Travelling to discover one’s own inner peace

Peace Times 1

Travelling with Lama Gangchen is an unforgettable experience, far beyond mere sightseeing. With him you travel to broaden your mind, to confront yourself and meet different people, know other cultures and traditions. But most of all, you travel to visit ancient Buddhist holy places and monuments throughout the East, where Buddhist practice, often forgotten, is brought back to life, whilst purifying the mind for longlasting benefit. The first goal is therefore the pilgrimage to places significant for the spiritual history of mankind. Let us remind ourselves that Lama Gangchen, upon his arrival in Europe, first stayed in Greece and then in Umbria, Italy, as if to run through the fundamental stages of the spiritual evolution during the last millennium.

The Eastern holy places are now the principal destination of Lama Gangchen’s pilgrimages. The most important one of them, the Borobodur Stupa on the island of Java, has become an annual destination. It is a stone pyramid carved and decorated with the episodes of Buddha’s life. Built in the 8th century A.C. amidst ricefields, and under constant threat from eruptions of nearby volcanoes, the stupa represents a three dimensional mandala made up of ten accessible levels ideal for practising Self-Healing.

Another aim of the Lama Gangchen World Peace Foundation is to spread the peace message and Self-Healing method worldwide by developing contacts with communities of every creed and with inter-religious associations, to spread world peace among nations, it’s people and the environment. Hence, the summer journey to the Amazon forest: to bless the biggest natural resource on our polluted planet, with ceremonies of purification of the elements and the practice of environmental Self-Healing. Several ceremonies were performed on a multitude of small boats together with the local Indios tribes in the middle of the Amazon river. Other stops in South and North America established further important contacts with various United Nations information centres and agencies (UNESCO, UNICEF). In New York, in particular on the occasion of the International Day for Peace, Lama Gangchen guided the Vernal Equinox Meditation for world peace organized at the United Nations.

Shortly, Lama Gangchen will be leaving for Malaysia, where a large community of Chinese Buddhists awaits him, to celebrate the anniversary of the Medicine Buddha with special ceremonies and a puja for liberating the dead. He will then proceed to China to visit some holy places such as Wu-tai-shan, the five peak mountain, maybe the most holy place in the country, dedicated to Manjushri, the Wisdom Buddha. On top of every peak there are temples and monasteries; one of them, the Shaolin Monastery, is famous for teaching martial arts according to the Buddhist philosophy of non-violence. From each peak one can enjoy an incredible view across the other mountain ranges with thousands of soft tones shading off into the horizon. One face of the Wu-tai-shan Mountain bears one of the masterpieces of Chinese calligraphic art: the thousand characters of the Diamond Sutra carved in the rock.

After China Lama Gangchen and the peace messengers will travel to the Muslim country of Pakistan, once of Buddhist tradition, before going on to Indonesia, Borbudur and then to Sri Lanka (for Christmas), the cradle of the protobuddhist Teravadan tradition, today sadly tormented by civil war. There he will bring his ardent peace message.

(Paola Tamborini)