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First, the clinic itself is lovely with the most amazing view (photos to come soon) and the large Kagyu monastery of Thrangu Rinpoche sits at the top of the hill above the clinic, commanding a 360 degree view of the surrounding countryside. As an artist and as an acupuncturist and as a Buddhist practitioner, it would be a most heavenly place to work for a few months. There are several monks who are studying acupuncture there (Bob and I may be teaching some of them this coming Saturday in a workshop being sponsored by SheChen Clinic here is Boudhanath). But back to the story of Namo Buddha.

For those of you with more knowledge of Buddhism and Buddhist history, I apologize in advance for not getting all the names and details absolutely correct. But the basic story is one of the Jatakamala, or stories of the Buddha Shakyamuni's lives on his many-lifetime-journey of becoming the Buddha of the present age. In this story, he was the son of a prince and, being out for a walk with his elder two brothers, they saw a mother tiger with five cubs stuck in a pit. The mother tiger was so weak from hunger and thirst that she was on the point of eating one of her offspring. The Buddha-to-be has such compassion for the tiger and lack of attachment to his own life, that he jumped in the pit and offered the tigress his body so that she could escape the pit with her cubs.

The place where this is believed to have taken place is where Thrangu Rinpoche has built this beautiful monastery that houses about 200 monks. It took over an hour to drive up from Kathmandu but totally worth the time. One of the acupuncture monks, Gompo from Bhutan, took us on a wonderful tour that included lunch with all the monks and a visit to every shrine and special room in the monastery as well as the site of Buddha-to-be's offering to the hungry tigress. Lots of photos from which to create paintings when I return home.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week.