Ranging anywhere from a crippling or paralyzing experience to a soft mesmerizing feeling on the edge of our consciousness. In Buddhism the three basic afflictions at the base of the wheel of life (i.e. Samsara) are greed, anger and ignorance. Some forms of Buddhism expand that with jealousy and pride. But to my personal opinion […]
Now we are back in the Netherlands for a month already. After the Pilgrimage (see previous blogs) I returned to Bodhgaya to meet my wife. And to follow teachings of Tai Situpa. He was explaining the intricacies of the Ngöndro practice mainly for the monks and nuns of the Rumtek monastry from Sikkim. There were […]
Well all things will come to an end. Some quicker than others. I must confess that my perception of time has completely disappeared on this pilgrimage. But a few days ago I said goodbye to all my friends at the railway station of Varanasi. After we had had a wounderful meal at the house of […]
Yesterday we left the monastery at 5 am and drove to Varanasi. A city more than 2700 years old. It is considered to be one of the oldest cities in the world that still exists. The Hindu’s consider it the holy city as it was here that Shiva bathed in the Ganges. They believe that […]
Today we arrived in a Tibetan monastery with its own austere guesthouse. It is in Sarnath, the place where the Buddha gave his first teaching to his 5 former comrades on the path. It is known as the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma. The monastery we are staying is of Trangu Rinpoche […]
On one morning we left our hotel to walk to the other side of the river near Bodhgaya. There in a place that used to be called Uruvela, in the days of the Buddha, our forest monk called Gotama nearly died. He had taken up asceticism together with 5 companions to such an extent that […]
Yesterday evening we arrived dead tired at our hotel in Bodh Gaya. We were set on seeing the Bodhi Tree (Ficus religiosa). Therefore we walked to the Maha Bodhi Temple and found a large mass of people pressing foreward to enter. Sorry, but I couldn’t take pictures for it is forbidden to take a cell […]
Nalanda is a place about 10 km from Rajgir. The Buddha used to come here quite often to meditate and teach. When you are at these places you can really feel that the atmosphere is conducive for those practices. It is calming and soothing just to sit and be. It was King Asoka, about 300 […]
Today we went to the World Peace Stupa on top of the mountain where also Vulture Peak is, but much higher. It was quite a climb, but a stunning view. The stupa was similar to the one we saw in Vaishali and appears to be initiated by a Japanese Nichiren monk who went for world […]
The day before yesterday (sorry, but the internet in Vaishali was so bad that I could only post on FB) on the way to Vaishali we passed the largest stupa in the world. It was in ruins, but its magnificence could still be seen. The place was already seen in ruins when a Chinese monk […]
