Phajoding Monastery: Meet Karma, a friend in Bhutan.

Towards the end of 1996, I saw an advertisement... 
"Wanted...Maths Teacher in Bhutan."
After finding out where Bhutan was, and what it was like, I applied and in due course found myself teaching at a high school in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan. After 15 years teaching in a NZ high school, this was a real change. A very pleasant change.


Karma arrived as a trainee teacher. Another karmic link? We have been friends ever since. Karma is a highly intelligent and very creative person. Our times together are most stimulating. For me, anyway.


The other day, Karma asked me why he had not been mentioned in this blog. So I wrote this post about a walk we did together at the end of 2009. A decade ago! We climbed up to Phajoding Monastery.


Here is a quote from "Mild and Mad Day Hikes Around Thimphu", by Piet van der Poel and Rogier Gruys.... 

"Once Phajodhing used to be one of the richest monasteries in the country, but evil eyes fell on it a long time ago and thus it became very poor and dilapidated. Most of the wealth of the monastery has either been stolen or disappeared. In the monastery Guru Padma Sambhava is shown in his terrifying appearance with a sword in his right hand and a bowl made of a skull containing blood in his left hand.

Sakya Tenzin built the monastery in 1748 with 20 meditation huts around it. Its original name was ‘Wogmin Namgyai Khangzang’. The monastery was later provided with a large painted scroll, Buddha’s words in 108 volumes and statues. Later on, Je Khenpo Sherub Sange built another monastery adjoining the previous one and named it ‘Wogmin Nyipa’. The main statue in this monastery is a life-size copper statue of Shakya Muni."

You can read a little more at World Monuments Fund. The monastery is one of their current projects.


On with the comic...