Mani Rimdu Festival

Monks play long copper trumpets called zang dung that marks the beginning of the Mani Rimdu festival. The inscription reads, "May the glorious Lama live forever." What does this mean? Nobody actually believes that the corporeal form of the lama endures forever. Since the lama's life embodies the Buddha's teaching, his body is seen as a symbol of this doctrine. This principle has no beginning or end and therefore is everlasting. Sherpas do not consider it paradoxical that an object with finite duration, like the body, coincides with the infinite. Chiwong Monastery, Solu Khumbu, Nepal.