Jugney's first post, Tso Pema

Tashi delek all you cyber-bloggers. I am finally making my entrance onto the travel blog, which so many other pilgrims have graced with their words and experiences. We are at Tso Pema right now, in Northwestern India, which has the holy lake where it is said Guru Padmasambhava was born in a lotus as an 8-year old child (Padmasambhava is Sanskrit for "Lotus-born One.") Rinpoche and some of us circumambulated around the lake, and did prostrations alongside Tibetan women singing beautiful heart prayers.

This is the only destination on the pilgrimage where we have had the opportunity to stay in a Tibetan monastery, and it's quite wonderful. You should see how small my room is. I love it! Of course most of the other rooms are normal size, but I tend to like smaller, cozier rooms myself. They work better as a meditation cave =) I must say though, I am just on the shore of the lake and have a breath-taking view, so from a feng shui perspective the space is not small at all.

Because we are directly on the lake, it is windy here. This made me think about Tibetan prayer flags and how the wind that passes through them is said to pass on the intentions of those who hang them and the blessings of the prayers inscribed on them. Since the wind here comes from the lake, I feel the wind flowing through the city is like the blessings of the lake's holy presence. While Padmasambhava, the great teacher, passed away in the conventional sense over 1000 years ago, he still breathes here.