Kurje- The Holiestic & Blessed Place

Kurje is one of the most sacred sites in Bhutan as Guru Rinpoche meditated here and left the imprint (je) of his body (ku) on a rock. In the 8th century, Bumthang was under the rule of a king named Sendhaka (alias Sintu Raja) whose home was the ‘iron castle’, Chakhar. This king was at war with his southern neighbour, King Na’oche. The latter killed the son of King Sendhaka, who became so distraught that he forgot to worship his personal deity, Shelging Karpo. The angry god withdrew the king’s vital principle and as a result he fell gravely ill. As a last resort, his ministers decided to call Guru Rinpoche, whose supernatural powers were well-known throughout the Himalayas. When Guru Rinpoche arrived in Bumthang, he went to a place a short distance north of Chakhar where there was a large rock resembling a diamond-thunderbolt on the summit. Here lived the deity Shelging Karpo. Guru Rinpoche meditated there for a while, leaving the imprint of his body on the rock. Then he asked the King’s daughter, whom he had taken as his consort, to go and fetch some water in a golden ewer. While she was away, he changed into his Eight Manifestations and began to dance in the meadow. So amazing was this spectacle that all the local divinities, except Shelging Karpo, came to watch. When the king’s daughter came back, Guru Rinpoche transformed her into five princesses, each holding a golden ewer in her hand. The ewers reflected the sun’s rays directly at Shelging Karpo’s rock. Curious about this unusual flashing, Shelging Karpo decided to take the form of a white lion and come out to see what was going on. This was the moment Guru Rinpoche had been waiting for. Turning himself into a holy griffon, (garuda/jachung), he swooped down, seized Shelging Karpo and forced him to give back the King’s vital principle. At the same time he made him promise not to cause any trouble for Buddhism and to become a protective deity. Guru Rinpoche planted his pilgrim staff in the ground where it grew into a cypress tree which has a descendant said to stand to this day in front of Kurje Lhakhang. As for Shelging Karpo, he is still the deity of Kurje. King Sendhaka recovered his health and converted to Buddhism. Guru Rinpoche compelled the two kings to meet each other and make peace at a place in the Black Mountains called Nabji, where a stone pillar commemorates this meeting. This episode constitutes the first conversion to Buddhism of Bumthang.

Source: www.facebook.com/Nima Gyelpo Retrived on 25.o2.2013

No to Domestic Violence empowers woman.

14 February is celebrated as a Valentine Day. This year it is observed under a theme called “One Billion Rising” on the valentine day and it will be celebrated every year.   One Billion Rising is a global movement, started by Eve Ensler, to end rape and sexual violence against women. The "billion" is the number of women who will be raped or beaten in their lifetime. According to the United Nations, the number is one in three women, or about one billion.

The campaign was started by playwright and activist Eve Ensler. Ensler wrote the play The Vagina Monologues). She started the organization V-DayThe idea for the organization came from the Todd Akin 'legitimate rape' and pregnancy comment controversy. Ensler was shocked at Akin's statement. She wrote an open letter in answer.

It appears that the world would like to create more awareness to end violence against women through the aforementioned campaign. As a small contribution to this initiative,   I was thinking of surprising my better half with a simple gift on this day. Unfortunately, the valentine day falls in the middle of the month and my purse gets fatter only at the end of the month to buy a gift for my better half to celebrate the Valentines day.  

Meanwhile, this made me have another perspective on having not been able to gift something for one of the special women in my life; Is this social/economical/emotional violence towards my wife?  No matter at what extent someone or some institutions make an effort to combat domestic violence, against women, systematic dictation by the social structure could be the biggest hurdle to achieve the objective. 

The social structure is the sum of the culture and civilization of the particular society. When it comes to the gender gap, there are a lot of debates going on in the world. A few experts argue that the gender issue is woven through cultural and social pattern and therefore, it becomes bit sensitive in some spaces. It is found out that the issue of gender equity breeds when some section of society continues to suppress women. And at some point society becomes more sensitive when there are more campaign and education. I have never heard my village people talking about gender equity rather they were fulfilling their own roles back at home like cooking food is responsible for women and collecting firewood is man's responsibility. 

In Bhutan, there was a practice that women were kept home to do household chores and men were sent to school. In addition, women got married or forced for early marriages resulting in less women working in the public sector. On this basis,  NGOs and other government offices responsible for women issues are trying to promote gender equality through the inclusion of women concerns in many policies of the government. Over the past year, we have seen many women being promoted to executive positions in both government and public sector. 

Bringing another big change is the opportunity for approving the ‘Domestic Violence Bill’ which is tabled for discussion in 10^th and the last session of first parliament. A few political analysts thought that the government is introducing the bill to gain women's attention to vote for them in the next election. More than the election, vote I am thinking if the bill has features addressing women's issues lying at the culture-centric society. 

Whether Domestic Bill gets approved or not, when I went to a shop to buy a gift for her, she was there in the same shop before me. We both knew that we both are there to buy gifts for each other. We discussed and decided to not to buy gifts to save us from diverting our budget from our need to such non-essential item to fulfil the gender equity gap. We already know that it is painful to divert our usual budget.