Cultural Visions Part One: Himalaya

Monk, Ladakh, India, 1974

Back in the ’70s, Thomas Laird, Bill Hamilton and I formed Research Group Triangle. We were supported in part by an Italian philanthropist in Geneva, Switzerland. Our mandate was to document Buddhist culture in India and Nepal. Over a period of several months,  we photographed, filmed and recorded audio in Buddhist temples, hermitages and monasteries.

Listening to the ting-shah, Bodhanath, Nepal, 1979

Five years later, in 1978, I returned to Asia with my wife, Vivian Leskes and spent several more months with the Sherpas and Tibetans.

Group Portrait, Junbesi Temple, Solu, Nepal, 1974

I’m the guy with the beard and Tom is standing behind me.

Funeral, Junbesi, 1979

A sick woman arrived in Junbesi one evening trying to get to her Buddhist teacher, Tulshig Rimpoche, before dying. She didn’t make it. She is on the right tied to heavy stones for a river burial. She did not have the money for a traditional sky burial. The ritual was performed by a village lama, with chendar drum in the foreground, and Nyingma Dzogchenpa Lhakpa Drolma, the funeral shaman, reciting prayers to the left. Vivian is sitting on a rock in the background.

Nyingma Dzogchenpa Lhakpa Drolma at the Dumji Festival, Junbesi, Nepal, 1979

Takshindu Lama Leshe in his Monastery apartment, Solu Region, Nepal, 1974

A puja in a village home, Solu Region, Nepal, 1974

The monks and lamas often supported themselves by performing ceremonies for villagers.

Annual Dumji Festival, Junbesi, Nepal, 1979

Monk and Chung-Chung at the Kalachakra Empowerment, Bodhgaya, India, 1974

My first meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and my first experience with Tibetan Buddhism happened at this Kalachakra Tantra ceremony soon after I first arrived in India.

 This initiation took place in a field beside the Bodhi Tree. The original place of the Buddha’s enlightenment 2500 years ago.

I will continue this series of my early photography of Tibetan culture with a posting about three trips I made to Tibet in the 1990s. Thanks for looking.