Mindrolling Monastery and the
World Peace Stupa
Victoria
Knobloch Buddhistdoor
Global | 2016-05-06 |
For the last three years, I have been
conducting a photographic investigation of the life, culture,
circumstances, traditions, and the new homes, settlements, and
monasteries of the Tibetans in exile. To this end, I have traveled
to Kathmandu, in Nepal; to Ladakh, in Jammu and Kashmir; and to Bir
and Dharamsala, in Himachal Pradesh, India. Most of the Tibetan
refugees live in India and Nepal, and among them are many Buddhist
masters, who were urged to leave Tibet to save their lives and thus
the precious teachings following the Chinese invasion in
1959.
In January this year I visited Clement
Town, a Tibetan settlement in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. Clement
Town is home to the re-established Mindrolling Monastery (1965),
one of the six main monasteries of the Nyingma tradition in Tibet
and among the greatest Buddhist centers of this lineage remaining
today. An unbroken lineage of great masters has been maintained at
Mindrolling, continuing up until the present day.
Mindrolling Monastery in Clement Town is
a serene oasis, not in the ordinary sense of a place that makes you
feel good, like a nice beach, but an oasis in the sense of a place
of purity. It is our mind that makes and shapes our reality, and at
Mindrolling, universal responsibility is taken very seriously in
that a great many nuns, monks, and lay practitioners undergo
serious mind training here with the intention of bringing order to
the world. The monastery is thus an inspiring example of the
practice of the pure and profound Dharma of Vajrayana Buddhism. It
is also home to Ngagyur Nyingma College, where monks receive
advanced training in order to preserve the unbroken lineage of
teachings and pass them on to the next generation of
practitioners.
A unique symbol of this pure intention
is the World Peace Stupa, which stands within the monastery
compound. One of the largest in the world, the stupa is 185 feet
high and 100 feet square. It is said that through seeing a stupa,
one can attain liberation in just one lifetime. Like most such
sayings this one is multilayered, but can be understood to mean
that by seeing the beauty of a stupa either in person or in an
image, one can be inspired to set foot on the path to
liberation.
And beautiful this stupa is indeed!
Inaugurated in 2002, it is unique in that one can access the
interior. This contains five shrine rooms: to Padmasambhava, or
Guru Rinpoche, who brought Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century; to
the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni; to the Ati Zabdön Nyingpo
revelations of Terdag Lingpa (1646–1714), the original founder
of Mindrolling; to the Mindrolling lineage; and to the Dzogchen
teachings, the highest teachings in the Nyingma lineage of
Buddhism. These shrines are thus authentic examples of Tibetan
Buddhist history and philosophy, and their artwork
is superlative.
The World Peace Stupa in itself is a
treasure of Buddhist architecture. A stupa is rich in symbolic
meaning: it is said to represent the physical form of the Buddha as
well as his journey to enlightenment, starting from the base and
culminating in the jewel at the apex, which represents his
awakening. Likewise, our own awakening is enabled through the
triumph of discriminating wisdom over ignorance, the root of
suffering. Hence the stupa represents both the motivation and the
path to achieve a higher purpose of life, beyond competition and
struggle, clinging and obsession, and helps orient our mind toward
a freer, less ego-driven state.
The details of the stupa’s symbolism are
of course much more complex than this, indeed, as complex as the
investigation, study, and eventual liberation of our own mind. In
this regard, the design of this stupa with its interior shrine
rooms is especially remarkable. Contained within the shrine rooms
is the entire “cosmos” of the mind, represented by the diverse
symbolic accoutrements of Tibetan Buddhism: statues, wall
paintings, a three-dimensional mandala,
and thangkas . . . in
brief, the qualities these exemplify inspire us to work towards
cultivating these same qualities within ourselves.
The World Peace Stupa is thus a place of
Dharma, teachings, empowerments, blessings, and prayer. It opens
the door to the truth for all who want to hear it. When one exits
the stupa and turns to look at it again one is struck by its
grace and majesty, which impart a sense of magic. And both beauty
and magic are qualities of love, which, again, represents the
awakened mind.
This love generates a deep gratitude for
the noble intent of Mindrolling Monastery and for the beauty of
life itself. It could not be better expressed than in the words of
the female master Mindrolling Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche, the daughter
of the 11th Mindrolling Trichen (1930–2008) and a holder of the
lineage of Jetsunmas descending from Terdag Lingpa’s daughter
herself:
“Gratitude spreads happiness. So open
your eyes and look around the richness of creation around you. You
are here now today. You are amidst this wondrous display. In
silence and grace spend a moment to feel the interconnectedness
between yourself and the entire universe. And whenever you
experience this grace flow within you, you will find
gratitude.”