Today several of us traveled out to Do Ngak Kunphen Ling in Redding CT, a Buddhist temple dedicated to universal peace. It looks like a great big beautiful house. Last weekend there was a giant Tibetan prayer flag ceremony there, with something like a thousand people, so the whole place was covered in prayer flags. Right now is Saga Dawa, a traditional Buddhist holiday.

This seems like maybe a lot of flags, but this is only the view from ONE direction on the lawn, and maybe not the most heavily covered area at that. Incredible.



We were there in attendance of the Thousand Buddhas Offering ceremony, a long-form chanted prayer in Tibetan, quite amazing to hear . . . I was captivated by a huge reproduction they have there of a Ladakhi statue of Maitreya, the future Buddha. His expression is absolutely rapturous and simultaneously inscrutable. "What would it be like to feel like that?" I thought, shifting uncomfortably on my floor pillow and losing my place in the prayer book.



Continuing this week's culinary theme: when we came home this evening, Genla announced we would be having tug-pa, which is a traditional Ladakhi soup. The broth is made with fresh ginger and onion boiled with a handful of dried cow and yak cheese--it's quite delicious. To that you add tomato and a leafy vegetable, in this case spinach, and strips of a simple homemade wheat dough that cook in the broth. That's the dough you see in the picture, not chicken! Mmmmmmmmmm very nice!