Woke up late today and on my follow ups with them realised that the Dalai Lama was out in Ludhiana. My sister then suggested “let’s goto the Gyuto Monastery instead and try if we can meet the Karmapa Lama , he is after all the number two to the Dalai Lama”.
We took the car and headed out for the monastery. At first look I notices that it was shimmering with golden colours. The Tibetans have a fascination with gold and most of the monasteries are coloured that way. I stepped into the prayer room and took a few pictures of monk’s sitting down and chanting with religious vigour from the ancient Buddhist texts. It could have been a scene from a madarssa or an ancient vedic temple, but well I was at a buddhist monastery. Little children scurried around in maroon robes and seemed excited to see me. I tried chatting with a few senior monks and asked them what was the concept behind the chanting however most seemed reluctant to speak with me. Perhaps trying to protect their ancient religious secrets from a foreign interloper.
In the middle of the prayer room just beneath the Buddha was the image of the Dalai Lama adorned with his yellow hat. The room had row’s of wooden benches on which the lama’s meditated and chanted . What were they trying to achieve I wondered? Nirvana, Moksha , salvation? To me these are yet words and what do they mean in term’s of feeling thought’s, ideas I really had no clue – or at least yet! I mean what is the physical manifestation of Nirvana ? How would I even know I had attained moksha if ever I did? What would it look like? What would it feel like ? How would I know that I have been enlightened and awakened ? These were question’s which were buzzing in my mind and off course I planned I would ask these to Karmapa and perhaps to the Dalai Lama.
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I went into the office and took an audience with Karmapa for the 20th of Nov at 9:30 in the morning. Mental note to myself – I better wake up – the drive is long and I have tended to oversleep a lot on this trip !!
Hope to see him and meet him with my question’s. Hope to find answers also! Stay tuned – perhaps there is salvation yet?