‘PAD YATRA: A GREEN ODYSSEY‘
ECOLOGICAL COMPASSION ONE STEP AT A TIME!
Featuring GYALWANG DRUKPA.
GYALWANG DRUKPA is a Guardian and Spiritual Leader of the Himalayas, FOUNDER of ‘Live to Love’ Initiative: a spiritual and environmental pilgrimage, A UNITED NATIONS MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS HONOREE, and Winner of the GREEN HERO AWARD.
***The DRUKPA Lineage was founded in western Tibet by Drogon Tsangpa Gyare Yeshe Dorje (1161–1211), a student of Ling Repa who mastered the Tantric Buddhism practices of the mahamudra and six yogas of Naropa at an early age. ***
Narrated by ENVIRONMENTALIST, DARYL HANNAH
Shot with SOLAR POWER by Himalayan monk, NGAWANG SODPA
The film begins at Midnight on August 5, 2010, in Ladakh/’Little Tibet’ (a region of India inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir which lies between the Kunlun mountain range to the north and the Great Himalayas to the south). The area, which is usually peaceful and dry, is hard hit by a rare weather phenomenon known as cloudburst. Two inches of rain falls in the first sixty seconds. The cloudburst triggered catastrophic mudslides and flash floods. A disaster never before witnessed in the area.
GYALWANG DRUKPA, one of the main spiritual leaders in the Himalayas, goes to the area and the Druk White Lotus School to assess the damages and offer support.
The message is clear, these DISASTERS are NOT NATURAL, THEY ARE MAN MADE, they are saying that the Earth is seeking REVENGE, and that many of the problems in the world stem from selfish and egotistical behaviours.
Now an annual activist movement held around the world, the ‘Pad Yatra,” a spiritual and environmental pilgrimage or foot journey, initially began with 700 of GYALWANG DRUKPA’s students (Buddhist monks, nuns, other spiritual leaders, and a few Westerners), trekking through the back paths of the Himalayas (world’s tallest mountain range), traveling from remote village to village, with a call to save the Earth’s ’3rd Pole,’ the largest field of glaciers outside of the ice caps, which are being impacted by global warming.
The group acts as an example for the rest of the world by demonstrating theirecological message by picking up littered plastic bottles while trekking hundreds of miles through treacherous ravines and harsh weather conditions. Over 800 pounds of plastic were collected along the trek, hundreds of villages visited, and tens of thousands educated on environmental preservation. PLANT TREES, RESPECT LIFE!
Save Hemis Monastery and Hemis Festival from destruction due to changing weather.
Article by Sharon Abella
One World Cinema
1worldcinema.com
ABELLA Sharon 
