanath stupa, from which one could see the monastery illuminated with strands of colored lights like a magical palace floating in the darkness.
Rinpoche kindly arranged meetings for our group with such great teachers as Penor Rinpoche and Urgyen Tulku, as well as with the Sangyum Kushog, wife of the late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche. He encouraged us to use this precious opportunity by performing meritorious practice throughout our visit. While there are many practitioners and solitary yogis around the stupa at Boudhanath, we attracted attention when our group of thirty met early in the morning or late at night to do group practice or the Tara tsog. We aspired to fulfill Rinpoche' s request to accumulate 100,000 repetitions of Lama Mipham's prayer from our Red Tara practice ("Buddhas and bodhisattvas altogether ..."), chanting in small groups at the stupa over several hot, dusty days.
One day, we walked through luminous fields of rice and up a mountainside to the shrine of Namo Buddha, where in a previous life Shakyamuni Buddha had offered his flesh to feed a starving tigress and her cubs. We also bathed in the healing, pristine clear spring that spontaneously flowed from where Vajrayogini meditated at Godawari. After the richly fulfilling retreat in Parping, we went to lesser known sites near Kathmandu, to temples sacred toEkadzati, Garuda and Dorje P'hagmo, and to an image of Dipankara Buddha in the ancient city of Bhaktapur. In the twilight of a long day of travel, we entered the dark courtyard of a temple in Patan that dated from the days of Guru Rinpoche and then visited a large stupa across the road built by a king renowned for building one million stupas in a day.
Being in the axis mundi of the Great Stupa at Boudhanath infused my practice with greater diligence and scope. I remember the joy, in the midst of heartfelt prayers, of seeing a seven-year-old girl leading her younger brother in full prostrations around the stupa and I felt compassion for the scarred brown dogs with torn ears who lived at the stupa, sat with us during our practice and followed as we circumambulated.
The gracious hospitality of Tulku Sang-ngag and many members of Rinpoche's sangha made this pilgrimage possible for our group of thirty wayfarers from around the world. At the end of the Vajrakilaya practice in Parping, we made an offering to Tulku Sang-ngag which enabled him to purchase the land adjoining our practice site in order to build a temple. Our group also planted seeds for the possible purchase of land in Parping by Chagdud Gonpa for future retreatants. May the many prayers of aspiration at the Asura Cave and Boudhanath stupa bear fruit.
Suzanne Fairclough
I hadn't been to Nepal for twelve years. It seemed the right time to return last fall when I heard that Chagdud Rinpoche was leading a pilgrimage there and that we would accompany him in a Vajrakilaya long-life retreat at sacred Parping. It had long been my wish to practice there, where Guru Rinpoche realized Vajrakilaya at the Asura Cave (and left his handprint in the rockface!). I wanted also to see for myself the "self-arising" image of Tara on a rock there, which had become increasingly clear in recent decades.
In the accounts of prehistory, the Kathmandu Valley was originally an inland sea surrounded by mountains, drained when Manjushri cut open a passage with his sword to form the sacred valley. On arrival at the airport we could see the Swayambhunath stupa, perched on a hill on the western outskirts of Kathmandu. Swayambhu means "self-arisen." The stupa is said to have existed in the sky at the time of the first buddha, below the earth during the second buddha and partially hidden in the depths of the earth during Shakyamuni's day. Rinpoche told us that when he lived in Kathmandu, everyone could see a stupa in the sky above it on the fifteenth day of the sixth month. Now bands of monkeys cavort about the stupa and enclave of temples where Manjushri's throne once was and where Nagarjuna is said to have brought the texts of the Prajnaparamita when Shakyamuni taught the second vehicle of the Mahayana. Here, as well as at the Great Stupa of Boudhanath, Chagdud Tulku and our group offered thousands of butterlamps, dedicated to the benefit of all beings.
Ancient monuments–such as the small stupas symbolizing the enlightened mind that stand at every cross street in older sections of the medieval cities of Bhaktapur, Patao and Kathmandu–abound throughout the Kathmandu valley, testimony to the flourishing Buddhist culture of the past. Yet the life around the Great Stupa at Boudhanath is permeated with the vibrant devotion of today's practitioners as well. On my first visit to Nepal, the Great Stupa quietly dominated a sea of rice paddies and cultivated fields. It is now packed within a metropolis of monasteries, businesses and homes, and crowded streets. Boudhanath is inconceivable: blessings radiate beyond its extremes of rich and poor, vast and immediate, immaculate and dust-covered.
