This short video is taken at Wang De Tse Monastery, overlooking Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan.  The prayer flags blow positive aspirations and prayers to all sentient beings in the ten directions.

The iron bridge at Tachu Gang, Bhutan was built in the 15th Century by Tangton Gyalpo, a great Buddhist master.  The iron rings for this bridge do not degenerate, to the astonishment of modern science, which has no explanation.

This is a video taken at the Great White Stupa of Boudhanath, at Katmandu, Nepal. The stupa is about 1500 years old, and forms the center of the town which has been built up around it.  Twice a day, at sunrise and sunset, the whole town converge on the stupa to do circumambulation, while they make wishing prayers for the benefit of their familes and all beings.  

Some of our travelers took a one hour tour, a plane ride to view the Himalayas. Mt. Everest is shown at the end – the camera zooms in on the mountain.

Parphing is about a one hour drive south of Katmandhu, and is the site of a Ka-Nying monastery whose abbot is Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche.  The monastery and retreat center is built around the Asura Cave, a famous place where Guru Rinpoche meditated in the 9th century. These three young monks were accompanied by one elder monk in their strenuous chanting.

Coming into the airport in Paro (the only airport in the country, at 7300 feet, is considered one of the most challenging in the world), I was amazed when all the passengers disembarked onto the runway, put down their bags, and just stood there, jaws dropped. The crisp air fills your lungs as you gaze at the mountains, and even the airport buildings look like monasteries.

At Paro Airport, you know you're not in Kansas anymore.

One of our first stops was the iron bridge at Tachu Gang, on the main road from Paro to the capital Thimphu. The iron rings for this bridge were forged in the 15th century by the great saint Tangton Gyalpo, known for his compassion, incredible longevity and public works projects. To this day, no one knows how he forged the iron for his over 100 bridges, which has not rusted for over half a millennium. Having studied Tangton Gyalpo in the past, his life story always sounded like a fairy tale, but this all changed when I walked across this bridge and touched the iron rings.

Bhutan is a mountainous country – according to our guide, it isn’t really a mountain if it isn’t over 21,000 feet. Scoffiing at the mere hills, we traveled to Dochu La, a pass at just over 10,000 feet where 108 stupas were constructed. Another magical place, we gasped at the breathtaking Himalayas and their complement of beautiful Bhutanese stupas and temple.

We visited many monasteries, Buddhist institutes, stupas, caves and other sacred places, most of which are up some mountain trail, accessible only by foot or horse. A typical visit to a monastery involved a hike of an hour or two or three, often with a steep rise in elevation, as the monasteries were built centuries ago in remote places where serious Buddhist practitioners could meditate without the distractions of the town. By far the most famous, and the most other-worldly, is Tiger’s Nest, a monastery that hangs precariously from the mountain at 10,000 feet. Here at the cave around which the monastery is constructed, the great 9th century Buddhist master Padmasambhava Guru Rinpoche meditated and achieved realization of how to overcome obstacles to establishing Buddhism in Bhutan and Tibet. Although he meditated here 1200 years ago, the monastery is imbued with a very strong presence, a combination of his blessings, the strength of all the Buddhist practitioners who have followed his example, and the sheer beauty and power of the place.

Our pilgrimage to Bhutan was truly inspiring. Recollecting the experience, I am truly grateful for the Buddhist teachers that have achieved such freedom of mind and have been so generous to share their world with others. The sacred places of Bhutan are a glimpse into such a world, unbound by time and space.

Please enjoy some of the photos taken by our travelers, ranging from the profound to the profane. 

Three happy monks at Pharphing

The newest sadhu

 

Tibetan woman

 

 

 

Local Nepali with Britney tee shirt

 

 

 

 

Morning fire-like sky over Boudhanath

Bart & Dr Kunzang

Baby monkey at the monkey stupa

Happy travelers

 

October 18

We all know the story.

Raised in insular luxury, Prince Siddhartha began his spiritual transformation by leaving the palace to solve the riddle of old age, sickness and death. He renounced sensual pleasures, became an ascetic, and ate so little that his bones protruded. Finding no answer that way, he took nourishment, sat on a pile of freshly cut grass and meditated under a tree until he reached enlightenment.

Today, we retraced the Buddha’s spiritual steps—only in reverse. And while none of us claimed full-blown enlightenment by bedtime, the experience was magical enough to leave us deeply appreciative of what the Buddha sacrificed to find the Middle Way.

