Samding Monastery () "The Temple of Soaring Meditation" To Lhasa in Disguise: A Secret Expedition Through Mysterious Tibet, p. 294. William Montgomery McGovern. Grosset & Dunlap (1924). Reprint: South Asia Books (1983). . is a 13th century gompa built on a hill along a narrow peninsula that juts into Yamdrok Lake, southwest of Lhasa and about east of Nangkatse, in Tibet. It is associated with the Bodong, the Nyingma, and the Shangpa Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Samding Monastery is the seat of Dorje Pakmo, the highest female incarnation in Tibet, and as Vajravarahi she is the consort of the wrathful deity Hayagriva, a Heruka.The Power-places of Central Tibet: The Pilgrim's Guide, (1988) p. 268. Keith Dowman. .
Dorje Pakmo is the third highest-ranking person in the hierarchy after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.The Fourteen Dalai lamas: A Sacred Legacy of Reincarnation, p. 175. Glenn H. Mullin. Clear Light Publishers. Santa Fe, New Mexico. .
Closer to Lhasa, there is another branch of Samding Monastery on the small island of Yambu in Rombuza Tso or "corpse-worm bottle lake", which apparently, received this name because it was used as a burial place for monks.To Lhasa in Disguise: A Secret Expedition Through Mysterious Tibet, p. 300. William Montgomery McGovern. Grosset & Dunlap (1924). Reprint: South Asia Books (1983). .
In 1716, the Khenmo (abbess) became famous when she turned herself and her nuns into sows to prevent a Mongolian raid on the nunnery (McGovern gives 1717 for this event). Monks as well as nuns both live in the monastery under Khenmo Dorje Pakmo, who also lives in Lhasa.
Samding was destroyed by China after 1959, but is in the process of being restored.Lhasa and Central Tibet by Sarat Chandra Das (1902), p. 139. Reprint: Mehra Offset Press, Delhi (1988). It is located southwest of Lhasa, at an altitude of , on a barren hill about above the lake at the neck of a narrow peninsula jutting out into the water.
Description of the monastery
Further reading Biographies of the Samding Dorje Pakmo Incarnations on The Treasury of Lives
Notes
References
External links TBRC yar 'brog bsam sdings, monastery Samding Monastery - November 1920