Become a nun - Buddha wants you! Traditional Cache
Become a nun - Buddha wants you!
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Sangchhen Dorji Lhuendrup Lhakhang
A nunnery perched on a ridge with beautiful views over the Punakha valley, lying below the Talo Monastery and Dzong.
This nunnery was established 2010, and there have been announcements in the local TV to encourage young well educated women like 10th grade students to come and join...
As this nunnery lies below the Talo Monastery on top of the hillside, in the buddhist tradition the nuns are supposed to be inferior to the monks.
The Buddha established the first orders for nuns, and thus for the first time a woman could live a life of her own, instead of serving as a mother and wife.
But the strong chauvinist tradition of his followers subdued the nuns back under male predominance: even the oldest and most learned nun is not allowed to give teachings to the youngest monk and has to greet him with respect.
Some buddhistic traditions deny to a woman the ability to reach complete enlightenment and claim that a soul has to be reborn nine times in the body of a woman before it can be finally reborn as a man.
Although Bhutanese parents are glad when a daughter is born to them - because she will care for her parents when they are old - the girl is still brought up under the impression that she is inferior to men.
The complex of this nunnery houses a permanent higher learning and meditation centre for 50-60 nuns, and, apart of the religious training, the centre also provides life skills training such as tailoring, statue making and thanka paintings and a computer centre.
The main statue of the temple is of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Compassion Buddha with thousand eyes to see and thousand arms to help all sentient beings. Ten of his eleven faces are peaceful, but there is one with an angry complexion, for there is also something like wrathful compassion.
Overlooking the Punakha valley is a large square Chorten in the Nepalese style, modeled on the Boudhanath Stupa of Kathmandu, with the Buddha´s eyes looking into the four directions.
This peaceful place, high above the Punakha valley with wide views over the river and the green hillsides, with the Stupa in white and gold against the clearblue sky - you might well call it divine!
GPS reception may be limited, so please follow the description.
The cache had to be moved in 2014 and now can be found at the road sign leading to the temple.
Thanks to geojane2u for providing the new container, to Pater Noster for suggesting the new coordinates and to erik88l-r for updating them!
Update 18.4.2024:
It´s quite a challenge to keep a cache going in Bhutan.
This cache survived 11 1/2 years because of generous geocachers that helped and replaced missing containers.
Thank you all!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Fznyy ghor. Ybbx uvtu, va gur onpx.
[If the container is gone, your replacement will be very appreciated - thank you!]
