Buddhist monks first visit ends at Lough

A group of Buddhist monks from Nepal recently travelled to the north east , concluding their visit by part taking in a traditional ceremony on the shores of Carlinford Lough.

The seven monks from Pema Ts’al Monastery, Pokhara, were invited to Lislea, Newry by local man Pat McParland, who first encountered them when he travelled to Nepal four years ago,

This was the first time that the monks had visited Ireland and their presence here attracted a lot of attention from local people interested in learning about Buddhist traditions.

The monks spent ten days in Ireland, during which time they engaged in a Medicine Buddha Sand Mandala Healing Ritual and Teaching Programme.

Pat decided to open the doors of his home so that anyone who wanted to meet the monks could do so.

‘We had visitors from all over Ireland as well as overseas,’ he said.

‘I had a lot of people phoning me up when they heard that the monks were coming so I decided to invite everyone one who wanted to come. There were people in their ‘80s and ‘90s who would never get the chance to travel to Nepal.’

The monks created a beautiful sand mandala using coloured sand which they had brought with them. At the end of their stay, they dissolved the sand mandala, distributed a part of sand to the devotees. They then travelled to Carlingford to make an offering of sand to the ocean and performed prayers, accompanied by traditional instruments.

The monks tirelessly created the sand mandala with great patience and enthusiasm and dismantled it on the final day to show the impermanence of everything that exists in this world. The sand is poured into the ocean in order to spread the healing energies of the mandala throughout the world.

Pat has stayed with monks in their Pema Ts’al Sakya Monastery a number of times and he was delighted to be able to invite them to his home and to treat them to Irish hospitality.

His home was transformed into a shrine for their visit, with people gathering daily for over four hours of chant and ritual. ‘ They were very impressed that people were so welcoming. There were nights when there were over a hundred people in the house.’

Buddhists from America and Canada also travelled to Newry to meet with them and the monks were presented with the rank of 3rd degree by the organization of World Mugendo in Northern Ireland(United Kingdom) to show their appreciation for the monks.