The day felt special from the start. During morning discussion and meditation, Bart cut through the knot of confusion some of us were feeling about our own aspirations. They just weren’t clear enough.

“Maybe the spiritual path is more of a question than an answer,” he said. “The first step is being open, and recognizing our own lack of clarity, which in itself is a huge realization….”

You could almost see the sighs of relief.

Then Choepal nudged us along the path further by connecting our actions with our aspirations. The result: karma, which he neatly defined as “feedback, both obvious and internal.”

Knowing that we can control this impact by choosing beneficial actions leads to freedom—the freedom to choose our own happiness, he added.

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We headed off for a dose of the asceticism that has powered much of Buddhism over the centuries. We piled into the van for a ride to the Sankhu Monastery, in the hills east of Katmandu.

We were in the hunt for three historic caves, where some of the philosophy’s “giants” hid from society and meditated centuries ago to clear their own aspirations and insight.

One was the Buddhist sage Marpa, originator of the Kagyu lineage, one of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He came to meditate in the Kathmandu Valley 900 years ago during one of his sojourns between India and Tibet.

With a hushed reverence, a number of us sat in the same spot and meditated for a few minutes, absorbing the vibes.

Meditation Caves at Sankhu

Cave meditation

“It’s pretty amazing we’re here,” said Jody. “I don’t feel worthy.” But Bart counselled that everyone has the same profound nature of awakening in one’s own heart, which makes all beings worthy. “Our own feeling of limitation is just a very old habitual pattern,” he added.

Nearby, we meditated as well in cave where the 80 Mahasiddhas—advanced practitioners such as Saraha—were believed to have practiced.

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Leading us to the caves was Lama Lekshay of Sankhu Monastery. The small “gompa” is connected to Trungram Gyaltrul Rinpoche, considered the emanation of Milarepa. Rinpoche now has a retreat center in upper New York State and was the first reincarnated lama to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard.

It was at the humble monastery that were received the blessing of hospitality. The monks prepared a simple buffet lunch, which after our outing tasted sublime. But we were especially moved by the gesture of Gyaltrul Rinpoche’s aunt, an elderly nun who speaks no English.

As we rounded the monastery one last time, she was waiting for us with a pile of katas, traditional Tibetan scarves. She insisted on draping a white kata over each visitor’s head. We took a group photo. Some of us were speechless; a few actually cried.

Group photo at Sankhu monastery

The van came down from the hillside and moved slowly through the crowded city streets of Kathmandu. The garbage was piled in mounds. People crowded around on the broken sidewalks.

A huge bull stood in the middle of the main road, blocking traffic. He was at exactly the same spot that he was standing and blocking traffic in the morning, when we squeezed by. Two men were trying in vain to make him move. A holiday band played a festive song from the back of a truck, which also carried the image of a Hindu god. Dozens of young men, strips of red cloth wrapped around their heads, danced behind, jubilantly. Butchers looked out from their small shops behind open-air counters of skinned and cut-up goats.

Chaos. Dirt. Colors. Music. Smell. As sheltered Westerners, we certainly felt the kind of assault to the sense that Siddhartha must have experienced when he took his first ride outside the manicured luxury of his father’s palace. Indeed, seemed like we were passing him going the other way. For after a day of roughing it to the caves of the ascetics, Drala had scheduled dinner at one of Asia’s most celebrated–and palatial–hotels.

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Showered and dressed up, we walked into Dwarika’s.

The hotel grew out of a passion of its namesake founder, who 50 years began salvaging the intricately hand-carved woodwork that had been discarded from torn-down buildings. Over time, he saved nearly hundreds of pillars, door frames and other pieces that would have been otherwise cut up for firewood. Now priceless relics of Nepal’s storied past, they are built into the complex of brick buildings that are largely hidden from the road.

Inside, the complex opens into a courtyard, which tonight was softly lit rows of candles. After watching a display of Nepali dancing, we took our places in the Krishnarpan restaurant for a sumptuous nine-course meal.

It started with an assortment of Nepali hors d’oeuvres, moved to pan grilled oyster mushrooms, then marinated pan-fried river fish over rice risotto. Dessert was Nepali fruit salad with spiced yoghurt. The main course was a traditional Nepali plate that included chicken curry, organic long gourd and lentil “tempered” with Himalayan herbs.

