A solitary nun circumambulates Mount Kailas, revered by Tibetans as the axis of the world. The ancient practice of parikrama, or kora, is less one of defining a perimeter than one of dissolving all sense of boundary. Connecting to the holy site through intimate circumambulations, kora draws one ever inward toward a sacred center. While Buddhists circumambulate clockwise, followers of Bon-Tibet’s indigenous religious tradition-circle counterclockwise. When asked why, a Bonpo pilgrim replied, “I’m not following the Buddha, I’m going to meet him.” Mount Kailas, Western Tibet.

The inner kora is a circumambulation around the Neten Yanlagjung hill. This hill consists of a horizontal strata of conglomerate located in front of the south face of Mt. Kailas. It represnts Shiva’s bull Nandi for the Hindus and Mt. Asthapad for the Jain.

Shiva lingams sit inside yonis, symbolizing the unity between male and female energies. The lingam is Shiva in his universal form and is bestower of fertility. Each shrine is covered with red colored powder showing they have been worshipped.Pashupatinath, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Dhami channels his god after the 'dhangre' invokes the god for him. Impervious to pain while the gods reside within him.

Tibetan greeting and farewell: exchanging energies with the touch of the head, master, with open hands, receives his disciple, who holds his hands in a gesture of offering. Humla. Nepal Museo Silver Rag (B & W Digital Print) Dimesion: 12.887” x 20” US$600 Edition 1/25

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Humli marriage attendar sipping butter salt tea. Humla, North-West Nepal

Pilgrims receiving the Kalachakra Initiation in Sarnath, India.

Thur-dhag, the dance of Liberation, is the central act of the sacred dance. The two skeleton figures are the Lords of the Universal Cemetery, reminders of the transient nature of human existence. Two Ngag-pa enter and perform a mystical invocation, which lures all demons and negative energies, and traps them in a small dough figure. At the same time as the enactment in the courtyard, Sang Sang Rimpoche perfors a wrathful fire pura, calling in the demons and with long strokes of nine-progned dorje with a black pennant. They are trapped and ceremonially burned on a small pure as an offers into the gods who are asked to liberate the world. With symbolic strokes of his phurba, Rimpoche, out of the compassion even for demons sends them at the realm of wisdom.

Fire puja during Mani Rimdu festival at Chiwong Monastery. Solu, Nepal.