caves – COHN17

On his way to founding the Lo Gekhar Monastery, Guru Rinpoche stopped at Chungsi Cave. He meditated here sometime “early in the 8th century,” says the internet, and a small monastery was later established in the cave.

To get there takes a hell of a lot of steep hiking down, followed many stairs back up. If I remember correctly, the descent from the high point of the morning hike was roughly 800 feet. It looks like there are five or six monks living up there. The monastery is very simple and is centered on the cave itself.

While the golden statue of Guru Rinpoche pictured above dominates the front of the cave, Guru Rinpoche himself allegedly slept in a small hole in the cave wall that now serves as a place to leave offerings:

Jhong Cave is a five-story network of man-made caves that were carved out of the cliffs close to the Tibetan border. Archaeologists estimate that the caves were used as as burial chambers as early as 1000 BC, but they were put to more dramatic use in the 10th century as refuges during a war with Tibet. Later, the locals used the caves for storage and for meditation chambers, likely up until the point when someone realized that tourists would pay good money to go inside. So let’s take a look.

The landscape is barren, but the cliffs are fairly porous.

Next: another cave.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30