Prayer Wheel Workout

Do you ever get the feeling that your life is utterly unique, and that at a given moment, of the billions of people on the globe, there is no one who is doing exactly what you are up to?
To give an example, on September 17, how many people were spending their sixth anniversary visiting the largest Buddhist monastery in Mongolia and seeing dinosaurs in the Natural History museum, all of this while hobbling around with a broken leg?  Though, I exaggerate.  I wasn't hobbling then - that came after I spent 4 hours on my feet on Saturday.  Stress fracture = no fun .  But I'm sure I'll be writing more about that later, since there's no running for me for at least the next 6 weeks, and not much walking either based on Saturday.  So, stay tuned for that sure-to-be-scintillating post.

House of the 8th Dalai Lama

But, I digress.  So, since we're on our 'playing tourist' kick since winter is setting in, we headed up to Gandan Monastery.  The monastery was actually saved from destruction by a US Vice President; when Henry Wallace visited in 1944 he wanted to see a monastery.  The Mongolian Soviet authorities scrambled to re-open Gandan and staff it with fake monks.  After the visit, they thought it'd be a good idea to keep it open in case of any other visiting dignitaries.  It now has about 900 monks, and they're working to rebuild some  of the minor temples that were destroyed. It's got some old buildings, tons of pigeons, a huge Buddha statue that is stuffed with, among other things, an entire ger plus furniture, but the real fun of Gandan is the prayer wheels. 

Self-portrait in prayer wheel!

There are easily hundreds of them, of all sizes, ages, patinas, and decorations.  Some of the newer ones had plaques with information on who their were in honor of (the two I read were for a mother and father.)  It's rather similar to Catholics going to a church to light a votive in memory of someone.  But here, each time a person (or the wind) turns a prayer wheel, it goes up as a prayer to the Buddha.  Pretty cool.  We did the entire prayer circuit inside the Buddha building, and outside the monastery proper.  Plus an extra big wheel by the exit.  There something very satisfying about the whole thing, and compulsively entertaining to make sure you've set each in motion before moving on.  However, I was appalled when I got home that night and realized that my arm was actually a little sore!  Prayer wheel workout... I could make a great exercise video pitch out of that.