Paro Tsechu

This past Sunday, we went to the Paro Tsechu - a 5 day long festival that is in honour of Guru Rinpoche, the saint who brought Buddhism to Bhutan and the Himalayan world. That morning, Stanley and I went down to the market to buy a Gho (the men’s traditional dress) and get help putting on my kira. It was so entertaining! Unfortunately neither of us had cameras so we have no pictures to document the experience. There were 5 teenage boys dressing Stanley while he stood in a woman’s stall in the market. By the end of the experience, there were about 10-20 Bhutanese surrounding the stall watching as we were dressed by the locals. Here is a picture of me in my full kira -

A religious dance during the tsechu. The Bhutanese people believe that by attending a tsechu you gain merits and blessings.

The crowd watching the tsechu.
Monks watching the tsechu
In front of the dzong in my kira -

It is believed that turning a prayer wheel clockwise sends thousands of prayers into the spiritual atmosphere to cleanse negative karma for all sentient beings. Inside the wheels, Om Mani Padme Hum text are written on rolls of thin paper, which are then carefully wrapped and placed inside the prayer wheel. The six syllables of the mantra, Om, Ma-Ni, Pad-Me, Hum, are believed to purify the six negative emotions: anger, pride, greed, jealousy, desire/lust, ignorance while simultaneously engendering the six qualities of the enlightened heart: generosity, harmonious conduct, endurance, enthusiasm, concentration, and insight.

Bhutanese man wearing a gho and hand-made traditional boots with a kabney across his shoulder (Bhutanese men must wear the kabney to enter a dzong or political office).