Namo Buddha - best of three?

Namo Buddha - the smallest, but perhaps most beautiful, of the three stupas of the Kathmandu valley:

Where the Buddha is said to have sacrificed himself to a tigress:

And where this temple, study and retreat centre now stands:

Words you might like to look up:

• Namo Buddha
• Thrangu Rinpoche
• Bon (form of Buddhism, sort of)

#Buddhism #Vajrayana #DoubleDorje #NamoBuddha #Tigress

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
So, dear listeners, whether you've just stumbled across this podcast or whether you're one of the few regular listeners, welcome in any event. This is the Double Dorje podcast. I'm Alex welding, and this week, we're going to take a little stroll down memory lane to the place known as Namo Buddha.

(00:31):
Those two words, Namo Buddha, are part of a popular chant for taking refuge in the three jewels.
A chant that is popular throughout the Buddhist world and used in more than one language.
Story goes that pilgrims would head to this site singing that chant as they went, to such an extent that their chanting gave the place its name.

Before we begin, the usual (00:53):
First, please take a moment to like, subscribe or even better, to share the link with your friends. And secondly, I do provide a list of words you might like to look up and possibly a picture or two in the description.
The statistics actually suggest that most listeners don't in fact visit Podbean where the podcast is first hosted, but listen to it somewhere else where they will not see those things. So if you do want them, head over to podbean.

(01:26):
Now my mind goes back to an April morning in Kathmandu, a few years ago.
I had been laid low by a stomach bug, but now I was feeling much stronger and ready to go out and grab some blessing and inspiration. Well enough to go out for a good few rounds of the stupa before breakfast. Because I had accidentally left my carefully prepared list of things to see and do at home,

(01:51):
I had already been forced to accept that I would be guided by which way the wind blew.
I now did just that.
I shared a breakfast table with another guest, Jo from Melbourne, who mentioned that she was planning to go to Namo Buddha that day. Did I perhaps want to share a taxi? Why ever not? Taxis aren't very expensive there, but even so the price of a taxi for a whole day

(02:16):
is worth halving if the chance is there.
Namo Buddha is famous for a few reasons. It's the place associated with one of the best known of the Buddha's birth stories.
There was a king, as there often is in fairy stories, and like many fairy stories, this one does have a gruesome side.

(02:39):
The king had three sons and one day they were out riding.
The three sons, at a certain point, took a walk amongst the trees.
They came across a tigress with five tiger cubs, all of whom were in a very bad way.
The mother was exhausted and it seems that she looked as if she was on the point of eating her own babies.

(03:02):
The youngest prince commented that the tigress was very weak, not far off death, and was even prepared to eat her own children. He asked the two older princes what tigers eat and they told him that she was entirely carnivorous and would eat fresh meat and drink blood.
He then asked them if anybody was strong enough to save her life by giving her those things, but the two older princes answered that this is not going to happen because it was so difficult. The youngest prince was having thoughts about having been wandering in the cycle of existence,

(03:35):
wasting his bodies and lives. He had died, he thought, time and time again as a result of desire or anger or ignorance. What's the point, he wondered, of having a body, if it hasn't ever done anything meritorious.
The three of them had not gone far on their way back, he said to his two brothers. You go on home, have just got something to do and I'll catch you.

(03:57):
Later.
He turned round and went back to the mother tiger's lair. He lay down in front of her, but she was too weak to eat him.
He looked around for a sharp piece of wood and made blood flow from his body so that the tigress could lick it. This gave her the strength to open her mouth and eat him up, and that in turn gave her the strength to give milk to her cubs.

(04:21):
The two other brothers were waiting for him and eventually went back to see what might have happened.
Sure enough, when they got back to where the tiger had been, they could see that he had been eaten.
They fell into a faint, woke up cried, fell into a faint again. And so on, as is done in these stories.
The queen at exactly this time had a dream of three pigeons flying around and playing, but a hawk had caught the youngest pigeon.

(04:50):
She woke up in fear, and told the king about her dream, being certain that something bad had happened to the son.
A search party was assembled, but the two older brothers soon returned. When she asked them what had happened, it took them a while to speak, being in shock as they were, but when they spat it out, the queen herself then fainted and woke up and cried.

(05:12):
Everybody went back to the scene of the event, but there was nothing but bones and blood there. The tigress had fully eaten the prince, fed the cubs, and they had taken off into the jungle.
I think we have to say that such a level of compassion is aspirational rather than realistic, but I can just see the wide eyes of the children being told this story around a flickering fire one night.

(05:43):
It is said that many lifetimes later, the five tiger cubs were the Buddha's very first disciples.
The next reason, the second one, for the fame of Nama Buddha is that there is a stupa there that has long been revered.
It's very beautiful and the mountain location is exquisite.

(06:06):
Together with Swyambhu and Jarung Khashor, it is one of the three great stupas of the Kathmandu valley. Dudjom Rinpoche wrote a poem about them.
It's not long, so I'm going to read Adam Pearcy's translation of it from the Lotsawa House site. The prayer to the three great stupas of Kathmandu by Dudjom Rinpoche.

(06:30):
In Upacchandoha, the land of Nepal, on the summit of Oxhorn, appeared the blessings and relics of all the Buddhas of times gone by. Renowned as the wondrous Pakpa Shingkun, to this great self arisen stupa, I pray.
When the Lord of Sages was the Prince Mahasattva, the courageous, he sacrificed his own body to feed a hungry tigress, and on that very sight the relics of enlightened action appeared,

(06:59):
this great stupa of awakening.
Built by a poultry woman whose four sons sustained a karmic connection, and following their aspirations, took those from the Land of Snows as disciples; to this fulfiller of prayers known as Jarung Khashor, this great stupa, which liberates upon sight, I pray.

