Sera Monastery

by Peter
(US)

The Sera Monastery is situated just a few kilometers outside the Holy City of Lhasa, the Seat of the Gods. In past days there were more than 5.000 inhabitants which has been reduced to a few hundreds nowadays. All this you can read in every guidebook.......

All I want, is to describe just a single moment which I enjoyed very much!
When I entered a hall, I was caught between all those praying people and nomads who walked around a buddha statue for at least three times. There was no other way but getting pushed with them while you hear all their prayers. In the back you heard some deep "om..." prayers of the monks in the front room. The whole temple was filled with incense smoke, it was dark except some broken light through the small windows close to the roof which were covered by red paper - this atmosphere was unbelievable! Everything was so mystic!
Suddenly a monk, standing in front of the statue, pulled me closer and put a white welcome scarf around me. He wanted me to participate in their custom like all the other pilgrims. They went down on there knees in front of the buddha and put their heads into a dark hole of the stone platform of the buddha - so did I. It was a black hole, I could not see anything and I still do not know what this was exactly good for.
But the whole situation was incredible.