We stayed a short walk from the stupa and awoke each morning to the sound of deep booming horns of morning pujas in surrounding monasteries. At dawn, in morning fog, our street bustles with entrepreneurs, monks and nuns, families, and friends on their way to circumambulate the Great Stupa. There one looks for an opening to join the stream of people, who are murmuring Mani mantras and spinning the prayer wheels that ring the entire base of the stupa. Entering a courtyard where yogis sit and chant, one can offer butter-lamps within a large tent blazing with scores of flames and then ascend the stairs that lead up three tiers to the base of the stupa's dome. The great dome is inset with alcoves housing the panorama of tantric deities and surrounded by the "all-seeing eyes," which bestow their compassionate gaze in the four directions.
On our first day, the enthronement of the late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche's tulku occurred at his monastery outside the Boudhanath stupa. A crowd of dignitaries, monks and other disciples crushed into the courtyard, awaiting the tulku's arrival. His Holiness's "heart sons" and the fortunate few who could fit, waited in the temple where mandala and other offerings would be made; in the days following, a variety of sacred Tibetan dances would be performed. That night an enormous full moon illuminated the stupa, upon which a magical array of candles burned.
After the enthronement, we attended a three-day ceremony commemorating the second anniversary of H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche's parinirvana and the one-year anniversary of his cremation in Bhutan. The ceremony took place at Shechen Tannyi Dargye Ling, the monastery His Holiness built near Boudhanath which radiates his vast vision. The ceremonies were presided over by Trulshig Rinpoche and attended by many great lamas, including H.E. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Rabjam Rinpoche, Chagdud Tulku, Tulku Pema Wangyal and Kongtrul Rinpoche. The assembly practiced the treasure revealed by His Holiness, the Essence of Siddhi, that Chagdud Gonpa conducts in its annual drubchen ceremony. On the final night, thousands of butterlamps were lit on all the tiers of the Boudhanath stupa, from which one could see the monastery illuminated with strands of colored lights like a magical palace floating in the darkness.
Rinpoche kindly arranged meetings for our group with such great teachers as Penor Rinpoche and Urgyen Tulku, as well as with the Sangyum Kushog, wife of the late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche. He encouraged us to use this precious opportunity by performing meritorious practice throughout our visit. While there are many practitioners and solitary yogis around the stupa at Boudhanath, we attracted attention when our group of thirty met early in the morning or late at night to do group practice or the Tara tsog. We aspired to fulfill Rinpoche' s request to accumulate 100,000 repetitions of Lama Mipham's prayer from our Red Tara practice ("Buddhas and bodhisattvas altogether ..."), chanting in small groups at the stupa over several hot, dusty days.
One day, we walked through luminous fields of rice and up a mountainside to the shrine of Namo Buddha, where in a previous life Shakyamuni Buddha had offered his flesh to feed a starving tigress and her cubs. We also bathed in the healing, pristine clear spring that spontaneously flowed from where Vajrayogini meditated at Godawari. After the richly fulfilling retreat in Parping, we went to lesser known sites near Kathmandu, to temples sacred toEkadzati, Garuda and Dorje P'hagmo, and to an image of Dipankara Buddha in the ancient city of Bhaktapur. In the twilight of a long day of travel, we entered the dark courtyard of a temple in Patan that dated from the days of Guru Rinpoche and then visited a large stupa across the road built by a king renowned for building one million stupas in a day.
Being in the axis mundi of the Great Stupa at Boudhanath infused my practice with greater diligence and scope. I remember the joy, in the midst of heartfelt prayers, of seeing a seven-year-old girl leading her younger brother in full prostrations around the stupa and I felt compassion for the scarred brown dogs with torn ears who lived at the stupa, sat with us during our practice and followed as we circumambulated.
The gracious hospitality of Tulku Sang-ngag and many members of Rinpoche's sangha made this pilgrimage possible for our group of thirty wayfarers from around the world. At the end of the Vajrakilaya practice in Parping, we made an offering to Tulku Sang-ngag which enabled him to purchase the land adjoining our practice site in order to build a temple. Our group also planted seeds for the possible purchase of land in Parping by Chagdud Gonpa for future retreatants. May the many prayers of aspiration at the Asura Cave and Boudhanath stupa bear fruit.
Suzanne Fairclough
