Buddhist monks organise special prayers on World Heritage Day in Gaya

World Heritage Day is observed on April 18 with an aim to create awareness among the people for conservation of cultural heritage across the world.

World Heritage Day was first celebrated by International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) on 18 April 1982 in Tunisia, which was later also approved by UNESCO in 1983.

Buddhist monks and school children gathered at the Buddhist holy centre of Bodh Gaya in Gaya district and participated in the peace march.

A monk, Ashok Bansh, said: "Today is an important day as on the occasion of World Heritage Day, all the male and female monks have assembled over here and organised a special prayer for world peace, for the welfare of the world and for the protection of the world heritage site."

Buddha was born a prince at Lumbini in Nepal over 2,600 years ago. He left his wife and child at the age of 29 in search of divine knowledge and enlightenment and attained it beneath a banyan tree at Bodh Gaya in Bihar, after years of meditation.

There are several important Buddhist religious places - Bodh Gaya in Bihar, where Lord Buddha attained salvation, Sarnath, Kushinagar, where Lord Buddha breathed his last, Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh, an ancient seat of Buddhist learning, and several monasteries in Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

India, in the recent past, has been promoting Buddhist tourism, and particularly targeting South East Asian countries, China and Japan, which have a sizeable Buddhist population.

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Tibetan Buddhist monks organize prayers for victims, families of Sandy Hook school

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Mysore, India -- Tibetan monks are praying in Mysore, India, for the victims and families of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, as well as the Newtown community. The school was the site of a horrific tragedy where a lone gunman killed 20 kindergartners and six adults last month, on Dec. 14.

<< Students and teachers at Sera Mey Monastery in India offer their prayers for the victims and families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings and the community of Newtown. Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche, spiritual director of Do Ngak Kunphen Ling, Tibetan Buddhist Center for Universal Peace (DNKL), in Redding, and Geshe Dhargye, right, in the back row, resident teacher and scholar, organized the prayers. They are currently visiting and teaching at Sera Mey Monastery.

“We are all one. Even on the other side of the world people are praying for you. We send prayers of compassion from Sera Mey Monastery in India,” said Geshe Lobsang Dhargye of Do Ngak Kunphen Ling, Tibetan Buddhist Center for Universal Peace (DNKL), in Redding.

Currently, Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche, spiritual director of DNKL, and Geshe Dhargye, resident teacher and scholar, are visiting and teaching at Sera Mey Monastery in India. As neighbors in Redding to the Newtown community, they share the sorrow and suffering brought forth by the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Rinpoche and Geshe organized weekly prayer services for the victims, families and community.

Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche is also head of Thewo Khangsten in Sera Mey Monastery in India. As a senior scholar of the Gelugpa Tibetan Buddhist lineage, Rinpoche and Geshe offer traditional and authentic teachings in Redding and at the monastery in India.

Sera Mey Monastery history links directly to Buddha Shakyamuni. Sera Monastery is one of the “great three” Gelugpa university monasteries of Tibet. During the 1959 revolt in Lhasa, Sera monastery suffered severe damage. After the Dalai Lama took asylum in India, many of the monks of the Sera Monastery who survived moved to Bylakuppe in Mysore, India. They established a parallel Sera Monastery with Sera Mey and Sera Jey colleges and a Great Assembly Hall, similar to the original monastery.

There are now more than 3,000 monks living in Sera. This community has spread its teaching activities to several countries by establishing Tibetan Buddhist Dharma centers which share the knowledge of Buddhism, such as the DNKL Tibetan Buddhist Center in Redding (dnkl.org and facebook.com/DNKL.Buddhist.Center).

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Growing numbers join in prayers for the New Year

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Bangkok, Thailand -- The New Year 2012 opened with an auspicious tone as over one million people attended the "across the year" prayer at Buddhist temples nationwide on New Year's Eve, an official said yesterday.

Office of National Buddhism director Nopparat Benjawattananant said the initial report found that over one million people joined in prayer at temples nationwide. Provinces surveyed randomly saw some 20 temples hosting prayers with each temple hosting some 10,000 attendees. As the trend towards prayers seemed to grow, he said the office would officially survey the number of attendees as a basis for office's work planning.

Bangkok’s Wat Sa Ket abbot assistant, Phra Wichitdhammapon said the prayer campaign, hosted by the Sangha Supreme Council, the Office of National Buddhism, and the government, was successful with Wat Sa Ket alone seeing over 30,000 people attending the prayer.

Eighty per cent of the attendees were teenagers and working-age people, he said, saying it was a good sign that young people were interested in attending religious activities and urging parents to set a good example to their kids by making merit.

In related news, a spent bullet from people shooting skywards to celebrate the New Year had injured a woman joining the New Year Eve prayer at the plaza of Phra Pathom Chedi, Nakhon Pathom's famous landmark.

Vendor Khemika Limwashiranon, 42, who sustained a toe injury, filed a police complaint at 1am yesterday at Muang Nakhon Pathom police station and submitted a .38 calibre bullet as evidence.

The police station also received a complaint of stray bullets hitting a car's window while it was parked near the Phra Pathom Chedi, as well other complaints of bullets hitting three people's homes, but no injuries were reported.

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Sikkim quake: Early Sunday prayers saved monks of Ringjhim monastery

The monastery houses five senior monks and 55 students and as it was a Sunday, the monks had finished their prayer session half an hour earlier rather than the usual time of 6 pm on weekdays.

The earthquake struck at 6.10 pm ruining the holy prayer hall in a matter of minutes before the monks could run for shelter. Had the prayer meeting continued till 6 PM as on week days, the monks could have been trapped inside, the Principal of the Institution of Buddhist Learning of the monastery, Acharya Prema Dorjee told PTI.

"On weekdays the routine afternoon prayer session is from 4 pm to 6 pm but as it was Sunday we finished the prayer session at 5.30 pm in the evening and the earthquake hit this part of the region at 6.10 pm," Acharya Prema Dorjee told PTI.

"We saw part of our coveted institution crumbling down like a house of cards. Had it been a weekday we would all have been under the debris" Dorjee said.

"We would all have died but it was our good luck that we survived. Had it been a week day no one would have survived" a senior monk said.

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