Ganden Monastery is the central monastery for Gelug, the sect in which the present Dalai Lama received his training. It was founded in 1409 by Tsongkhapa. According to the Wikipedia article on Gelug sect: “Tsongkhapa was an enthusiastic promoter of the Kadam School’s emphasis on the Mahayana principles of universal compassion as the fundamental spiritual […]
David
China slideshows
Here are some more photos of our trip before leaving Beijing: Bailin Temple www.flickr.com/photos/11790404@N02/sets/72157622051143340/show/ LinJi Temple www.flickr.com/photos/11790404@N02/sets/72157622051152752/show/ Zhaozhou’s Bridge www.flickr.com/photos/11790404@N02/sets/72157621926716653/show/ Beijing www.flickr.com/photos/11790404@N02/sets/72157621967004057/show/ Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Lhasa slideshow
Some pictures from our first three days in Lhasa: www.flickr.com/photos/11790404@N02/sets/72157622091614958/show/ Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Lhasa
Lhasa today is a Chinese city with a minority Tibetan population. The city has grown enormously over recent years with large scale new construction of office and apartment buildings and a huge influx of Chinese. When we arrived from the airport, it wasn’t until we entered the “old city” that we felt we were in […]
Gastronomic Feasts
While we didn’t do a lot of sightseeing in Beijing, having seen most of the historic sites 25 years ago when there were almost no domestic tourists and only a few foreigners on highly controlled group tours, we did enjoy several feasts with our friend Patrick as our guide. Our first evening we experienced food […]
Zhaozhou
[Note: We actually arrived in Lhasa today. But if I start writing about Lhasa, I’ll forget the things I want to say about previous destinations, so just hold tight on Lhasa.] This post is about Zhaozhou (Joshu in Japanese), a Zen master who lived from 778 to 897. (That’s 120 years, by the way). We […]
Wealth in China
It is challenging to reconcile the China we see today with the China, truly a third world country, that we saw 25 years ago. Then, getting permission to travel anywhere was always a bureaucratic nightmare, and the state controlled where people could live. While generally, people had jobs and earned small salaries, few commodities were […]
Green China
Among the hundreds of high rise apartment buildings and residential complexes we have seen, essentially all have solar hot water panels on the rooftops. In fact, China has 40% of the worldwide installation of solar hot water systems. Even many of the homes of the small farmers we saw as we passed through the countryside […]
Worship the Measuring
While the Guanxing Tai Observatory is on the same map as the Shaolin Temple, there must be 1,000 visitors to the temple for each one who visits the observatory. Even our taxi driver seemed to be puzzled as to where the entrance to the observatory was. Built by the astronomer Guo Shoujing in 1276, the […]
Bodhidharma’s Cave
The path to Bodhidharma’s cave is through the grounds of Shaolin Temple, just outside of Dengfeng. Shaolin seems to be primarily a gung fu training facility for boys and young men. Just inside the gate we saw several hundred of them, organized in groups of 30 or so, practicing their martial arts routines. In fact […]