Samding Monastery

Samding Monastery (Tibetan: ཡར་འབྲོག་བསམ་སྡིང་དགོན།) "The Temple of Soaring Meditation" is a gompa built on a hill on a peninsula jutting into Yamdrok Lake about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) east of Nangkatse. It is located 112 kilometres (70 mi) southwest of Lhasa, at an altitude of 4,423 metres (14,511 ft), on a barren hill about 90 metres (300 ft) above the lake at the neck of a narrow peninsula jutting out into the water. It is associated with the Bodong and Shangpa Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

Samding is the seat of Dorje Pakmo, the consort of the wrathful deity Heruka, who was the highest female incarnation in Tibet, and the third highest-ranking person in the lamaist hierarchy after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.

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 unusual name because it was used as a burial place for monks).

The abbess became famous when she turned herself and her nuns into sows to prevent a Mongol raid on the nunnery in 1716 (McGovern gives 1717 for this event). It was destroyed after 1959 but is in the process of being restored.

Unusually, monks as well as nuns both lived in the monastery under the abbess, Dorje Pakmo, although she now lives in Lhasa. Samding gompa was destroyed after 1959 but is in the process of being restored.