Friday, August 22, 2008

Visit to Samye Ling


Visit to Samye Ling


The members of the Friday meditation group and both monks enjoyed a day out at the Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Dumfriesshire on Sunday 10th August. This was an open day celebrating the 20th anniversary of the monastery

This was the first experience for Bhante Wimalananda of visiting a Vaijrayana Temple.
He was very excited to see the beautiful shrine and the monks with their Tibetan Robes- an unexpected sight in Scotland!

Bhante Rewatha and members of the group met Lama Yashe, the head monk , who welcomed every one to the temple and was handed a report on the Scottish Centre for Child Development in Sri Lanka in response to a request from the Rokpa Trust,.
of which he is chairman and who had shown an interest in supporting our charity work .We hope that the trust will be able to work with the Vihara in helping the orphaned children.

We were delighted to meet Mr & Mrs Murray, their son and grandson who had come to the temple from Tweedbank to welcome their friends from Glasgow.

The day passed very pleasantly with a delicious lunch, traditional entertainment and time to explore the Peace Garden and visit the many highlights of this peaceful and beautiful sanctuary. Just before 5pm we gathered in the shrine to listen to chanting and the playing of traditional instruments. At this point Ven. Rewata seemed to vanish and we assumed that he had joined the monks and nuns in the chanting. However, he was unable to join in as the chants were in the Tibetan language with which he is not familiar. As a special honour he was invited to beat one of the large drums. This was a great treat for him and one of the highlights of a perfect day.

We are very grateful to Ian Paton our driver of the day and the organiser of the trip.