Prayers, chants and utmost bliss

Prayers, chants and utmost bliss

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The view from above the Larung Wuming monastery is breathtaking. Colourful Tibetan prayer flags flutter, clouds scud across dark blues sky; in the valley, miniature people go about their business.

The occasion: the Utmost Bliss Dharma Assembly, to mark Buddha’s descent from Tushita Heaven. The afternoon sun breaks through and the light dances over thousands of spartan wooden houses, homes to monks and nuns. The valley is bathed in rich colours.

. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj
A Tibetan Buddhist nun spins a prayer wheel in sub-zero temperatures.

If I were a landscape photographer this would be my holy place. I am not alone there, other photo pilgrims jostle for position on a steep hill. Only the wind whistling through my bones and fingers, numb with cold, reminds me it’s time to go down.

The trip is not easy to the magical, remote Larung valley, with its study centre and large Tibetan Buddhist community. The nearest airport in Chengdu, capital of China’s Sichuan province, is more than 500km away - even if you take a shorter, more difficult road, as my colleague and I do.

. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

The 15-hour drive starts smoothly on a highway but that only lasts long enough for passengers – snack-eating tourists, monks and wizened locals - to squeeze in their many bags and settle into narrow seats.

We leave the highway behind and the narrow road soon enters mountains. After another few hours on endlessly curving roads, the asphalt disappears and our bones jar on endless, bumpy macadam.

The bus stops in the middle of nowhere. The driver points to a distant red light, saying we need to reach our final destination on foot as the road is blocked. Once there I shiver under a blanket in a hotel room with an open-air toilet and no heating under a red, flickering light. The temperature outside drops to minus 10 degrees Celsius.

. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Next morning proves I am wrong to complain. Once through the gates of Larung valley, the festival of light and sound starts and yesterday’s hassle seems irrelevant.

The end of the ninth month of the Tibetan calendar is a festival time in Larung valley - the last of the four annual Dharma assemblies at its Buddhist Institute.

. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj
Hot tea is distributed to monks and nuns gathering in sub-zero temperatures.

Tens of thousands of believers join monks and nuns in daily chanting and praying. The main gathering point is a Buddhist laymen’s lodge. Even before the sun comes out people start arriving, sitting on the frozen ground and praying in sub-zero temperatures.

Tibetans’ traditional clothes - funky hats and jackets with endless sleeves - seem to keep out the cold much better than my fancy all-weather gear.

Thankfully, I get some of the hot yak-butter tea distributed to believers shivering under blankets.

. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Then the sun comes out behind the hill, hitting straight into my cameras. Pictures are painted in gold and I play with flares in my lenses, a rare pleasure. I enjoy every second even if balancing between people packed onto a steep, frozen hill needs mountain-goat skills recalled from my childhood on the slopes above Sarajevo.

Chanting, praying and listening to monks’ teaching lasts eight days, from sunrise to sunset. I am one of the very few non-Asian people in the valley and people are extremely friendly.

. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

I have more “selfies” taken in those few days we stay at Larung with complete strangers than with all my friends and relatives since the start of selfie-mania.

We climb another hill to see sky burials: bodies of deceased ethnic Tibetans offered to vultures.

. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj
A Buddhist monk collects his belongings as vultures gather during a sky burial.

On the top of yet another hill we visit monasteries and simple monks’ homes to see how they live. We eat vegetarian festival food and drink more yak-butter tea, almost forgetting about the 15-hour return drive.

Somehow the bends in the road don’t seem as tortuous nor the trip so endless. Perhaps that’s what a pilgrimage does for you.

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Slideshow

Monks and nuns walk across a steep hill.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Monks and nuns walk across a steep hill.

An ethnic Tibetan man wearing traditional clothes prays.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

An ethnic Tibetan man wearing traditional clothes prays.

Small houses of monks and nuns of Larung Wuming Buddhist Institute are built on the hill of Larung valley located some 3,700 to 4,000 metres above sea level.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Small houses of monks and nuns of Larung Wuming Buddhist Institute are built on the hill of Larung valley located some 3,700 to 4,000 metres above sea level.

An ethnic Tibetan man prays at a monastery.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

An ethnic Tibetan man prays at a monastery.

Tibetan Buddhist nuns keep yak-butter lamps burning.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Tibetan Buddhist nuns keep yak-butter lamps burning.

Volunteers prepare yak-butter tea to be distributed to people gathering in sub-zero temperatures.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Volunteers prepare yak-butter tea to be distributed to people gathering in sub-zero temperatures.

Ethnic Tibetans offer yak-butter tea at a Buddhist laymen lodge.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Ethnic Tibetans offer yak-butter tea at a Buddhist laymen lodge.

Tibetan Buddhist nuns protect themselves from sub-zero temperatures with yak-butter tea and warm clothes as they wait for a morning chanting session to begin.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Tibetan Buddhist nuns protect themselves from sub-zero temperatures with yak-butter tea and warm clothes as they wait for a morning chanting session to begin.

An ethnic Tibetan woman prostrates herself in front of prayer wheels as she circles around a monastery.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

An ethnic Tibetan woman prostrates herself in front of prayer wheels as she circles around a monastery.

An ethnic Tibetan woman walks under the picture of Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok behind prayer wheels.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

An ethnic Tibetan woman walks under the picture of Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok behind prayer wheels.

An ethnic Tibetan woman wears traditional amber and other stone headwear.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

An ethnic Tibetan woman wears traditional amber and other stone headwear.

Padma Tsering, a popular Tibetan Buddhist monk, spins his prayer wheels.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Padma Tsering, a popular Tibetan Buddhist monk, spins his prayer wheels.

Ethnic Tibetans carry a body of their deceased relative around a monastery 80 times before the remains are taken for a sky burial.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Ethnic Tibetans carry a body of their deceased relative around a monastery 80 times before the remains are taken for a sky burial.

Vultures fly over an ethnic Tibetan woman during a sky burial.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Vultures fly over an ethnic Tibetan woman during a sky burial.

Vultures gather during a sky burial.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Vultures gather during a sky burial.

Fake human skulls are placed inside a room at the site for sky burials.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Fake human skulls are placed inside a room at the site for sky burials.

Pictures of missing people are displayed on a wall.
. Larung, CHINA. Reuters/Damir Sagolj

Pictures of missing people are displayed on a wall.