Today on my last day in Bhutan…(for now… Tho and me managed at last to make a reasonable time table for 2013 for both of us…I’ll be back here end of February! Believe me it is a very complicated
schedule between all our obligations...but I think we'll manage)…so today, Tho and me hiked up to Tango Monastery to imerse ourselves again with the spiritual energy of Bhutan, before leaving for a few months (for me) and 2 weeks (for Tho...he goes
to Vietnam for Eurasia).
Tango is one of the big Buddhist Universities in Bhutan (probably the biggest).
It is about 30 minutes drive from Thimphu and a wonderful 1h walk up to over 3000m.
We have come here a few times already,
last time with my daughter and her family…that’s when we saw all the monkeys…the white horse and that’s where we got invited for a delicious tea…remember?
This time we took another very steep path, like
“turning around the mountain” and we crossed many isolated meditation huts on the way,
I thought of you Dena…some were just so simple and so remote….they made me think of “Your yogi”…but the
way up there is really steep and hard to climb! (I really am surprised how fit we both are…specially Tho…he climbs like a mountain goat)
When we arrived in Tango a group of young energetic monks arrived at the same time but
from the other side (they had taken the usual path), they looked very happy and radiant.
We found out that they were on their way to enter a 3 year, 3 months, 3 days solitary retreat in one of these remote meditation huts.
Whenever
we meet monks they all, either just come out of a 3 year solitary retreat, or are on their way to such a retreat or dream to do a 3 year+ retreat again…
If you study in a Buddhist university here for 6 years the program includes
a 3 year, 3 months etc retreat after the initial 6 years of study…so theory and practice are truly present in the monks studies here.
Today Tho said to me: may be I’ll do a (shorter...I hope) retreat in one of these huts before
leaving Bhutan…
Well you see…it is just the beginning….
Ps...what would the world be like without all these people praying for all living beings and meditating.....I wonder....