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The Sacred Sites of the Dalai Lamas: A Pilgrimage to The Oracle Lake | 
 enlarge | Director: Michael Wiese
Actors: Steve Dancz, Glenn Mullin, Khenpo Tashi
Studio: Michael Wiese Productions
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $19.57
You Save: $5.38 (22%)
New (3) from $19.57
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 46521
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 120
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
UPC: 799898200394
EAN: 0799898200394
ASIN: B000LMPM9G
Release Date: December 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
Join a spiritual pilgrimage and explore the Tibetan caves where the early Buddhist masters achieved enlightenment. Visit the sacred Oracle Lake where the Dalai Lamas have received prophetic visions. Other major power spots of Tibet include: Potala Johkang Drepung Monastery Nechung Drak Yerpa Valley The caves of Songsten Gampo, Jowo Atisha, and Guru Rinpoche Samye Monastery Lambhu Lagang Castle Ani Sanku Nunnery Lama Tsongkhapa Meditation Cave Tranduk Kangyur Stupa Terdak Lingpa Tashi Lumpo Champa Zhishi Sakya Chokhor Gyal Milarepa s Cave The Oracle Lake Our guides are Steve Dancz (composer for National Geographic), Glenn Mullin (author of over 25 books on Tibetan Buddhism) and Khenpo Tashi (a Bhutanese monk and international teacher.)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 SAcred Pilgramage May 6, 2008
This beautiful film bring us exquisite photos of the the mythic monasteries we read about and whose names are embedded in any study of Tibet or its religion. Thank goodness, not a travelogue, it captures, but lightly, the spirit of pilgrimage.
A Tibetan monk once told me you should always meditate for a time which is shorter than what you would like, leaving you wanting more. So it is with this film. We are left wanting more, and that is good.
There is a lovely, clear and thoughtful interview with Glenn Maullin who is both scholar and guide and, charmingly, old Tibetan hand.
A Truly Independent Film... March 27, 2008
I'm not a follower of any organized religion, I'm a journeyman filmmaker and it is from that perspective that I truly enjoyed this film.
The great American director, Frank Capra was one of the first filmmakers to have his name above the title. Why? Because he believed in the concept of "One Man, One Film." He believed that the director was the man who was responsible. I have seen no better example of that concept than at a recent screening of Michael Wiese's documentary feature, "The Sacred Sites of the Dalai Lamas"
This is a documentary that harkens back to the 1960's work of Pennybaker and Wiesman, because Mr. Wiese has stripped away all of the fancy filmmakeing equipment and simply taken his digital camera to Tibet and observed. He observed its beauty, its simplicity, its sacred sites, many of its truely gifted "holy men" as well as the daily trials of the didicated deciples who went along on the journey.
This feature is so inspirational as a work of truely independent cinema that I believe it should be taught in every film school on the planet. This entire film is the work of basically three gifted men: the director / cinematographer / ediitor, Mr. Wiese, as well as two of his long time friends and associates who did the beautiful music and charming narration.
I recommend this film to anyone in the world who has a story to tell or who has the itch to make a movie. Watch this film and learn how to use the simplicity of a digital camera, available locations and abvilable light to make your own feature film.
Micheal Wiese has empowered you to do it...
Many of the deciples who went on this adventure to Tibet, claimed to have had "a vision" wile visiting one of the Sacred Sites. Mr. Wiese remarked that he was too busy shooting to take the time to have a vision...
I must humbly disagree with him. I believe that he difinately had a vision, a strong, clear and independent vision... and every bit of it is up there on the screen...
David Worth
Director / DP / Lecturer / Author
[...]
A Palpable Journey March 23, 2008
What a lovely journey Sacred Places of the Dalai Lama gives us.
I really liked that it was focused so closely on the experience itself, the particular monasteries, and the people associated with them. Not having it sullied by other "modern" things worked well to give we viewers more alignment with the internal experience the filmmakers and others must have all been having on such a pilgrimage.
One could almost feel the thin cold air, rusty metals, peeling paint and worndown woods. And I swear a few times I smelled sweet diesel fumes and dark wood smoke.
