Photos from our afternoon at Sera Monastery...

We had read in the book that the monks held a debating session most afternoons at Sera Monastery and we had intentions to go several times before we finally made it.

We rode up to Sera, just 5kms north of town, locked our bikes and paid the entry (you have to pay to get into the monasteries...more later) and then we walked through the gates and up this leafy road to get to the main assembly hall.


We have been unable to take photos inside most of the monasteries (Potala, Jhokang, etc.) but now we were able to photograph for a fee - and now you can see what the inside of a monastery looks like! They are all fairly similar....well, the ones we have been in.

Monastery buildings are fairly similar, too - whitewashed, with lots of windows and with a small fabric awning over the windows, contrasting trim in that dark red paint.


This is the door into the main assembly hall, it's a typical Tibetan door and the fabric you see hanging from the ring is made of braided scarves. These scarves (which you can buy in the market) are usually draped over the Buddha statues (given as decorative gifts). Each color means something - orange is for wisdom, white for purity, etc (A covered the colors in the post from Xi'an :)


This is the main room - the monks sit here during prayer/chanting/scripture readings, etc. Each monk has a place and leaves his cloak and hat (and the occasional snack :) on the padded, raised platform. The room is highly decorated with thangkas (the hanging pictures with the fabric borders), much rich red and gold paint and silk hangings.


This is one of the monks robes and hat...


This is one of the thangkas...


These are some of the statues across the back of the hall, with a yak butter lamp in front...


At the back of the hall there are some stairs to enter into three chapels. In the middle of the three chapels we found....

A cabinet of scriptures...


A large Buddha statue...


and at the feet of the Buddha you see piles of 1 Jiao notes that people have left as offerings.


After the main assembly hall we were walking farther up the hill and we could hear the debate going on - lots of loud voices, loud claps....we followed our ears :)

There were lots of people watching, including this cute girl with the dog :)


The courtyard was filled with monks sitting on the ground...


or standing and making their point with a loud handclap....


there were small groups debating....



more handclapping...


and even some physical debating :):):)


After the watching the debating for a while we walked around the monastery a bit more, but they were closing the buildings, so we decided to go walk the kora (the holy walk around the monastery).

Down the narrow pathway...


up the hill around the top...


Then there was a mani wall built of mani stones (with prayers carved on the stones) and all sorts of other offerings...including some not so old yak heads/skulls :)



This is about halfway around...we found a small spring, saw some rock carvings of various Buddhas and we could see the monastery buildings inside the walls.



then we continued our walk...


more rock paintings...


and this tower for hanging large thangkas from during festivals.


about this time we spotted this dust storm descending on Lhasa - it was pretty nasty when it hit, you could smell the dust in the air and it made for a bit of headwind on our ride back into town.


We could also see some evidence of the destruction of the monastery....



And lastly...this massive woodpile! Firewood for the monastery?