After I arrived back in Kathmandu, I headed back to my usual hostel, Yog. I arrived just in time for Shivarati. It’s a Hindu festival celebrating Shiva. There are celebrations everywhere, but especially at the Pashupatinath temple. The facilities are big. There is a river that runs through where bodies are cremated.
I met new, and old, friends at Yog and went to the temple around 12am. It was quite a scene. There were Baba (yogis) scattered about, giving blessings and huddled around fires. There was a psytrance party on one area of the complex. This is the only day of the year that non-Hindus are allowed into the main temple.
The festivities started in the early hours and lasted all day. Later in the day, there were gatherings in the streets. People cooked and distributed food to passer-byers. Children blocked some roads with ropes/chains. They asked drivers for money in exchange for letting them pass. There were bon fires in the street throughout the city.
The next day, I went back to meditate at the Boudhanath stupa. This place is powerful. While doing Tonglen, a practice of taking in the suffering of others and sending out light/relief, a bee stung my finger and died. I think there was a mind training message here of being able to practice Tonglen while being attacked, a feat only attainable at the time because I was in the middle of the practice and I was in a special place. I aspire to be able to practice achieving the same mind state outside this kind of protected environment post-meditation.
I left Kathmandu to go do a short trek with a Nepali friend, Udaya. We took an 8 hour (bumpy) bus ride to Nakote. On the way there I saw two black Ayam Cemani chickens (the second time in a 2 week time span)! We arrived in Nakote, checked into a guest house, met some others travelers, and were off in the morning.
Our first destination was the Padmasambhava cave, just on the north edge of a quaint village named Melamchigaon. Padmasambhava was a Buddhist Vajra master who lived in the 8th-9th centuries. He is accredited with bringing Buddhism to Tibet. Meditating in his cave was probably the highlight of the trek. Powerful. It had a similar quality to the temple behind the Boudhanath stupa in Kathmandu, although it was slightly different.
After, we continued uphill to Thadepati. Thadepati is at the top of a mountain ridge. We stayed the night there, and were greeted with a glorious sunrise. The next day we headed back down to Nakote for lunch. The high forest just below Thadepati was just beautiful. There were no shrubs or grasses growing at this altitude, just trees.
After lunch, we headed to our final destination, the Milerepa cave. Milerepa was a Tibetan siddha. Trekking down was relatively short. We passed lovely cascades and then arrived at the monastery built in front of the cave. This cave was also special and again, had a similar vibration as the Padmasambhava cave and temple at Boudhanath stupa, but again also slightly different. All these vibrations I think can be loosely connected with how a quartz feels. After leaving the cave, I checked out the temple in front of it. There were Vajrayana paintings covering the walls and ceilings. There were many wrathful deities I did not recognize.
This trek was just lovely. The places were like scenes taken from Shang-Chi and the legend of the ten rings, magical and serene.
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