I had no idea what I was signing up for when I decided to join the Tibetan community for the 25th Kagyu Monlam at Bodhgaya. Slowly the preparations appeared: a wonderful entrance gate welcoming everyone (looked surprisingly like a Torii gate)Town started to fill up with more and more visitors. Then a registration office and the schedule emerged: morning practice from 6am-9am; teaching 9.30-11am; lunchbreak and two session in the afternoon. The day before it started a friend said "oh but you have to get there by 5am to get a good seat" so we set off at 4.30, expecting to walk. Were surpised to find the road madly busy with literally thousands of monks who were also heading in early! There were plenty of autorickshaws so we piled in and were driven past streams of marooned robed figures on either side of the road. The monks' accomodation was right next to where we were staying and there were terrible traffic jams every day at 5am and 5pm, not to mention the mad rush at lunchtime!
What has this to do with World Peace you may be asking? The tradition is that gathering together and reciting prayers is auspicious, helps build community and creates more power to the intentions for peace. In the past the prayers were said at 100 miles an hour in Tibetan which didn't appeal much to the many Westerners and Taiwanese, but this year there was excellent translation into English, Chinese, Hindi and Korean! SO the many participants from around the world could really put their hearts into the aspirations, understand the teachings and laugh at the jokes (10 seconds later than the Tibetan community) It was an inspiring and delightful event - visit www.kagyumonlam.org if you want to see more
