Melamchi-ghyang – Jewel of the Hidden Land
Nepal is renowned for its stunning mountains, hardy sherpas, and ancient Buddhist tradition. But the earthquake that shook northeastern Nepal on April 25 has dramatically changed the landscape of many of the mountain regions. This article was written for The Mirror before the earthquake irrevocably changed the village of Milamchi-ghyang in Yolmo, a meditation place of Guru Rinpoche and Yeshe Tsogyal. For any devotee of Guru Rinpoche, arriving in Melamchi-gyang is a kind of homecoming. Whether one feels an affinity with the physical landscape – a small mountainside plateau scattered with stone buildings and barley fields, fringed by an ancient and brooding forest, set against the rocky peaks and vivid sky of the Himalayas – or not, the energy infused in this place by the presence and practice of Padmasambava is hard to deny. Situated in the Yolmo Snow Enclosure, a ‘hidden land’ of the Guru and his chief Tibetan disciple, Yeshe Tsogyal, Melamchi-ghyang is truly a place set apart from the