What a feast. Weary, stuffed, and happy, we headed back to the Hyatt having tasted more than food. We had savored all aspects of the Buddha’s journey. And we were happy.

They could be mistaken for sisters. Or intergenerational buddies.

But Jody, 41, and Jessica, 17, are Drala’s mother-and-daughter team from Whistler, Canada. And they now find themselves sharing a transformational odyssey.

Jody decided to take Jessica and her two other children out of school, and live in Australia for the year. “I was very excited to come to Kathmandu for the Drala program. It felt like a special place to come to.”

Jody has done the usual spiritual dabbling—a four-day yoga weekend, on-and-off meditation at home, a 10-day retreat.  “It was intense – I came out of there feeling like a peeled grape.”

Drala is different. Jody said she liked the intimate feel of the group and the “softer” approach of the teachings juxtaposed to the jarring effect of being in such a strange and spiritually powerful culture.

“This feels like a really nice balance of culture, culture, spirituality and companionship. I think it opens you up to a greater potential…. It has far exceeded my expectations.”

That she can explore this potential with her daughter is a double blessing. “We like to think we’re growing up together,” said Jessica.

The group’s youngest member but already a world traveler—Jessica visited five European countries in the 11th grade—she said it was “really invigorating to know there are so many things out there to explore.”

And things “in there,” too. The Drala experience has afforded Jessica her first opportunity to meditate.

“That was the first time I tried,” she said of the Sunday morning session. “It felt normal.”

As for the afternoon, Jessica was so tired from the day’s exploration that she feared falling asleep. “After meditating for five minutes, I felt so rejuvenated,” she said.

Ah, Beginner’s mind….

Between discussion/meditation sessions, our group visited Bhaktapur, one of the three former kingdoms of the Kathmandu Valley.

Before leaving in our minivan, we received a lecture on the modern politics (hopelessly deadlocked), history (rich) and biodiversity (even richer) of Nepal from our tour guide, Kiran—a Newar, an indigenous tribe and one of the 60 ethnic groups in the country.

Kiran said there were 850 species of birds, 250 kinds of animals and 800 species of butterflies in Nepal, which has elevations ranging from slightly above sea level to the top of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain (29,029 feet).

Nepal’s monarchy was toppled for good in 2008. But since then, the country’s fledgling democracy has been paralyzed by an internecine political feud between the Maoists and a multi-party ruling coalition.

The problems have mounted as the sides refuse to cooperate. Eight-hour power outages. Water shortages. Price hikes for gasoline and food. The failure to write a permanent Constitution. The inability of Parliament to choose a new Prime Minister, a post that remains vacant.

Calling the last few years a “learning period” for the new republic, Kiran acknowledged that the Nepalese are “very upset” with their politicos and that “some people think it was a far better time under the kings.”

It is only natural, then, that Kiran, as most Nepalese, bask in the glories of their past. And Bhaktapur–founded during Nepal’s “golden age,” during the Malla dynasty of the 12th Century—is perhaps the best example of those historical glories.

Sealed off from traffic, the UNESCO cultural heritage site is an open-air museum of Hindu temples and royal buildings crowded around red-brick squares. It was no accident that the more significant structures looked like pagodas; the Nepalese claim they originated the style, which the Chinese copied.

We took our lunch overlooking the five-story Nyatpol Temple, built in 1702 to honor Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth. It is the tallest pagoda temple in the Kathmandu Valley.

We were told that because the temple’s foundation was set five stories underground, it has been able to withstand the periodic earthquakes that have wracked Kathmandu, killing hundreds and destroying other sacred sites and homes.

The most arresting architectural feature, though, was the intricate woodwork that adorned the lintels, windows and roof lines of Bhaktapur’s historic structures. We eventually worked our way over to see the most famous, the peacock window that is pictured here.

As we walked through Bhaktapur, the area came alive with crowds of Nepalese, many of them families out to celebrate Dasain, Nepal’s most important Hindu festival season.

Families like this one walked in groups, the women dressed in colorful sarees, predominantly red. Women and men sported red tikkas (bindis) the size of small pancakes on their foreheads. The marks are believed to bring good luck; the bigger the tikka, the better the luck.

This five-story structure, built in honor of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, is the tallest pagoda temple in Nepal

Sunday, October 16

What is happiness, after all?

Good question, vital question—and the question that Choepal, our teacher from Austria, used to inspire our discussions during this, Day Two, of the Drala experience.