(07:20):
Through the merit of devotedly prostrating to, making offerings before, and circumambulating these three stupas which benefit all who come into contact with them, may I and others completely purify our negative karma, harmful actions and obscurations, and swiftly attain
the excellent fruition of perfect liberation and enlightenment.

(07:45):
Having read it, I see a couple of explanations are needed here.
In the first verse, Upacchandoha, forgive my pronunciation, is a name for Nepal when it is viewed as a pure land, while Pakpa Shingkun is a name for the Swyambhu stupa, the one that overlooks Kathmandu.

(08:06):
The second verse where you will have seen the reference to a tigress is the Namo Buddha stupa we're visiting today. In the third verse, Jarung Khashor is the great stupa at Baudha. The story behind that name is rather cute, but maybe for another time.
Then there is a third reason for going to Nama Buddha.

(08:28):
In much more recent times, ThranguRinpoche, who
passed on earlier this year, as I mentioned in episode 2,
established a large monastery, temple, study and practise centre there. And mighty impressive it is too.
So let's get on the road. More than two dusty, bumpy hours of taxi ride lay ahead. They took us at some distance past what is known as the tallest statue of Shiva in the world, the Kailashnath Mahadev - something you might like to search for images of on the net.

(09:02):
Up and up, and on to Namo Buddha we went.
The first stop was close to the stupa itself, which is just a little lower down the hill from the monastery and the tiger shrines. And what do you know? The stupa is at the edge of a village where a wedding was taking place. Bang next to, and all around the stupa, complete with loud pop music, beer, food and happy faces.

(09:25):
What a wedding!
In comparison with the other two great stupas of the valley, Namo Buddha is quite small. But what it may lack in grandiosity, it surely makes up for in charm. And for all its suggestion of Buddhist peace, looking out over the valleys,
the fact that it is right there with a village in which people live, marry, are born and die somehow makes it even more vibrant.

(09:52):
We spent a little time there walking around the stupa. Many of these sites, I would say practically all but have not travelled enough to be sure, have a wheelhouse next to or near the stupas. This will contain one or sometimes more huge prayer wheels,
with a handle running around the bottom so that we can grab hold and push

(10:13):
to help keep the wheel turning.
Everybody was so happy, I'm sure that if I'd tried I would have been able to score a beer off the wedding party in spite of not sharing any words with the people. But I wasn't bold enough. Pity.
In due course, we wandered back towards the taxi.
Halfway along the street, there was a small, dark and, dare I say it, dingy little temple. It seemed quite romantic, and I took a couple of photographs, but the flashlight did reveal quite how lacking in maintenance the place was.

(11:06):
The taxi then took us up to the monastery and the tiger shrines. We picked up a guide who turned out to be useful, although not exactly brilliant.
The monastery is, without question, extraordinarily beautiful outside and in.
Most impressive of all was the main assembly hall, where taking pictures was strictly forbidden. These days you can find a few pictures on the net if you search for images of the Namo Buddha main hall.

(11:36):
The opulence reminded me of some of Europe's cathedrals. Apart from being completely different, and newer, and smaller, and Buddhist, and quieter, and more colourful.
I had to wonder how much fund raising went into setting the place up.
On the way up one of the sets of steps - we weren't going to get away without climbing steps now, were we? - to a site for hanging prayer flags, there is a gateway, if that's the word when there is no gate. I suppose an archway would be a better word.

(12:07):
The two pillars carry pictures of the tiger story I spoke of earlier.
The party riding through the forest close to the tiger's den, the offer of the body, the corpse, and the recognition that it is now a holy site.
Nearby, there is one special shrine containing figures that illustrate the tiger story,

(12:28):
together with options for making offerings, and at some other points outside under the trees, we also see life-size models of the mother and her cubs.
Halfway up those steps, I had given a few rupees to a small, dusty old woman who was begging at the side of the path.
On the way down again the three of us, that's to say me, Jo, and the guide, stopped for a soft drink, and she tagged along.

(12:57):
I watched her walking up and down the shop counter, lightly fingering the displayed goods, hoping that somehow, in some mysterious way, something would miraculously transpose itself and mysteriously come into her possession - without actually nicking it, of course, you understand.
When the shopkeeper came out from the back, he spoke to her rather sharply.

(13:20):
Obviously I couldn't understand the words, but the tone very much suggested something like "Keep your thieving little fingers off. She retreated outside, but sat down on the step. A few minutes later, the shopkeeper reappeared and put a bowl of noodle soup into her hands.
She giggled.
After another long, muddy, sometimes slippery drive back, I was ready for a veg pagoda, which elsewhere would be called a vegetable pakora and a lemon soda in the Double Dorje restaurant.

(13:55):
Yet again, I shared the table with some delightful people I'd never met before.
One was a Bon practitioner from Brazil who tried to change to mainstream Buddhism, but tripped up on having to say Om Ah Hung instead of A Om Hung.
So she decided to stay with the Bonpos.
You may well wonder what I'm talking about, but I can tell you that I sympathised with her. I dipped a toe into Bon practise a few years ago but just couldn't get on with saying A Om Hum home instead of Om Ah Hung. If you know about these things, it does all make perfect sense.

(14:29):
And then it was bedtime.
The place is so beautiful, I do rather suggest that you have a look around on the net searching for images of Nama Buddha. It's worth the time.
So please don't forget to like, subscribe, share and so on. And if you don't have the opportunity to visit places like Namo Buddha, we can also be blessed by reciting Namo Buddhaya. How about 108 times?

(14:57):
Thank you for listening and goodbye.