The ancient monastery was built into the side of a mountain cliff. It housed 15 Buddhist monks, although Master Fwap told me, it had once housed more than a hundred.
It was made of stone, wood and plaster, and was adorned with dozens of brightly colored prayer flags.
We had arrived at sunset, just as the monastery lamps were being lit.
As the two of us stood surveying the monastery, a pair of monks came out into the front courtyard, and blew through two musical instruments that looked like seven-foot-long oboes!
I can’t say that the sounds they made were pleasing to me, but judging from the bright and happy expression on Master Fwap’s face, he seemed to enjoy their music.
The monks seemed to know, like, and have a deep respect for Master Fwap.
I also noticed that he acted differently around them, than he did with me. He seemed more at ease.
After tea, Master Fwap and I were conducted into the north wing, and ushered into the room belonging to the head lama.
He was very old. He sat on a meditation couch in the large room that served as both his bedroom and office.
He greeted me with a warm, broad smile.
I liked him immediately.
Despite his advanced years, there was something very youthful about him.
Master Fwap said something to him in a different language, and then the two of them started giggling like children.
After a few minutes, one of the younger monks appeared noiselessly at the door, and conducted me to a different section of the monastery, where I would be staying.
ॐ
I was given a small room at the end of the south wing.
It was sparsely furnished, and smelled perpetually of incense.
ॐ
I don’t remember dreaming during the nights I slept in the monastery.
My days were spent taking walks with the younger monks, and helping around the kitchen.
One of the monks, who was about my age, had undertaken the task of teaching me Nepali.
His name was Ananda. In return, he asked me to teach him English.
He and I spent our mornings and afternoons together, when I wasn’t working in the kitchen, walking around the monastery grounds, pointing at anything we could find to teach each other words.
I liked the routine of the monastery.
Every morning we would get up with the sun. We bathed in a freezing cold waterfall that came roaring down the mountain side, and then after returning to the kitchen for hot buttered tea, we would all go to the meditation hall.
The hall was windowless. It was lit with dozens of small candles.
The walls were covered with brightly colored thangkas, that depicted Buddhas, gods, goddesses, and other worldly scenes, in fantastically complicated paintings.
Each morning, I would sit next to Master Fwap, facing the front of the hall, in a cross-legged position, on a meditation cushion.
At the front of the room, next to a statue of the Buddha, the head lama stood motionless until all of the other monks were present and seated, then he would ring a small bell.
Immediately, everyone would close their eyes, and enter into meditation.
Trying to follow Master Fwap’s instructions, I meditated as best I could.
At the beginning of each session, I mostly thought.
But part way through the morning meditation, my thoughts would begin to slow, and occasionally, for very short periods of time, they would completely stop.
During these times, I felt similar to the way I had, when I had been sitting next to Master Fwap, in the ‘cave of seeing’.
I could feel a perfect stillness within me.
The universe seemed to melt into me, and I into it. I felt like I was part of everything, and I had no fear.
I noticed that each morning, about 15 minutes after the meditation session had ended, everything became very clear, and shiny.
My physical vision seemed to clear, and everything I saw became brighter and more precise.
Once after meditation, I asked Master Fwap about this phenomenon.
He told me that things were always this bright, but that I needed my morning meditation, to clear my mind enough, to see just how beautiful life really was.
SAMADHI IS THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN
A week into our stay, Master Fwap and I spent an afternoon in the monastery garden.
He remarked that this particular monastery was his favorite in all of the Himalayas..
He said that he came here, whenever he needed to clear his mind, and rejuvenate his spirit.
“Normally when I come here, I spend most of my time meditating in this garden.
“The luminous ‘energy lines’ of this particular valley all converge right here, in this garden.
“These energy lines are particularly conducive to the deep meditative state of emptiness, samadhi, because they emanate from a dimension of perfect light.
“Buddhist monasteries are built on locations that ‘interphase’ with dimensions that are of the brightest and most perfect light.
“The Himalayas are filled with places like this.
“And since there are few people around these locations, these places of power and enlightenment have remained relatively unpolluted by the aura of worldly human beings, thus, ideal for achieving samadhi.”
“Why do you need a special place to experience samadhi? I thought that if you were enlightened, you could go into samadhi in any location.”
Master Fwap was amused by the fact that I had finally asked about meditation, instead of my perpetual topic, snowboarding.
“There are really two issues involved here, and I want you to see them as complimentary.
“The first is, understanding what the samadhis are, and how they are attained.
“This is a purely technical understanding of meditation techniques and methods.
“The second issue is how the
can be used to heighten overall spiritual awareness, and how they can make it easier for a person to experience the samadhis.”
“Master Fwap, I thought you said that samadhi was the absence of thought. I’ve experienced that, several times since we’ve been here, during my morning meditations. Does that mean I have been entering into samadhi, already?”
“I’m afraid that what you have experienced so far, is a few good minutes of meditation, but not samadhi.
“Yes, samadhi is the absence of thought.
“Let us say, that the absence of thought is one of the indications that you have entered into a deep state of meditation.
“But there are several other aspects to the experience of samadhi that must also be present, if what you are experiencing is really samadhi.
“According to our yogic traditions, samadhi means complete awareness of God. Or, to put it in less religious terms, samadhi means that your mind, and the mind of the universe, are, for a time, merged in an absolute ecstatic union.
“There are said to be three stages of samadhi,
and
“Salvikalpa samadhi is like accidentally falling into a beautiful and pure lake of absolute bliss.
“You did not fall in, intentionally, but you found it refreshing, nevertheless.
