STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Nearly 25 years ago Sun Valley resident Jeanne Cassell’s granddaughter Sarah exhorted her to follow her through a sagebrush steppe in the Sawtooth Botanical Garden.

“Now why would you want to go there?” asked Cassell, who was vice president of the garden board at that time.

“Because I don’t know where this path leads,” the girl replied.

Three days later, Cassell and other board members at the botanical garden were asked to follow a path they hadn’t expected when they were asked if they would be willing to place a Tibetan Prayer Wheel commissioned by the Dalai Lama in the garden.

Board members said, “Yes.” And the request of Cassell’s granddaughter became a metaphor ingrained in Cassell’s mind.

“Who knows what kind of a journey the garden of compassion and healing that we’re creating will lead others on?” she said.

Today at 5:30 p.m. the community is invited to come together to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s visit to the garden to bless the prayer wheel, which is only one of two such prayer wheels in North America.

“It is an honor and privilege to have the Prayer Wheel here, blessed by the Dalai Lama on his visit to the Garden of Infinite Compassion in 2005,” said Cassell. “The Wheel and the Garden have been used by countless visitors coming to seek peace and comfort, to celebrate joy or deal with grief or to pause in their busy lives to seek spiritual guidance.

“I hope we can celebrate this time with a spirit of gladness and compassion as we offer this greeting that I gave to the Dalai Lama on his visit: ‘Namaste (Oo -sp?),’ which means, ‘I greet the God within you.’ ”

The process of creating the Garden of Infinite Compassion was an odyssey in itself.

Heavy machinery operators and men with rakes, carpenters with hammers and drills and artisans with metal cutters worked 10- and 12-hour days for weeks to lay rock, build a waterfall and construct a pagoda in time for the Dalai Lama’s visit to the Wood River Valley.

The 1,100-pound prayer wheel was crafted by monks in Dharamsala, India.

A colorful five-foot tall, three-foot wide cylinder adorned with raised intricate shapes that resemble eyes and eyebrows, hands and baubles, it is the only prayer wheel commissioned and blessed by the Dalai Lama in the United States.

It also is the only prayer wheel that turns by water in the United States, said Keith Pangborn, who was president of the garden’s board of directors as the garden was being built.

The Dalai Lama gave the prayer wheel to the Wood River Valley to thank valley residents for hosting him during a week that included his speech before thousands at the Wood River High School football field and other talks around the valley.

Kiril Sokoloff, the Ketchum resident who is organized the Dalai Lama’s visit, paid to bring it here. And donors from within and without the Wood River Valley contributed more than $350,000 to create the space for the wheel.

The wheel contains a million handwritten prayers written by Tibetan monks on a tightly wrapped scroll.

Buddhists believe the mantra, “Om Mani Padme Hum” written on the scroll invokes the blessing of Chenrezig, the embodiment of compassion. And they believe the wheel will send out a continuous message of compassion as a recirculating stream in the garden turns the wheel.

Martin Mosko, a Zen Buddhist monk and landscape architect from Boulder, Colo., shepherded the building of the garden. Mosko had trained with Japanese master gardeners to learn how to create contemplative gardens.

Wearing the gray work clothes of a monk, Mosko began each day in the middle of the six-foot hole workers had dug, asking the help of spirits whom he believed were looking after the project.

Then, with small waves of his hand, he directed the placement of 16 rocks hauled in from Flathead Lake in Montana.

The first of the rocks, which weigh up to 30 tons each, was called the Ki Stone.  The center of energy, its placement dictated where the other rocks went.

“Each stone has a head, a face. I have to ask permission from the stone where it wants to go,” said Mosko.

A wheelchair-accessible path leads from a grove of aspen past a small waterfall to the subterranean garden. Alpine flowers like poppies, columbine, arabis, arnica and asters offer splashes of color.

A copper-topped pagoda, built by Vance Hanawalt out of Douglas fir beams milled a hundred years ago for an Alberta granary, provides covering for the prayer wheel.

Wood River Valley artisans Larry Meyers and Marjolaine Renfro designed and crafted the base on which it turns

“It was almost magical the way things came together,” said Mosko, who did what normally takes five months in a few weeks.

Board members at the garden decided to accept the gift of the prayer wheel not for religious reasons but because of the hope for peace and compassion it represents.

“It blends my love of nature, the environment, gardening and spiritual quest,” said Cassell. “It’s for everyone, whether or not they’re Buddhist. I don’t believe you have to believe in Buddhism or the prayer wheel to appreciate a quiet beautiful place for meditation.”

On Sept. 11, 2005, the Dalai Lama arrived about an hour before he was scheduled to bless the wheel.

The Tibetan religious leader graciously accepted a strand of marigolds--14 strung on each side to symbolize his role as the 14th Dalai Lama-- from Elizabeth Price-Asher. Then he walked along a short winding path strewn with orange marigolds past Tibetan prayer flags strung between freshly planted aspen trees to a small pond overlooking the prayer wheel.

From there he descended alongside the creek where water splashes six feet down over rocks, turning the prayer wheel.

Marigolds were draped over 16 boulders representing Arhats, believed by Buddhists to be protectors of truth and clarity. Bouquets of flowers—gifts from well-wishes—sat atop smaller rocks.

In a short ceremony lasting about 10 minutes, the Dalai Lama tied a khata—a Tibetan ceremonial scarf--around the three-foot wide, five-foot tall prayer wheel. He placed a garland of marigolds on the wheel as about 40 onlookers watched, then proceeded to touch some of the raised symbols on it in a solemn manner.

With a prayer softly spoken in Tibetan, the Dalai Lama empowered the new Tibetan prayer wheel

Then he invited some of those in attendance to pose with him for a picture at the wheel.

“When he grabbed my hand—well, I can’t even put it into words,” said Gail Severn, patting her heart to show it was all a-flutter.

As soon as the blessing was complete, invited guests began their own pilgrimage through the garden, pausing to take pictures of the wheel as it made its slow turns.

Tsering Choephel, of Vancouver, was among those who walked around the prayer wheel a few times, her hand on it, her head bowed in prayer.

Choephel said her father was one of 70 Tibetan leaders who was forced to flee Tibet after China invaded the country in the 1950s. She, her five brothers and sisters and their mother and father walked for four nights over glacial ice as they fled over the mountains of Western Tibet into Nepal.

“This is a beautiful wheel. I’ve never seen one turned by water before,” she said.

Most Tibetan prayer wheels are smaller and most are turned by hand, Severn said. But Sawtooth Botanical Garden board members wanted those who use wheelchairs and those who don’t have the use of their arms or hands to be able to share in the experience.

“This is the largest prayer wheel in the United States. And it’s the only one that the Dalai Lama has actually come and blessed in its setting,” Severn said. “It’s appropriate for the garden since our mission statement talks about using plants for healing people and healing the earth.”