Karma with his wife and child at Spangmik Village near Pangong Tso in Ladakh
Karma’s life will never be easy. He lives in Spangmik village, beside Pangong Tso. At over 14,000 ft, summer is too short and barely warm while winter is endless and pitiless. He works as a cleaner in a government school in Durbuk, a couple of hours away by bus. If he can, he comes home on Sundays.
Home is his old father, teenaged sister (who doesn’t attend school), wife and a toddler son. They grow vegetables in the summer for themselves and sit idle in the winter, waiting for time to pass. Why don’t they move to a lower altitude, where life is more comfortable and where there are jobs for other family members? [continue reading…]
Tagged as:
Gyalwang Drukpa,
Karma,
Ladakh,
Pangong Tso,
Spangmik
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It’s rare to see nuns conduct prayers at a Buddhist set-up. At Shey’s Naropa Palace, you’ll find this rarity.
About 50 nuns live in and manage the palace built just before the Ornaments of Naropa ceremony in 2004. This event, held every 12 years, was till then celebrated at Hemis but the need for a larger venue prompted the shift. [continue reading…]
Tagged as:
buddhism,
Drukpa,
Gyalwang Drukpa,
hemis,
Ladakh,
Naropa Palace,
Nuns
It is not very often that one gets an opportunity to meet someone of the stature of His Holiness, the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa, head of the 800 year old Drukpa lineage. I did for an exclusive one-on-one chat on the eve of his pad yatra from Manali to Leh starting on May 23, 2009. Click here to know more about it.
The Drukpa Lineage follows the Mahayana Buddhist tradition in philosophy, i.e. the philosophy of “getting enlightened for the benefit of others” and the methods are based on the Tantrayana teachings passed down from the great Indian saint Naropa, who was born in 1016 in a West Bengal royal family. The Drukpa Lineage is one of the main Buddhist schools throughout the Himalayas including Bhutan, Tibet, China, Nepal and India, with four to five million students. The most revered monastery in Ladakh, the Hemis Monastery, comes under the Drukpa school. Click here to read more about the lineage. Continue to read the interview
Tagged as:
Gyalwang Drukpa,
hemis,
Ladakh,
Mahayana Buddhism
