Hi all,
I'm going to make this quick because it's finally stopped raining and the sun has come out so i want to make the most of it! I went to the Gyuto Monastery yesterday with 2 of the women I work with, the monastery is home to the 3rd highest Tibetan spiritual leader after the Panchen and Dalai Lamas. The Karmapa is a 23yr old guy who is the current reincarnation (17th) and is fancied by most Tibet women and a lot of Western Buddhism-practising women too. He holds public audiences every Wednesday and Saturday so Jen and Leann (who are Buddhists) were keen to see him and I just went along to see what all the fuss was about! He spoke for about 15 min and it mostly went over my head but he seemed very sweet and self-effacing. Then we all queued up to do the white scarf thing and give our offerings (money). After that we went to the Norbulingka Institute which is an organisation selling (hugely expensive) traditional Tibetan handicrafts - the main attraction is that it's set in beautiful Japanese gardens. So it was a really nice day all round!
Today has been the Dalai Lama's birthday and i got up early to go to the temple and see some of the celebrations. It's a year of mourning here at the moment because of the uprising in March so it's been a quieter affair than normal but the turnout was massive, despite the rain, and it was nice to hear the singing of traditional songs etc. Was just a pity that I couldn't understand any of the speeches cos they were all in Tibetan! I was supposed to be going to a free 2hr yoga class this afternoon but in typical Indian style, there was confusion about the booking of the venue and at one point there were 20 young people stretching out in yoga positions while the Tibetan rock band performing at tonight's concert were practising in the same hall! Eventually the class was abandoned and the teacher, an English guy called Terrence was really annoyed. I had to stop myself from laughing when one of the Tibetan musicians tried to apologise and he turned round and said "Don't worry mate, it's your karma!"
So anyway, i hope you've found the photos interesting that i've posted so far - i'm going to keep uploading more but it's quite a lengthy process.
All the best! Kat x
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