Many of us were still coming off of yesterday’s immersion into the intense sensory experience of Kathmandu. Some were also emerging from jetlag. All of us had already considered our personal aspirations for the trip. Now Choepal was gently prodding us to figure out how to fulfill them.

Is happiness having fun? Is it the fulfillment of expectations? Or is it the “entertainment” we often seek to cover over the rough edges of human existence?

Jacqueline jumped in.

“Expectations are the wreckage of the future,” she warned.

Lynne, a Zen Buddhist, questioned whether happiness was really the issue.

“I think happiness is overrated. Contentment is a better goal.”

Choepal offered a working definition of his own. Happiness isn’t fun, which comes and goes because it is conditioned on outside influences or people. It isn’t distraction, which we use to change the subject on ourselves.

Stable and unconditional happiness is the “absence of anything that makes us unhappy,” particularly physical and mental pain. And there is only one time when we can be happy: now. The past is too late and the future doesn’t count.

Choepal said that true happiness comes through complete relaxation. That way, we can detect and disable habitual behaviors that propel us to make the same mistakes over and over. By stopping this self-defeating process—a phenomenon Buddhist call “samsara”—we gain deeper insight into our true nature and possibilities.

“It’s a question of getting in touch with ourselves,” said Choepal. “It’s not about transforming who we are but transforming the capacity to see who we are…. The basic idea of Buddhist practice is that whatever is there within us can unfold.”

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That stutter-step in logic provided an opening for the lesson of the day: meditation.

Contrary to popular belief, meditation is not a mental exercise but a physical one, Choepal said. It is a deliberate act of connecting with our bodies. We feel the breath nourish every part of our physical being while allowing emotions and thoughts to enter and leave our minds like passing clouds. No grasping, no judgments, no fear.

As “training wheels” for our meditation, Choepal had each of us focus on our breath, counting it as it rose and fell according to its natural rhythm. We did this five minutes in the morning, five minutes in the evening.

Jessica, who at 17 is the youngest in the group, said she had never meditated before.

“This was the first time I tried. It felt normal,” she said. After a long day of sight-seeing, she was worried she might fall asleep during the second session.

But, she observed, “after meditating five minutes, I felt so rejuvenated.”

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Friday, October 15

The sun was setting on a balmy Kathmandu day and the all-seeing eyes of the illuminated Boudhanath stupa gazed down on us from a distance. Out on the patio of the Hyatt, 10 “transformational travelers” gathered for wine and chit-chat.

The first official tour of Drala Adventures had begun.

The last of us had arrived in the afternoon. We had come from New York; Canada, by way of Australia; Austria (the one with no kangaroos); California and Bangladesh.

Participants included Sue, who founded a highly successful beauty products company; Jody and Jessica, mother and daughter, who with the rest of their family have taken a year off to travel; Whitney, a private school admissions dean; Jacklyn, marketing director for a construction management firm; Anne, who runs a non-profit program helping Latino school children; Lynne, a social worker; and me, an international journalism consultant.

After we settled around a traditional dinner of Nepalese food, Drala co-founder Bart Mendel explained the company’s name.

“Drala,” he said, is a Tibetan word that means uncovering genuine confidence by overcoming fear and hesitation.” He said the schedule of teachings, meditation and visits to Kathmandu’s holy places were geared to generate confidence by helping us become more “engaged with the present moment.”

Everybody seemed ready. The itinerary may have called for visiting six of the seven UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites in Kathmandu, but the theme that emerged around the dinner table was that of inner exploration.

Many travelers said they booked the Drala tour to call time-out from their “ordinary” and hectic lives so they could generate greater spiritual openness. Some expressed an interesting in learning about Buddhism itself.

Choepal—a lay Buddhist teacher from Graz, Austria and our teacher for the week—said that while he would introduce techniques taken from the “Buddhist tool box,” the teaching apply to any spiritual path or quest.

Suzan Garner underscored that notion, saying the emphasis will be more all-encompassing, a kind of spiritual and cultural immersion that would include Buddhism “without the labels.”

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Saturday, October 16

Of course, no transformational journey can begin without first setting a course or intention.

At the 9 a.m. discussion session, Choepal, a veteran of two three-year Buddhist retreats, asked us to consider our personal aspirations—how we want to be in the world. This, he said, is the starting point of any transformation.

“Today we can think big,” he said. “Today we are idealists.”

