Tell Us Your Story!
We are fortunate to have many people share their experiences at the stupa with us - either in person or in the pages of our guest book or via e-mail. Do you have a story you would like to share? Then post it in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you!
posted by MsT at 9:03 PM
1 Comments:
I would tell a story...
I have a brain injury...I often struggle with finding the truth of what others speak...
On this day something I had held in my Heart, for years, as Truth, I learned was false...a shift in perception so painful I did not think my mind could survive it...I did not know where to turn...I needed in a way that felt desperate..
I needed to be safe...the safest place I could think of was the Stupa...I told myself, to just hang on until I got there...then I could let go and face what was to come...
I felt selfish in my wishing that when I arrived no one would be there...no one was, but as I neared the top of the hill, a woman with two dogs passed by me...she spoke to me, but I was unable to reply...she saw the tears that had started to run down my face...
I walked slowly the rest of the way, and when I came to the Stupa, the woman walked one last circle and came close to me, nodded her head, then left me alone in that Holy place....I thank her...
I was, unable to remain silent...when I kneeled and placed my forehead on the ground before the Stupa...I began to weep, great wracking sobs, I have never experienced before....I let the tears come, and fall away from me....
In the days just past, they had hung prayer flags everywhere...there were more prayer flags hanging than I had ever seen, hundreds of them strung from tree to tree...There had also been added, since last I was there, prayer flags on upright poles, close to the Stupa...I do not know the meaning of them...
As I gathered my prayer beads in my hand, holding them close to my heart, I opened my mouth to pray...In the INSTANT of uttering my first sound, a fierce wind began to blow...It blew my hair about my face and caused the prayer flags, on the upright poles, to blow straight out...the little tabs of fabric attatched at the edges, snapped in the stength of the wind....
In that same instant a Bald Eagle, which has great meaning to me, in my life, landed in a tree on on the hill next to a statue of the Buddha...at the first sound of my prayer the Eagle began to call out, in that trilling way they chatter...the musical sound...a high note pattern, that seems, as if sound is fallng...
With every step I took the Eagle continued it's chattering song, and the wind continued to blow...the fabric of my skirt billowing, and my hair flying wildly about my head....the snapping sound, the fabric of the prayer flags made, an accompaniment to the sounds of my prayers...
As I began circling the Stupa, it was then that I noticed that only my hair and clothing, and the prayer flags on the upright poles were blowing in the wind....the strength of the wind causing them to be continually straight out and the little tabs snapping, and snapping....
Yet, NOT ONE of the other prayer flags were moving...not a tree branch...not one blade of the wild grasses that covered the hills...all else, was absolutely still....
I continued to circle the Stupa, chanting a prayer for each of the beads, on my strand of prayer beads...the Eagle continued to chatter...the prayer flags, on the poles, continued to snap...when I chanted the 108th prayer, on my strand of beads...in that moment...the wind became still, and the Eagle became silent...
The saddest moments of my life, had become the most beautiful...I was so Blessed....
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