Holy Stupas, Batman

After arriving in Boudha I made my way to the guesthouse where Jane and I would share a room, took a shower, ate a quick breakfast, and then I was off to Chogye Trichen Rinpoche's cremation.

Jane's purpose for being in Kathmandu was to attend the cremation, so naturally I followed along. Tibetan Buddhism is confusing because there are divisions of a topic, any topic - truth, hell realms, methods - and within those divisions there are subdivisions, and within those subdivisions there are more subdivisions and so on. It never seems to end. So I'll try to break this down as simply as possible.

There are four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism: Nyingma, Sakya, Gelug, and Kagyu. The Dalai Lama is the head of the Gelug school and the Karmapa of the Kagyu. The Sakya school has three lineages: Sakya, Tsarpa, and Ngarpa. Chogye Trichen Rinpoche was the head of the Tsarpa lineage. Being a highly revered and renowned master and lineage head, his passing and cremation are a huge, huge deal.

Rinpoche's cremation was held at his monastary in Boudha. To attend, a special pass was required and luckily Jane was able to score one for me. A madhouse amount of people were in attendance.

A special cremation stupa was erected in the middle of a square grass lawn. When it came time for the ceremony to start, a procession of monks blowing horns walked in followed by all the heads of the Sakya lineages and the head of the entire school of Sakya, His Holiness Sakya Trizin. Another reason the cremation is special is that it brought all the lineage heads together at one time.

After the parties processed in, each lineage head, his Holiness Sakya Trizin, and his oldest son, the heir to the Sakya throne all took their seats at thrones situated in each of the four directions, each on one side of the square lawn. From their, the pujas began accompanied by horns, drums, and cymbals at certain points. Each respective lama had been leading a puja since the death of Chogye Trichen Rinpoche.

The lineage heads then did kora around the cremation stupa and the body of Chogye Trichen Rinpoche, enclosed in a glass case sitting in meditation posture and wrapped in cloth, was carried out upon the shoulders of each Sakya lineage head. Rinpoche's body was then removed from the glass case and placed inside the stupa for the cremation.

The pujas continued during the entire ceremony. It was fascinating to hear the chanting and watch the beautiful mudras that accompanied each puja. During the pujas, objects that seemed to be branches, grains, oil, and others I couldn't identify were brought on platters to each lineage head. While still reciting the puja, the lineage head would then place the objects on another platter and then the contents of the platter were tossed into the cremation stupa. Sometimes a forceful stream of fire would come out of the top of the stupa and many people in attendance claimed to see different colors within the fire that came out of the stupa.

A few hours into the ceremony, I was starting to nod off due to the long busride and my recent arrival. I ended up leaving early. Even though I didn't stay for the entire cremation, it was quite an honor to attend and witness such a ritual. Chogye Trichen Rinpoche was truly loved as evident from all the Tibetans lined up outside of his monastery hoping to attend his cremation, to his western students who remember him and his teachings very fondly, and to other lamas who pay homage to him in their teachings that I've attended. Another testament to his mastery is how long Rinpoche stayed in samadhi, mind concentration meditation. Rinpoche remained in Samadhi for fourteen days, the length of which he determined prior to his passing, a capacity that only great masters have.