Yiga Choeling Monastery (Ghoom)
Darjeeling, India · c. 1952 – 1964
26.98200°N, 88.25870°E
Key Facts
- ◆ Sangharakshita first visited as a soldier in 1945 and retained vivid memories of the golden face of the colossal seated Maitreya.
- ◆ A later visit with Lama Govinda and Li Gotami made a deep impression — they moved clockwise around the chamber, reciting mantras before each image.
- ◆ The monastery occupied an important place in Lama Govinda's spiritual history; he had met his guru Tomo Geshe Rimpoche here.
- ◆ Dhardo Rimpoche became abbot of Yiga Choeling in 1964 and served until his death in 1990.
- ◆ After this visit, Lama Govinda explained his understanding of meditation as a mandala — an unfolding from a central point into ever-increasing dimensions — a vision that stayed with Sangharakshita.
“There was mist everywhere. The name Ghoom was indeed said to mean mist or fog, and it was well known that however clear a day it might be down at Teesta Bridge, or in Darjeeling, on passing through Ghoom one would be sure to encounter anything from a thick blanket of white cloud, through which the grey-blue shapes of the pines loomed like the shadows of giants, to a veil of mist so fine as to be almost invisible.”
Sangharakshita, staying with Lama Govinda and Li Gotami at The Pines (Lama Govinda’s small house at Ghoom), paid a visit one morning to the famous Ghoom Monastery — Yiga Choeling. As he lifted the heavy felt curtain that screened the entrance, he saw again the same colossal golden face of the Maitreya glimmering beneath the great jewelled tiara.
“Rosary in hand, Lama Govinda and Li Gotami moved clockwise round the chamber, pausing for a moment in front of each image or thangka and reciting the appropriate mantra, and I followed in their wake. Some of the mantras were new to me, and of these two in particular — the mantra of Śākyamuni and the mantra of Padmasambhava — not only sounded strangely familiar but also set up reverberations that made themselves felt in the remotest corners of my being.”
What affected Sangharakshita most was the evident devotion with which Lama Govinda and Li Gotami seemed to feel, behind each image, the living spiritual presence of which it was the representation — or even the veritable embodiment.
After their visit, Lama Govinda spoke of meditation as a mandala — an unfolding not from stage to stage, but from a central point into an ever-increasing number of different aspects and dimensions. “I had a vision of petal being added to petal, or facet to facet, until one had a thousand-petalled rose or a thousand-faceted crystal ball complete in all its glory.”
Dhardo Rimpoche, one of Sangharakshita’s closest Tibetan friends and teachers, later became abbot of Yiga Choeling in 1964 and served until his death in 1990.
— In the Sign of the Golden Wheel
Source: In the Sign of the Golden Wheel; Facing Mount Kanchenjunga
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