Samye Monastery: Tibet´s First Monastery & Chimpu Hermitage

(Photos of Chimpu Hermitage are far below)

Samye is Tibet´s very first Buddhist monastery. It is surrounded by barren mountains and rolling sand dunes. The juxtaposition of desert and monastery gives out a wild and magical charm. 

Look at the first picture, you will see that it is encircled in a wall. In fact, the entire place is an architectural manifestation of a mandala! In another word, it symbolizes the universe as Indians and Tibetans see it. The central Utse temple represents the sacred mountain Mt Meru, and the temples around it in two concentric circles represent the oceans and the continents that ring the mountain. Walking in Samye is a trip inside the Buddhist cosmology. 

It is in Samye where the first seven Tibetan monks were ordained. It was also here Great Debate of Samye happened. The debate, which took place in early 790s, was essentially an argument between an Indian approach to Bodhisattvahood through textual study and scholarship, and the more immediate Chan influenced approach of Chinese masters, who decried scholarly study in favour of contemplation on the absolute nature of buddhahood. 

Enjoy a short trip in Samye!












(Here are views from Hepo Ri, a hill by the monastery.

And it is a special mountain. Guru Rinpoche (his English name: Padmasambhava), the most esteemed Indian sage, used his tantric magics to dispel the massed demons that roamed at Hepo Ri. It was this act that paved the way for the second revival of Buddhism in Tibet.

Guru Rinpoche is also credited with founding Nyingma school, one of the four major Tibetan schools. He is said to have made this uncanny prediction:

¨When the iron bird flies and the iron ox runs of wheels, and the Tibetan people are scattered like ants across the earth, my teachings will come to the country of the red men¨)


Chimpu Hermitage:  

Four hours´ pilgrimage from Samye is this hermitage, where Guru Rinpoche used to meditate. Around his meditation cave, came many tantric practitioners who do not want even the distraction in the monastery and choose to spend their lives in secluded caves.

I stayed in the nunnery on the base of the hill for one night. On the second day morning, I woke up to a snowstorm. I sipped my yak butter tea, refuged inside a terrace, while the snowstorm roamed across the valley. Fire warmed my frozen toes. I do not see myself one day being a reclusive practioner (at least not yet), but this life -- being a hermit with books, I can prolong it indefinitely, and boredom would not even touch me one bit.














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