Approaching life this way requires confidence. Confidence in ourselves and capacities; confidence in our ability to communicate; and confidence in the world. Most of all, it requires confidence in the “way of being in the present…of being in touch.”

But simply setting and aspiration, or wish, for life isn’t enough. Hence this morning’s visit to the world-famous Boudhanath stupa.

Lama Lekshay, a young Tibetan monk, joined the session to relate the history of the seventh century structure, considered one of the holiest shrines to Buddhists.

The origins came from a humble woman, who tricked the king into giving her the land. The woman told the king she wanted to build a stupa and requested a grant of earth large enough to be contained within a bull skin. Surprised by the modest request, the king agreed.

The woman then tore up the skin, formed a long rope and encircled a tract considerably larger than the king expected. The king couldn’t retract his promise and the woman had enough land to start building what, with the help of successive generations, became Nepal’s largest stupa.

While the story may be legend, the stupa’s drawing power is not.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims circumambulate—walk clockwise around—the stupa. Wishes made during this “kora,” or devotional loop, are said to be amplified many times over.

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So it was our turn.

Undeterred by the unseasonable rain, we donned parkas and borrowed umbrellas from the hotel and threaded our way through narrow walkways to offer our own aspirations at the domed shrine.

For Anne, it was an assault on the senses. The grandness of the structure, the rain, the wafting clouds of incense, the colors and surrounding trinket shops, the ribbons of prayer flags jostling in the rain—they were enough to wear her out.

“There were so many sensory inputs—visual, auditory, ideas—I could only absorb so much,” she said later. “I was ready for a nap.”

Jody described how her “head went into a whirlwind” as she contemplated the many aspirations she entertained during her kora.

We circumambulated outside the stupa’s large wall and then walked up to the second level, getting a closer look at its magnificent top and painted eyes. We then visited the Guru Lhakhang Monastery, located directly across from the stupa, to light butter lamps as offerings.

At the afternoon discussion session, Suzan talked about the energetic power of the Boudhanath stupa, where spiritual masters and millions of devotees have offered fervent wishing prayers over the centuries.

It is strong enough to loosen the emotional armor we have patched together to function in our everyday lives, she said.

“Here at one of the major power spots of the world, the energy starts loosening the screws of our armor — we can’t defend against it – we just have to give in. When we can see the humor in it, the real joy begins.”

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Dinner was a different kind of treat.

We headed over to the home of Drs. Kunzang and Tashi Pedon, who live on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Brother and sister, they run the best-known Tibetan medicine clinic in downtown Kathmandu and have been friends with Bart and Suzan for many years.

They fed us mounds of “momos,” the traditional steamed Tibetan dumplings filled with meat, a brothy soup and plenty of beer and wine.

Then at our request, they described the theory of Tibetan medicine, a non-invasive practice that employs pulse diagnosis and uses herb combinations to treat chronic illnesses.

Dr. Tashi explained that Tibetan medicine is based on the body’s three “humors”—bile, wind and phlegm. When one of these gets out of whack, bodily systems suffer and a person gets sick. She said a Tibetan doctor diagnoses a patient through urine analysis and by evaluating different aspects of a patient’s 12 pulses.

Examining the pulse is “like a meditation,” added Dr. Kunzang, who is also a Tibetan monk. The medicines he prescribes might actually be a combination of 35 different herbs, which are found in Tibet and parts of Nepal, he said.

We asked whether Westerners, with their hectic schedules and materialistic tendencies, were more stressed out and susceptible to mental problems than people in the East.

Dr. Kunzang said that similar pressures are creating stress among Easterners, as well. We figured it was probably because of the global reach of satellite television, which spreads the desire for material prosperity, and the fact that depression among the poor is being more widely recognized by the medical community.

There was no stress or sadness tonight, though. Our bellies full of momos and our hearts full of thanks, we concluded our first full day of Drala Adventures by thanking our guests and taking the minivan back to the Hyatt.

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The trip guides have arrived a few days early, here to make arrangements for the next group of travelers.  Here are a few photos from some of the ancient stupas that we will visit shortly.

Swayambunath

Great White Stupa at sunset

Dwarika Woodwork

Dwarika Fountain

Katmandu is a land of contrasts – incredible ancient architecture and even more ancient stupas and religious sites, along with congested streets with the very poor.  What would the trip be without the oasis of the 5 star Hyatt hotel?

Hyatt Lobby

Hyatt Pool