(click image to enlarge)
Related photos can be found in my Bhutan Prayer Flags Album.
There appears to be nothing in common between these flags and their Tibetan counterparts except the script they’re written in. I hope that this display reminds all of us that most of Lamasic Buddhism, aka “the Vajrayana,” has little or nothing to do with Tibet. The Bhutanese lineage, in particular, is very separate, and very unconfused about being separate. I think it’s great that it is starting to appear in the West.
Lamasic Buddhism is endemic to all of Central Asia and most of the Himalayas. That’s an area the size of the continental US, and it includes representatives of every major language group, and every major ethnic group on this planet, and of dozens of separate nationalities. The idea that one person could be the “God-King” or the “Buddhist Pope” over that entire ethnic, linguistic, and political hodge-podge is simply a subjective phantasy on the part of that person and his cronies.
There is a lot of excellent Buddhist art in the Honolulu Museum of Fine Arts, and I feel that some of it is more powerful in that context than it would be surrounded by the ritual rigamarole of temples. When the intention was true, and the art was excellent, you just need peace and quiet to fathom what that person was doing with that piece. There is a Kuan Yin statue (the big “royal ease” asana) in there that actually has healing powers.
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
