Dalai Lama Foundation Study Circle Montreal

The Yolmo Valley has many different aspects that are beneficial to practitioners. Ian Baker writes:

Chatral Rinpoche said that specific [places] in Yolmo are conducive to particular kinds of practice. Places with waterfalls inspire reflection on impermanence. Places with steep cliffs where the rocks are dark and jagged are good for meditating on wrathful deities. Places with rolling hills and flowering meadows support meditation on peaceful deities….

Chatral Rinpoche clarified that the beyul [hidden lands] that Padmasambhava established in Tibet are not literal arcadias, but paradises for Buddhist practice, with multiple dimensions corresponding to increasingly subtle levels of perception. Beyond Yolmo’s visible terrain of mountains, streams, and forests, he said, lies an inner level, corresponding to the flow of intangible energies in the physical body. Deeper still, the subtle elements animating the environment merge with the elements present within the practitioner–the secret level.

Finally, at the beyul’s innermost level–yangsang–lies a paradisiacal, or unitary dimension revealed through an auspicious conjunction of person, place, and time…. Chatral Rinpoche contended that yangsang is not merely a metaphor for the enlightened state, but an ever-present, if hidden, reality. (p.62)

–from Compassionate Action by Chatral Rinpoche, ed., intro. and annotated by Zach Larson, published by Snow Lion Publications

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