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Tibet Buddhism Best Photos

Top 10 Tibet Buddhism Deities

Top 10 Tibet Buddhism Symbols

Tibet Buddhism Mandala Photos

Tibet Buddhism Wheel of Life

Wheel of Life - The Game

Buddhist Comics

The Chapel of Jowo Shakyamuni is the most important shrine in Tibet, housing a 1.5m sitting image of Shakyamuni at the age of 12. It is supposedly one of only three made during his lifetime. It was a gift from the Chinese Princess Wencheng to her husband King Songtsen Gampo. The Jowo sits on a majestic massive three-tiered stone platform. Two silver-plated dragons presented by the Chinese emperor entwine the ornate pillars that support an intricate double canopy over the Jowo. An ornate crown of coral, turquoise, diamonds, rubies, and other precious gems, sits on the Jowo’s head. Although there’s no photography allowed, here’s a photo from my 1993 trip. Note the photo of the current Dalai Lama, allowed in 1993 in a period of religious tolerance.

The 1.5m Jowo Shakyamuni statue is the most important in Tibet. It was a gift from the Chinese Princess Wencheng to King Songtsen Gampo. (click to enlarge)

A mantra is a short prayer chanted repeatedly during meditation as an object of concentration. The most famous is Om Mani Padme Hum, the mantra of the Bodhisattva of compassion Avalokiteshvara, spoken by most pilgrims as they spin their prayer wheels.

The most famous mantra is Om Mani Padme Hum, the mantra of Avalokiteshvara, spoken by most pilgrims as they spin their prayer wheels. (click to enlarge)

Dalai Lama funny birtday card

Dalai Lama funny birtday card (click to enlarge)

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The Tibetan Wheel of Life is perhaps the most common of all pictures in Buddhist art and is seen on the walls of monasteries and painted scrolls all over Tibet, Nepal and other Himalayan countries. The 23 parts of the painting represent in visual terms some of the more fundamental teachings in Buddhism such as the 12 steps of dependent origination, the karmic laws of cause and effect, and the three kleshas of ignorance, greed and hatred.

The Tibetan Wheel of Life is perhaps the most common of all pictures in Buddhist art and is seen on the walls of monasteries all over Tibet. (click to enlarge)

The mandala serves as a two-dimensional map that guides the meditator's visualization of a fully realized three-dimensional place and, at the same time, as a place that the meditator mentally explores. The meditator visualizes, in three dimensions, each and every element of the mandala. Moving toward the center of the mandala, there is a circle, a ring of flames, which burns away spiritual obstacles. After a small second circle, the third innermost circle consists of lotus flower petals that unfold spiritual vision. The meditator approaches the four-walled palace where the deities live after crossing these moatlike outer circles.

The mandala serves as a two-dimensional map that guides the meditator's visualization of a fully realized three-dimensional place. (click to enlarge)

A prostration is one of the fundamental practices of Tibetan Buddhism to purify our pride, body, speech and mind. You begin with your palms pressed together at the level of your heart, and then touch your hands to your crown point between the eyebrows (mind), the throat (speech), and the heart (body), then stretch your entire body on the ground and stretch both of your hands as far as possible away from your head. Then rise up quickly and repeat at least two more times.

A prostration is one of the fundamental practices of Tibetan Buddhism to purify our pride, body, speech and mind. (click to enlarge)

Updated: November 2009. Click on an image to see the FULL size with a caption.

Tibet Buddhism

Milarepa: Just to leave one's homeland is to accomplish half the Dharma


I guess it was inevitable that I would be strongly influenced by Buddhism with the number of times I have visited Tibet and the mountains of Nepal. I have progressed over the years from a casual interest as a tourist to more in depth study and appreciation.

Please see my travel sections on Tibet, Mount Kailash, and Guge Kingdom, and any of the Nepalese mountains.

Check out my top 20 Buddhist objects at the British Museum.

Follow the top set of links on the left to prepare for your travel to Tibet the mountain area of Nepal, and other Himalayan areas. This includes the key deities like Shakyamuni Buddha and Padmasambhava, the most common symbols like the prayer wheel and mantras, a mandala, and the Wheel Of Life.

The middle links on the left hopefully bring a little humour to Buddhism with a game show hosted by Simon Cowell, and my favourite comics and birthday cards with Buddhist sentiments.

Follow the lower set of links on the left to learn more and more about Buddhism, including my favourite adult books and reference books. My favourite authors are Thick Nhat Hanh, Robert Thurman, and His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama.

My son and I have read many Buddhist books together over the years as he grows up from an infant to a teenager.

There are also a few website links and my favourite DVDs.

Buddhist Quotes

Albert Einstein: The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.

Old Tibetan Proverb: Man says Time passes. Time says Man passes.

Aristotle: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.