Samye Monastery

Early in the morning we all pile into a beat-up Toyota Four Runner and leave Lhasa and it's smells behind. We drive about 2 and 1/2 hours before reaching a small concrete structure on the side of the road. This is the ferry crossing to Samye. The ferry itself, fitted with a tractor motor and held together with a hope and a prayer, is filled with the odd but usual mix of pilgrims and tourists on their way to Samye Monastery, the oldest monastery in Tibet, dating back over 1,200 years. After the ferry ride across the Brahmaputra River, we stuff ourselves, with six other locals, our bags and a few sacks of potatoes, into the back of an ancient pickup truck and bounce along desert-like roads toward the remote monastery.


Samye Monastery is where the “Seven Examined Men,” or rather the first seven Buddhist monks were ordained. For me it was the most interesting monastery we’ve explored so far. I understand little about Tibetan Buddhism and many of the rituals and images we’ve encountered have eluded me. I’m more spiritually inspired by the Tibetan landscape than by Tibetan Buddhism. At Samye, hundreds of elaborate murals along the walls depict the ancient life of monks in the past, from what kind of shoes different ranking monks were supposed to wear, to pictorial instructions on how to meditate. Hiking up to the top of a cliff above town, we could see that the entire monastery grounds are constructed as a mandala representing the Buddhist Wheel of Life.
Here is an intricate image of the Buddhist Wheel of Life.


Flag/totem poles with prayer flags rise high in the main courtyard of the monastery.



Here is an image of the toilet for hotel guests. There are no bathrooms in the rooms, so the toilet is located on the roof of the building. Showers? forget about it. The town doesn't have any.


Fortunatley, the view from the rooftop toilet makes up (sort of) for the bathroom itself.