Tibetan Prayer Flags

I likely saw my first Tibetan Prayer flags here in the United States in Berkeley, California near the UC Berkeley or in Santa Cruz, California likely in the early 1980s. If I saw them before this likely I didn't know what they were.

There are at least 2 different types of prayer flags. When my wive bought an ornate Tibetan Bowl at a local farmer's market downtown he gave her as a gift some Tibetan Prayer Flags. I had thought for awhile I wanted to put them up in a way we could enjoy them in our backyard while the winds prayed through them taking their prayers on the wind of compassion and kindness to all mankind and all beings everywhere.

Yesterday I put them up but there wasn't much wind but as I thought about it more I realized I hadn't properly installed them because the cloth inks of the Buddhas were going sideways instead of standing straight up. I realized that this was a different kind of Tibetan Prayer Flag than I had seen before and did better run vertically to fly as an actual flag instead of being many smaller flags strung out along a string or line. So I reinstalled them vertically and then the winds came as if from Hawaii they were so warm. So as soon as I installed these prayer flags properly the weather completely changed and I felt the prayers go out in amazing ways upon the wind. May God's Good Fortune Smile upon All Being. Tashi Delek.

As I had walked Himalayan trails high in the Himalayas in Nepal and India I had often seen the stupa(memorials with human relics of high lamas) along the high footpaths often just before one crosses a long high swinging foot bridge. Often people fall off these long swinging foot bridges either because of wind or a plank or rope breaking or because since often in those areas there are no roads at all and if people get sick they have to be carried piggy back across these swinging foot bridges that are often 500 to 1000 feet off the ground in many place. So if you fall off for any reason you don't survive. So, that High Lamas and monks put sacred relics near these bridges and on dangerous trails makes a lot of sense to me.

When you come across one of these places with a temple stupa with relics usually inside with Tibetan Flags usually flapping in the breeze it is always a very otherworldly experience. Because usually you are between 10 and 50 miles from the nearest car or road when this takes place. You might now these days be within 10 or 20 miles of a heliport pad but this wasn't true when I trekked the Himalayas in the 1980s.