Description
©2013Lhasa is the religious heart of Tibet and in its center is the most important temple from the entire country, Jokhang Temple.
Around it, is the famous Barkhor where pilgrims come to do circumambulations around the temple to cleanse their karma.
In Tibet, all life’s actions, physical, verbal, or mental are stored in your energy structure representing your “karma”. Karma is transmitted from life to life in the reincarnation process, a belief that all Asians share. As long as this accumulation of karma happens constantly, believers consider that they can improve their chances for a better reincarnation by going on pilgrimages where they walk around holy places, performing what is also called “kora”.
According to Tibetan tradition, or at least the local superstitions, each circumambulation cleanses the bad karma. So here, on the Barkhor, the pilgrims are taking numerous koras around Jokhang, the preferred number being 3, 13, or 108 or a multiple of 108. In Buddhism, the kora is always performed clockwise. Most of the pilgrims walk but some of them cover the circle with their entire body, in prostrations. They have some protection for their hands and knees, but sometimes they decide to come all the way from where they live in a continuous prostration, a journey that can take many months.
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