It’s not a sight you’d expect to see in the Scottish Lowlands: cheerful prayer flags flapping in the breeze around a gleaming, white-and-gold stupa.
With only small villages for miles around, western Europe’s largest Buddhist temple, Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre, seems like an incongruous addition to this bucolic setting.
“Samye Ling was the first Tibetan Buddhist centre that was established in Europe,” explains Ani Gelongma Lhamo, a Buddhist nun and native of Scotland, who has lived at the temple since 1989. Dressed in red robes, her head shaved, she speaks with a clear, calm authority that has even led to her addressing Scottish Parliament about the enduring importance of tolerance and compassion.
The monastery, founded in 1967, is
