June 1

Through My Eyes

Sunday June 1

At Ganden monastery!)

" Beyond the village of Dagtse Dzong, where the road deteriorates into a rough mix of holes, rocks, and gravel, I asked the driver to stop so I could walk down to the river. To my left, the sky was as blue as an overhead lake, yet to my right, near Ganden, large black clouds could be seen. By the water I saw a woman on a sand spit, digging in the soft soil. She was collecting mud into a large sack. I approached her, and she smiled and continued to fill the sack with wet heavy earth. It must have been heavy, yet she hoisted the sack easily onto her back and carried it across a narrow wooden bridge as if it were filled with straw.

I have seen two quite different photographs of Ganden monastery. The first was from the 1920s, and it captured the multitiered magnificence of Ganden as it rose up the side of Dropka Ri Ridge's 14,000 foot slope. Ganden housed the tomb of Je Tsongkhapa (1357-1419) , founder of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The tomb had silver relequaries holding the remains of many other Ganden tipas, Ganden leaders, who had governed the Gelugpa sect for more than five hundred years. Ganden, as seen in this early photograph, was a place of spiritual intensity and unparalleled physical grandeur. Only Lhasa's winter palace, the Potala, could compete with Ganden's architectural splendor. The Tibetan scholar Giuseppe Tucci once called Ganden a "sight out of this world...bodiless."

The second image was a post-invasion photograph of Ganden in ruins. Following the 1966 Chinese bombing, the darkened husk of this once-grand city in the sky resembled nothing more than a pile of broken teeth discarded across the ridge. I was apprehensive of what I would find at Ganden. It seemed so ironic that, in Tibetan, Ganden means "the joyous heaven".

The eighteen-kilometer switchback road up to Ganden was a steep climb. As we slowly ascended, the sky became blacker and blacker, and the driver put on his headlights. Near the summit, the sun suddenly directed a ray of light through a hole in the darkness, and it luminously spotlit the newly constructed gold roofs of Ganden. The roofs glimmered against the charcoal sky as the white buildings were cradled softly in the basin of the ridge. Then once more the blackness closed in. The image of the powerful mass of clouds, black and ominous, being pierced by a small, bright shaft of light struck me as being highly symbolic. It showed the eternal strength of light over darkness. For a brief instant, a terrible history seemed magically to be reversing itself." I promise to add more tomorrow...

*( please click here to read of the day with me )

Through my eyes

( I've done a bit more spinning. Please click here to see!)

( Actually I'm still feeling a bit sick. I notice that I forgot to put our prayer flag underneath one of yesterday's pages so I'll put it there today. The poem for last week was actually dated May 21 rather than April 21 as you probably guessed. Just mistakes. The stream has risen quite high now and is close to topping the banks! I went the long way around to the

Grove to check the trees. They seem to be doing fine which is good because with all this rain there isn't much that can be done for now! The cherries, aronia berries, apples,and apricots are all forming now. The medlars are blooming. I've taken pictures of all of them to share with you of course.They have a white bloom that looks like that of the pasture rose! I got a fair bit done researching for the map and the language; both are a bit complex. For us it will be good to learn both the spoken and the written, so there is much to be done. It has been 9 months since we began a Windhorse project ( as I'm sure you've noticed)! I haven't yet had a chance to add the summer work pictures but I'll add the our wildflowers.

And so, as always we'll continue two as one on to tomorrow.

my one dream bright

so for now I bid goodnight!)


	Through My Eyes Sunday June 1 At Ganden monastery!) " Beyond the village of Dagtse Dzong, where the road deteriorates into a rough mix of holes, rocks, and gravel, I asked the driver to stop so I could walk down to the river. To my left, the sky was as blue as an overhead lake, yet to my right, near Ganden, large black clouds could be seen. By the water I saw a woman on a sand spit, digging in the soft soil. She was collecting mud into a large sack. I approached her, and she smiled and continued to fill the sack with wet heavy earth. It must have been heavy, yet she hoisted the sack easily onto her back and carried it across a narrow wooden bridge as if it were filled with straw. I have seen two quite different photographs of Ganden monastery. The first was from the 1920s, and it captured the multitiered magnificence of Ganden as it rose up the side of Dropka Ri Ridge's 14,000 foot slope. Ganden housed the tomb of Je Tsongkhapa (1357-1419) , founder of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The tomb had silver relequaries holding the remains of many other Ganden tipas, Ganden leaders, who had governed the Gelugpa sect for more than five hundred years. Ganden, as seen in this early photograph, was a place of spiritual intensity and unparalleled physical grandeur. Only Lhasa's winter palace, the Potala, could compete with Ganden's architectural splendor. The Tibetan scholar Giuseppe Tucci once called Ganden a "sight out of this world...bodiless." The second image was a post-invasion photograph of Ganden in ruins. Following the 1966 Chinese bombing, the darkened husk of this once-grand city in the sky resembled nothing more than a pile of broken teeth discarded across the ridge. I was apprehensive of what I would find at Ganden. It seemed so ironic that, in Tibetan, Ganden means "the joyous heaven". The eighteen-kilometer switchback road up to Ganden was a steep climb. As we slowly ascended, the sky became blacker and blacker, and the driver put on his headlights. Near the summit, the sun suddenly directed a ray of light through a hole in the darkness, and it luminously spotlit the newly constructed gold roofs of Ganden. The roofs glimmered against the charcoal sky as the white buildings were cradled softly in the basin of the ridge. Then once more the blackness closed in. The image of the powerful mass of clouds, black and ominous, being pierced by a small, bright shaft of light struck me as being highly symbolic. It showed the eternal strength of light over darkness. For a brief instant, a terrible history seemed magically to be reversing itself." I promise to add more tomorrow... ( please click here to read of the day with me ) Through my eyes ( I've done a bit more spinning. Please click here to see!)* ( Actually I'm still feeling a bit sick. I notice that I forgot to put our prayer flag underneath one of yesterday's pages so I'll put it there today. The poem for last week was actually dated May 21 rather than April 21 as you probably guessed. Just mistakes. The stream has risen quite high now and is close to topping the banks! I went the long way around to the Grove to check the trees. They seem to be doing fine which is good because with all this rain there isn't much that can be done for now! The cherries, aronia berries, apples,and apricots are all forming now. The medlars are blooming. I've taken pictures of all of them to share with you of course.They have a white bloom that looks like that of the pasture rose! I got a fair bit done researching for the map and the language; both are a bit complex. For us it will be good to learn both the spoken and the written, so there is much to be done. It has been 9 months since we began a Windhorse project ( as I'm sure you've noticed)! I haven't yet had a chance to add the summer work pictures but I'll add the our wildflowers. And so, as always we'll continue two as one on to tomorrow. my one dream bright so for now I bid goodnight!)