Journey to Tibet: meditation caves (video)

Drak Yerpa Meditation Caves: A great day trip from Lhasa, Tibet

(Ben Cubbage) April 16, 2023: LHASA. The Yerpa Meditation Cave Complex is located a 40-minute drive (30 km) northeast of Tibet's capital Lhasa.

Tibetan idol Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava, at Yerpa

It is a large complex of Buddhist temples, monasteries, and meditation caves nestled on a mountain, the meditation site for some of Tibetan Buddhism's greatest lamas and masters. Some of these Buddhist meditation masters sat for up to three years with very little food or water.

Visiting Drak (Druk, Brag) Yerpa is a great day trip outside of Lhasa. It combines with a visit to Ganden Gompa, a famous Buddhist monastery, in the afternoon.

As one of the holiest centers of Vajrayana Buddhist thought, Drakyerpa Monastery is of particular interest to those interested in Buddhist meditation and to visitors preparing to trek through Tibet.

The elevation of the caves is at 4,400 meters, which makes it a great acclimatization trip when getting ready to make it to Everest Base Camp. It also makes for nice "down time" during a recovery day after a long drive to Mt. Everest.

King Songtsen Gampo and his two foreign queens are said to have meditated here in the Peu Marsergyi Lhakhang. This cave was the site of their discovery of self-arising symbols of Buddha-body, speech, and mind.

Later, Padmasambhava (aka Guru Rinpoche) concealed many holy Buddhist objects around the Yerpa Valley, including the celebrated ritual dagger of Sera (aka Sera Phurzhal). This dagger was eventually found by the treasureseeker Darcharuba at Sewalung.

Padmasambhava spent several months in retreat in the Dawa Puk. The cave is one of the three most significant places of spiritual attainment in all of Tibet (drub-ne).

In the ninth century, Lhalung Pelgyi Dorje stayed at Drak Yerpa in solitary meditation, prior to and after his assassination of the apostate anti-Buddhist King Langdarma.

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Follow Ben and Rose Cubbage into the wild: Travel website: elevatedtrips.com. Instagram: elevated_trips. Facebook: elevatedtrips. Twitter: elevatedtrips. LinkedIN: ben-and-rose-cubbage. 🏜️ See the wildest places on the Tibetan Plateau with us in these videos:

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• Ben and Rose Cubbage, YouTube, April 16, 2023; Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly