"Photographers deal in things that are continually vanishing.
When they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth
that can make them come back again."  -Henri Cartier Bresson

SUNSET IN THE CLOUDS, PAZHI 2005
Tibetan folksongs sometimes sing of beyul – magical hidden lands only seen by those of great faith and pure heart. Tucked into the towering peaks and forested valleys of the Eastern Himalaya, some believe Bhutan to be such a place – the final outpost of the rapidly disappearing Tantric Buddhist culture that once guarded the Roof of the World. From Mongolia and Turkistan to the Himalayan foothills, from the Chinese provinces of Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan to India’s Kashmir and Ladakh, this culture thrived for over 1200 years. Excelling in the study of consciousness, it developed a highly evolved environmental ethic founded on the teachings of the Buddha and the ancient customs of Bon and local traditions.

The value of this culture to the modern world goes far beyond romantic curiosity about a mythic ‘golden age’. While Western religious traditions insisted that the world was flat, Buddhist meditators developed an understanding of reality that parallels modern theories of cosmology and quantum physics.  Their incisive consciousness has led to a deep understanding of human psychological pathologies and methods for their treatment, as well as the nature of happiness and the means for its attainment. And finally, their environmental ethic is unparalleled among today’s nations.