The Stupa

New Year’s Eve as Kunzes and I made our way around the giant stupa of Boudanath. Monks sit cross-legged reciting ‘Om Mani Padme Om’ while spinning prayer wheels in their hands. Little children chase each other spinning the wheels along the way. Kunzes,” I ask, “What do these people pray for?” I wasn’t expecting her to have an answer. The Tibetans lay out into full prostrations before the Stupa. Buddhists on pilgrimage all the way from Ladakh purchase corn to feed to the pigeons that congregate along the Stupa’s outer rim. Foreign monks spin the wheels as hundreds of people gather to circumambulate the Stupa. Kasmiris huddle together sipping tea waiting for the next photographer to glance at the scarves they sell. Everyday from 4am until sunset, people from all over (mostly Tibetans) walk clockwise around the magnificent Stupa.
“The whole world" Kunzes tells me, "They are praying for all beings from insects to trees to people.”

“And what about themselves? Their family? Their health?”

“No, no, no. They are thinking about everything that exists. It is only sometimes when we pray for one thing. Like yesterday when I did prostrations for your father.”

Above us, the colored prayer flags stream the skyline, wavering in the wind. The overpowering scent of incense catches your ever inhalation. The deep noted mantra prayers drowns out the crazy traffic of Kathmandu’s city streets.

“You should see my mom on days where she must water our fields in the village. In the morning she wakes up before the sunrises and prays for the insects that will be killed that day. She can’t help it because the fields must be watered.”

Alongside, stand blind beggars with their hands cupped. Tibetans who have saved up forever to come here, place coins in their hands as they pass in front of us. For the first time I saw the Stupa as a spiritual, holy site. Not what it did for me but the beauty in what it did for these people and the world.


Monk feeding the pigeons