Spinning along the Highway to Heaven

The gold leafed Buddha at the Thrangu Monastery in Richmond. Photos by David Lansing.

Another drive down Richmond’s “Highway to Heaven” today, this time to the Thrangu Monastery, the first traditional Tibetan monastery in Canada.

I tiptoed in to the temple to have a look at their famed gold leafed, 12-foot-tall Buddha (flanked by some 34 smaller buddhas). There was some chanting going on, which made walking around the temple a bit awkward for me. I’d been told that it was perfectly okay to take photos inside the temple, but when you have people sitting around on the floor cross-legged and chanting, you do tend to feel like a bit of a pervert for snapping photos.

The Prayer Wheel at the Thrangu Monastery in Richmond. Photo by David Lansing.

A cheerful monk came over and welcomed me. That helped. He asked if I wanted to join in. I told him I was actually here just to have a look at the temple. “Please,” he said, smiling and waving his arm, “be our guest.”

I asked him what was going on.

It was, he said, a Chenrizika Practice. “The master chants to generate love and compassion.”

Well, that’s always good. We could use a bit more of that around, couldn’t we.

The monk offered to give me a tour. He pointed out the 1,000 Medicine Buddhas in the temple (not each and every one, of course) and then took me outside to show me the temple’s prayer wheel. Each prayer wheel contained mantras written on strips of paper—thousands of copies of Om Mani Padne Hum. “When you spin the prayer wheel, it is like saying the mantra repeatedly,” he said. “Would you like to try it?”

I spun the prayer wheel. I mumbled Om Mani Padne Hum. Sadly, I didn’t really feel any holier afterwards. Not that I ever feel holy to begin with.