April 29, 2023: Visiting Thrangu Rinpoche

4am this morning was wake up time to travel 2 hours into the mountains to the beautiful Namo Buddha monastery complex.

At 7:30 I was fortunate enough to share some time with Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche in his home in the monastery.Thrangu Rinpoche was very generous in my early years working with buddhist art as a conservator as he patiently answered my questions  For example,  about the Buddhist foundational concept of impermanence vrs the art conservation goal to make things last forever. He used to patiently answer my questions about thangkas old, new, blessed, tourist art etc.  He certainly remembered me and offered his luminous smile and some presents.

Then I joined in the monks in a large all day meditation session. At lunchtime  I enjoyed catching up with a young friend from Tsum who had just become a monk there. Namo Buddha is an amazing place to walk around to see shrine halls and also the diarama depicting historical Buddha feeding a tiger with his own body.

I also enjoyed meeting people from the surrounding community who are also devoted to Ven. Thrangu Rinpoche.

The taxi back to Kathmandu was shared with two monks who had just completed a year of retreat and their supplies and their dog.

Soon after returning it was time to dress up for the opening night of the international conference on Buddhism, creativity and Art at Rangjung Yeshe Institute and Kathmandu University.

The keynote speaker was Jerome Edou a zen circle artist and a reception with food followed.

My own presentation for this condefence is tomorrow morning, yes, another lecture! And then I hope to pack for the journey home.