“Nirvikalpa samadhi is like intentionally diving into the same lake, and swimming and playing in it, for a time.
“Sahaja samadhi is like living on a houseboat, in the middle of the lake of bliss, and occasionally coming ashore for supplies.
“But when we experience life through our senses and with our thoughts, we don’t experience its ‘essential nature’, its most pure and radiant form.
“Instead, we only experience the external veneer of life’s ecstasy.
“If you want to experience life in its totality, it is necessary to enter into samadhi.
“Stopping your thoughts for a few minutes during meditation, which you have experienced several times in the meditation hall, over the past few mornings, will give you a glimpse.
“But in samadhi, you gain more than a glimpse! You will experience the
and
depths of existence.
“The experience of samadhi is never the same twice, because nirvana is endless, ever-new, and since your ability to experience it also increases, as your life becomes more fluid and powerful, your experiences in samadhi are never exactly the same.
“Samadhi is ecstasy beyond comprehension. During deep meditation, as you start to enter into samadhi, at first, every cell in your body will be filled with a fiery ecstasy.
“This ecstasy starts at the base of your spine, and rises as the kundalini energy ascends up your sushumna.
“Your sushumna is the primary conduit of the kundalini energy, in your non-physical body.
“It is an astral nerve tube that runs between, and connects, all of your major chakras.
“It begins at the base of your spine, where your first chakra is located, and then runs up through your spleen chakra, navel chakra, heart chakra, throat chakra, and ends in your sixth chakra, the ‘third-eye’, which is located in the center of your forehead.
“It runs in the astral plane, next to, and along, your spinal column.
“To go into samadhi, you must pull the kundalini energy up from your root chakra — the first chakra, at the base of your spine — all the way up to your third-eye.
“Then you must move all the kundalini energy you have amassed at your sixth chakra — the third-eye — up and into your seventh chakra, which we, in Buddhist yoga, refer to as the ‘crown chakra’.
“This is the difficult part, because the ‘crown chakra’ is not directly connected to the third-eye, by the sushumna.
“It takes a great deal of will-power and total vibratory purity, to move the kundalini energy all of the way up to the ‘crown chakra’ from the third-eye.
“When the kundalini energy enters your ‘crown chakra’, you experience samadhi.
“As I mentioned before, samadhi is the direct experience of nirvana.
“The ‘crown chakra’ is the nexus of one-thousand dimensional planes. That is why, in Buddhist yoga, it is often referred to as the ‘thousand-petaled lotus of light’.
“Please remember, that what I have just described to you, is only a verbal blue print, of how samadhi is achieved.”
“Master Fwap, how does the movement of all of that energy through your chakras affect you?”
“As the kundalini energy moves up your sushumna and passes through your chakras, which it does, when you are capable of stopping all your thoughts for protracted periods of time, it burns away all the impurities that exist within your physical body, your mind, and your ‘subtle body’.
“When all of those impurities, have been completely burned away, your mind turns into pure light.
“After going into samadhi for many lifetimes, there is
“You are absorbed into the heart of light, without motion.
“You rest there unknowingly. All awareness of this — or of any other plane or world — comes to an end.
“There is only light, the pure and perfect awareness of nirvana.
“Both
and
will depend upon
and also, to a certain degree,
“One of the ‘tricks’ to entering into samadhi, after you have experienced the proper training, and learned the secret techniques from an enlightened master, is to be in the right place at the right time.
“But having an enlightened master is an absolute necessity, for the serious student of Buddhist yoga.”
“Why Master Fwap? Why can’t you just learn Buddhist yoga from a book, the way you can, any other subject?”
“Buddhist yoga is the study of
and
“These three steps lead to enlightened awareness.
“None of them can be skipped, or you will fail to enter into samadhi.
“In order to really practice higher yoga, you need the
and
of a
“The first and most basic thing you gain from studying with a master, is pure power.
“When you are with your master, he transfers high-grade kundalini energy into your ‘subtle body’.
“The empowerments from your master, energize and activate your chakras! Allowing you to do things that you could not possibly do with the amount of energy you normally have at your disposal.
“Your master’s auric empowerment awakens your past life abilities and talents, and can even boost your IQ !”
“So what does all of this have to do with going into samadhi, and how physical locations, like this valley, can enhance that?”
“It is because of the pranic currents here,
that flows
“If the pranic current is highly charged, which occurs when the energy comes from a dimension that vibrates very rapidly, then the physical area where that dimension crosses over becomes highly charged, too.
“The valley we are in, is such a place.
“If the pranic currents come from a dimension that vibrates more slowly than the energy in our own dimension, then the physical area of pranic cross-over becomes negatively charged.
“If you spend time in such a place, it will slow down the vibratory rate of your ‘subtle body’. You will feel tired, and drained. If you stay there too long, you can become physically sick.
“When the wind moves in the same direction that an airplane does, it significantly speeds up the airplane.
“If the airplane flies against the wind, it slows down.
“Pranic currents act in much the same way, they can assist you in your meditative practice, or make it more difficult.
“That’s enough talking for now. Let us meditate here for a while, and then go and find the lama.”
Master Fwap closed his eyes, and entered into meditation.
In a few moments, he was surrounded by golden light.
After watching the light flow around Master Fwap, I closed my eyes, and let my mind relax.
The next thing I knew, Master Fwap was tapping me on the shoulder! I opened my eyes, and—much to my surprise!—it was almost dark.
I had been sitting in meditation for several hours, even though it had only seemed like seconds to me.
Master Fwap was definitely right! The higher pranic currents in the valley, made it much easier for me to meditate.