a land of Tibet

We're resting at Derge in the Derge Parkhang finding out how the printing blocks are carved! The literal translation of Parkhang is " Storehouse of printing blocks" and there certainly are a lot of them all carefully arranged in row upon row in carefully made shelves. We've noticed there are a few thousand of the image printing blocks not a few hundred! The blocks are inked then the paper is rolled over the top of them. Since we are using cloth we can put it on top then use a roller on top; this should work! Anyway, the Parkhang is still the most important place in all of Tibet for the printing and storing of sacred texts and copies of those printed here are brought to all parts of the plateau. There are books of a lot of other subjects also printed here among them mathematics, music, logic, astrology, painting, and Tibetan medicine! It is fortunate that this place was not destroyed in the Cultural Revolution! Remarkably, it was none other than Chou enLai who intervened to prevent it's destruction. The sacred texts created here have tremendous shamanic power as we know well. It actually can be felt hundreds or thousands of years later and even when a translation of them is read. Shantideva who wrote several works including the Bodhicharyavatara the guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life was among these. In one of his incarnations, he spent years at a monastery in India without leaving his room except to eat ; the other monks called him 'that lazy rice bag' . Finally they decided they had to be rid of him and decided that the way to do this would be to have a recital in which each monk would recite a section of sacred text from memory. They figured he would make a mess of it and then leave out of embarrassment. When they approached him to tell him of the recital he simply asked them if they wanted him to recite one of the texts from the monastery or something that had never been heard before. They gleefully asked him for something that had never been heard before thinking that this would only make his humiliation worse. On the agreed upon day his turn came. Shantideva strode through the crowd and, rather than speaking where the others had went straight to top of the teaching throne of the head lama and began reciting the Bodhicharyavatara. As he continued the monks sat in awe realizing that this was no ordinary monk! When he reached the ending chapters he disappeared into the sky and all that could be heard was his voice booming through the clouds everywhere around them. They went to his room only to find it completely empty except for a few books tucked into the rafters, each a wondrous text of incredible sacred power he had written. I don't know about the others but the Bodhicharyavatara is printed at the Parkhang to this day! There's a lot more to add but as usual two as one we'll add to the notes later beautiful one!


	Through My Eyes * We're resting at Derge in the Derge Parkhang finding out how the printing blocks are carved! The literal translation of Parkhang is " Storehouse of printing blocks" and there certainly are a lot of them all carefully arranged in row upon row in carefully made shelves. We've noticed there are a few thousand of the image printing blocks not a few hundred! The blocks are inked then the paper is rolled over the top of them. Since we are using cloth we can put it on top then use a roller on top; this should work! Anyway, the Parkhang is still the most important place in all of Tibet for the printing and storing of sacred texts and copies of those printed here are brought to all parts of the plateau. There are books of a lot of other subjects also printed here among them mathematics, music, logic, astrology, painting, and Tibetan medicine! It is fortunate that this place was not destroyed in the Cultural Revolution! Remarkably, it was none other than Chou enLai who intervened to prevent it's destruction. The sacred texts created here have tremendous shamanic power as we know well. It actually can be felt hundreds or thousands of years later and even when a translation of them is read. Shantideva who wrote several works including the Bodhicharyavatara the guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life was among these. In one of his incarnations, he spent years at a monastery in India without leaving his room except to eat ; the other monks called him 'that lazy rice bag' . Finally they decided they had to be rid of him and decided that the way to do this would be to have a recital in which each monk would recite a section of sacred text from memory. They figured he would make a mess of it and then leave out of embarrassment. When they approached him to tell him of the recital he simply asked them if they wanted him to recite one of the texts from the monastery or something that had never been heard before. They gleefully asked him for something that had never been heard before thinking that this would only make his humiliation worse. On the agreed upon day his turn came. Shantideva strode through the crowd and, rather than speaking where the others had went straight to top of the teaching throne of the head lama and began reciting the Bodhicharyavatara. As he continued the monks sat in awe realizing that this was no ordinary monk! When he reached the ending chapters he disappeared into the sky and all that could be heard was his voice booming through the clouds everywhere around them. They went to his room only to find it completely empty except for a few books tucked into the rafters, each a wondrous text of incredible sacred power he had written. I don't know about the others but the Bodhicharyavatara is printed at the Parkhang to this day! There's a lot more to add but as usual two as one we'll add to the notes later beautiful one! * courtesy of A Luminous Diamond (Bright) Crystal Show productions. The information for the sketches is courtesy of the Footprint Tibet handbook by Gyurme Dorje. ( please click here to return to my spinning for you!)