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Pilgrimage
Every
Tibetan dreams of making a pilgrimage to
Lhasa, especially to see the famous Jowo Rinpoche, the "Precious
Lord", the holiest statue in the whole of Tibet. This statue depicts
the Buddha as a prince at the age of twelve and is said to have been created
while the Buddha was still alive.
In 1956, Penor Rinpoche, accompanied by a large entourage,
set out for central Tibet. He was twenty-four years old. The party visited
the great power places, monasteries, temples and sanctuaries of Tibetan
Buddhism, including Samye, Dorje Drak, Mindroling, Drepung, Ganden, and
Sera monasteries. Everywhere he went, Penor Rinpoche made generous offerings.
He also visited HH the Fourteenth Dalai Lama at his winter palace, the
Potala in Lhasa. From the Dalai Lama he received an empowerment of Long
Life. The Lhasa Mönlam Chenmo was in progress, and he offered tea
and distributed money to the entire assembly of monks.
When Penor Rinpoche returned to Palyul late in 1956,
the situation in Kham had become very tense. The lineages that had over
thousands of years preserved the purity and authenticity of the Buddhist
teachings were in danger of being broken and lost forever. Foreseeing
this, and at the bidding of his protective deities, Penor Rinpoche fled
with a party of three hundred towards the northeastern frontier of India.
It was to prove a long and fearful journey, full of tragedy and immense
hardship. In the end, only thirty survivors reached India.
Penor Rinpoche's protective deities guided him every
step of the way. His group was pursued by soldiers. Bullets would fall
at Rinpoche's feet and hand grenades would roll right up to him. But they
would only explode after he had moved away to safety. Hungry for food,
some of the party would kill animals to eat, but Penor Rinpoche could
not bear to see innocent animals being slaughtered and so would walk ahead
of everyone else to drive away potential victims. Finally they reached
Pema Köd and the east Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. During 1960,
more and more refugees poured into India and in 1961, Penor Rinpoche,
with approximately six hundred people, moved south to Mysore.
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