Taktsang, “The Tiger’s Lair,” has become something of a symbol of Bhutan in the mind of the international public. This is not simply by chance. The Bhutanese government uses photos of it on almost all of their publications aimed at promoting tourism, and in general as something of a national […]
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Our Padma Sambhava film shoot had been on the road for almost seven weeks. We had already travelled through Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal and Mustang, filming in more than a dozen locations along the way. As part of the adventure we had interviewed many lamas and pilgrims, driven long hours on […]
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Pilgrimage is a personal experience, even when performed with a group. Each person discovers his or her personal favorite sites, and within each site, his or her own favorite power spot. For me, the sacred mountain known as Drak Yerpa ranks high. I have visited Central Tibet many times over […]
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The ancient kingdom of Mustang in northwest Nepal, like so many other mountain kingdoms of the Himalayan region from Bhutan to Ladakh, became part of the Tibetan empire established by King Songtsen Gampo in the first half of the seventh century. As a result, most people in these regions still […]
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The hilltop town of Pharping lies an hour or so to the southwest of Kathmandu. Tibetans know it as Yangley Shoo, and it has played an important role in the development of Tibetan Buddhism.
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The Dalai Lama once remarked that future historians will probably refer to the twentieth century as a century of war and bloodshed. Two world wars, together with violent dictatorships and Communist mass murders, witnessed the deaths of tens of millions of innocent people. But as Charles Dickens once said of […]
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