Captured at: Dalai Lama Monastery, HP
I always used to wonder what leads a person to devote his life to god, sacrificing all the luxuries of life and its attachments be it materialistic or emotional to become a man of robe.
To answer my doubts, my journeys led me to cross-paths with Lobsang Dhondhen, a senior monk at the Buddhist School of Dialectics Dialogues of Tibetan propaganda and Buddhism over their native speciality butter tea turned intimate with the breaking-of bread, as he unfolded the story if his life. He vaguely tried to remember the faces of his family and kin, who crossed the border carrying a 3 months old kid (Lobsang himself) in 1959 seeking refuge into India after they were exiled from Tibet. I could clearly observed the frowning sadness taking over his face slyly hiding behind the old man’s wrinkles as he was engulfed with the sorrow and longing for what used to be home and his family.
His life completely took a turn at the age of 18, when his mother told him that she would be the luckiest woman to see her son in that “red-robe” before she draws her last breath. Infilliated with the love for his mother, he joined the Buddhist School of Dialects a year later under the patronage of His Holiness Dalai Lama himself. Young Lobsang fulfilled his mother’s wish before she rested in peace, when he was 20. He continued his religious practices and became a propagator of Buddhism in India and abroad. He spent 6month every year in Italy with his Guru, Geshe Yeshe Tobdhen, at the buddhist center in Rome and Milan propagating their cause.
Traveling has become more of a voyage of learning than just backpacking and roaming around. Its more of a way of living, exploring places and people simultaneously for the world is one big book and every travel unfolds a new chapter and a new vision altogether.
Boudhi Tree 