Kanayara

My stomach issues have cleared up! Yeah. I finally started to eat normal food, and not watery rice porridge. It so happened that other foreigners around here were sick with what I had too. So I was in good company.

Just as I started to really settle into life here in Dharamsala, I’m leaving for 4 weeks. There’s a big science workshop for monks in Bihr, a small Tibetan settlement about 3 hours away. They asked me to film the sessions and lectures, and photograph the monks working in the labs. The science workshop is part of a huge initiative to bridge Buddhism and Science. There are about 10 scientists flying in from the US to lead the different sessions. From what I heard the monks are going to be learning stuff like quantum physics, and biochemistry. It’s supposed to be hotter there. And it’s been hellishly hot here.

Nechung Monastery, the place Choedar used to work, had their annual camping trip out in a small village called Kanayara. I didn’t realize how many mountain streams are around here until Choedar took me to their picnic today. We rode by motorbike through the back roads of the mountain to Kanayara. When we got there, I was amazed to see it was this green, grassy valley with a perfect stream winding through the field. Just below the field was a beautiful mountain stream/river. All along it were swimming holes where monks from Nechung were playing in the water. The water was perfectly cold, and clear. Rocks in this area are mostly slate, so all the rocks along the bottom of the stream are small pieces of slate. And since today was hot and sunny, the rocks glittered in the water. We had lunch with the monks from Nechung up at the field, and then climbed down to the stream where we spent the rest of the afternoon chilling in the water.