Ene 24 2011 Will: «celestial» burials and the Spanish child-lama

• The Potala from the Sera Monastery

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/El-Potala-desde-el-monasterio-de-Sera.jpg

  The monk said a cliff above 4.000 meters, east of Sera monastery, where there is evident a rustic stone house. Tibetans, account, carry their dead at dawn to solitary cliffs like this to butcher them with an ax. The vultures and crows do the rest. In the land of no snow cemeteries.

• Will

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/Sera.jpg

  The monk said a cliff above 4.000 meters, east of Sera monastery, where there is evident a rustic stone house. Tibetans, account, carry their dead at dawn to solitary cliffs like this to butcher them with an ax. The vultures and crows do the rest. In the land of no snow cemeteries.

• Ceremony discussion of the monks of Sera

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/Ceremonia-de-discusion-de-los-monjes-de-Sera.jpg

  The monk said a cliff above 4.000 meters, east of Sera monastery, where there is evident a rustic stone house. Tibetans, account, carry their dead at dawn to solitary cliffs like this to butcher them with an ax. The vultures and crows do the rest. In the land of no snow cemeteries.

The monk said a cliff above 4.000 meters, east of Sera monastery, where there is evident a rustic stone house. Tibetans, account, carry their dead at dawn to solitary cliffs like this to butcher them with an ax. The vultures and crows do the rest. In the land of no snow cemeteries.

Necessity compels. Most Buddhists prefer cremation, but where does it get much wood for burning? At this point, combustion materials shortage (the most widely used is the yak dung) and land, hard rock, discourages traditional graves. Only the corpses of the most renowned lamas are consumed in a fire (years ago in a pot of butter). The solution for most Tibetans, from time immemorial, these burials are "heavenly". The bones are carried to a lama to crush them and serve to feed the birds or, mixed with soil, to build small "chorten" (prayer altars). For beggars, even that: his remains were thrown into the water in rivers and lakes for the fish to feast.

Sera monastery is only five kilometers north of Lhasa. As with all the major spiritual centers of Tibetan Buddhism, has paid dearly for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution in China. Of the 5.000 monks who once inhabited it are now just a few hundred. Its former glory has faded, despite the remarkable reconstruction, and condemned to live on the alms of pilgrims and tourists, has been called to open the doors of spiritual intimacy that visitors are left a few yuan. Later I'll tell you in detail.

There, on the roof, Tenzing says her father was left to the carrion birds and wild animals in those rocks six years ago. While a worthy monk, just a teenager, he refuses to take a picture, the Potala emerge verdant arrogant Kyi-chu Valley. The views of the surrounding hills around Lhasa peace insufflated. It's not a bad site, course, to say goodbye to your dead.

Tourists, prevent camera, strategically distributed among dozens of monks to start their "ceremony of the discussion"

But the monastic school is linked, somehow, to Spain. A Thubten Yeshe, one of its most illustrious monks, who took to his heels after China's invasion- gave him reincarnated Osel, Granada child. Lama Yeshe had been in Spain in the 70 and had encouraged the establishment of a monastery in the village busdista Bubión, in the Alpujarras, to inaugurate the Dalai Lama himself. Died in 1984, his reincarnation Granada was taken to a monastery in southern India to fulfill his destiny. But enough of this immersion in the Middle Ages, Osel fled just meet 18 years and now lives in Spain and declared agnostic.

How many Osel between crimson-robed boys with whom I meet in the winding alleys of Sera? The ceremony is prepared. Tourists, prevent camera, strategically distributed among dozens of monks to start their "ceremony of the discussion". It is another toll to be paid to survive. Gather in small circles on the bare ground. One, standing, raises a doctrinal question that closes with a loud snap of his hands, ordered to one of the monks who sits to reveal the answer aloud. And again and again, to the delight of tourists try to capture that picture different than decorate your living room. It is the eternal learning through repetition, but in this case expedited to sharpen mental agility. The show, because this is a layman's eyes, is worth seeing, with different clapping monks aggressive non-exempt, their tunics in the wind, while deserving young people trying to find the right answer, jubilantly celebrating. These are scenes from another time, visions of a spirituality that languishes, now debased by the power of the yuan to help them survive.