Episode 159: The Maitreya Buddha

Posted by on Feb 22, 2012 in All Podcast Episodes, HD Episodes, Season 5, Everest 2010 Trek & Photography Workshop, Stereoscopic 3D Episodes | Comments Off on Episode 159: The Maitreya Buddha

Did I Mention That It’s Big? We spent the morning today exploring the Tashilhunpo Monastery here in Shigatse. I’ve been waiting to return to this monastery since the moment I left it back in 2007. I was incredibly impressed with the large statue of the Maitreya Buddha but filming it was off limits. No so this year, but more on that later.

The Tashilhunpo Monastery is truly a city within a city. Within the monastery’s walls are a tightly regulated population of monks numbering in the thousands. Around 4,000 as I understand it. The monastery was founded during the mid 15th century by the first Dalai Lama and is the traditional seat of the “Tashi” or Panchen Lama.

The monastery grounds are a labyrinth of walking paths and alleyways between buildings. One of the things that blows my mind is that even though it’s crowded now, apparently 2/3 of it’s buildings were destroyed during China’s Cultural Revolution! Hard to imagine what this place must have been like 100 years ago. Hearing about the Cultural Revolution here in Tibet continually causes my heart to ache.

In addition to the Panchen Lama, Tashilhunpo Monastery is also famous for a relatively new addition to it’s ancient grounds, the century-old statue of the Maitreya Buddha. I went on and on about this statue in 2007 and it was no different this year aside from one small detail: this year I was able to film the statue!

The Maitreya Buddha is the largest indoor statue of a sitting Buddha in the world and seeing it for the first time produces a true jaw-dropping moment. The buddha is enormous, gilded, colorful and beautiful. Everything seems to be big in this part of the world but still, the size of Tashilhunpo’s Maitreya Buddha makes your head hurt.

It’s big. Very big. Extremely big. Amazingly big. Tremendously big. Magnificently big.

I guess what I’m trying to say here, is that it’s big.

Jon Miller

Total Running Time: 32:34

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