PILGRIMS AT JOKHANG TEMPLE-LHASA, TIBET
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I was born before my father
And my children before me
And we are born and born again
Like the waves of the sea.
Paul Simon

Tibet is described as "one of the most spiritual places on earth," and there is little room for argument. They pursue matters of the spirit like we in the West pursue the material. To Tibetans religion is a daily quest, an obsession. Most of them have little or no money and don't seem to care.

Here is simplicity brought to life. They eat only two meals per day, morning and evening. Their fare, called tsampa, is a mix of roasted barley and yak butter, carried in a pouch on their waist, which they wash down with yak butter tea. The butter provides them a much needed energy boost for life atop the "the roof of the world." On rare special occasions they will sacrifice a goat and roast it over a fire.

The Jokhang Temple is the most holy shrine in Tibetan Buddhism, the equivalent of Mecca in Islam. Pilgrims spend months to years in their travels to reach this site in Lhasa's Barkhor District. Along the way they chant prayers, spin prayer wheels, and even prostrate themselves, inchworming along the ground, sometimes for hundreds of miles. The eeriness of this spectacle is emphasized by the intentional blur in this photograph.

 
© Danny Kimberlin 2015