All in all, it was an enjoyable and informative and intriguing journey film.
Whether you plan to go to Tibet and follow some of these paths, or are content to experience it second-hand, this movie will be both inspiring and informative about one of the remaining very special places on this planet.
Nicely done!
Remarkable Film; Remarkable History March 19, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This film is remarkable for two reasons. First, while I'm interested in Buddhism, I'm not a Buddhist, and have always found Tibetan Buddhism just too far out of my sphere of experience and knowledge to pursue in any depth. This film succeeded in making me want to learn more.
While the film chronicles a brief journey, it manages to evoke the long and fascinating history of Tibetan Buddhism, and becomes a very powerful testament to belief, dedication, and sacrifice.
This could also be said about the film itself. The journey to some of the highest places on earth is a saga in itself, yet the director and narrator seldom call attention to their own travails, except lightly and humorously.
As someone who's taught documentary and fiction film for four decades, I also have to comment on the remarkable achievement of the director in producing such a compelling and moving film on what appears to be a budget that most filmmakers -- documentary or fiction -- would consume in a single lunch. Using a single camera and onboard microphone that any layperson can probably buy here on Amazon, and working under what I assume was the ever-watchful censorship of government officials (several scenes were obviously shot surreptitiously), he managed to produce a thoroughly professional and fascinating film.
This film demonstrates what you can do with little money or resources if you have the passion and commitment, and if your movie is ABOUT something.
Howard Suber
 Pilgrimage as Initiation January 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Pilgrimage as Initiation: The Sacred Sites of the Dalai Lamas
Look at the true-life arc of development experienced by Steve Dancz, narrator of The Sacred Sites of the Dailai Lamas, a Michael Wiese documentary which demonstrates the inestimable advantages of timeless pilgrimage over trendy tourism. For Dancz, an accomplished composer, traveling to Tibet was a long-held dream come true, with its sonorous chanting, chiming bells, and bass-below-bass horns providing a veritable home-coming. When one of his Mentor-guides indicated a well-preserved, ages-old sea-spiral fossil in the same outdoor site where incense spiraled upward, earth and sky were wed. And when Dancz played a water-filled singing bowl in the Marketplace, it resonated with shimmering visual and aural fore-shadowing of the Lake itself. Beautiful.
The trials and physical demands of this group pilgrimage to the 16,000-ft.-plus Oracle Lake were brutal at times, the sort of purifying ordeals typical of many Initiatory paths to wholeness. Soon after accessing the Lake, (after visiting a plethora of holy locales, any one worthy of pilgrimage) these altitude-challenged devotees were assaulted by a hailstorm. Fitting, since the I Ching's Hexagram # 29 speaks of the orienting, sustaining reliability of frozen waters: when they melt, you are left with the solid mastery within despite the formlessness without.
Dancz may have intuited this, as he fared relatively well in the punishing climes, even receiving a vision: "As the winds blew across the Lake, it created a shape like an hourglass, but with the sand flowing up rather than down ~ a reminder for me of the fallacy of time." Timelessness, liminal space, an opening to the Eternal Zero Source.
For me, that image triggers something else of Indigenous value: the notion that prescribed, doctrinaire teachings need not be handed down from hierarchical institutions; Revelation can also rise up from Nature, to re-orient and inform. The Loa of Voudon rise up the ceremonial center-post (poteau mitan) from the waters, the dance of the Hula " raises and spreads the Light." This Earth-based reverence begins to bring a female balancing element to thousands of years of dominating patriarchal religions.
It is some measure of the Dalai Lamas' balance of yin and yang that they are able to read the depths of a Lake, even a yang-located mountain-high one. There is another I Ching Hexagram, # 31, that includes "the Lake on top of the Mountain," meaning "Reflection," but in this case, because of its heightened, liminal location, Reflection of the Divine. There is also a note of relative humility when the summit of a mountain is yin, carved out to contain water, rather than yang, jutting boldly upward into the sky. A site of such receptivity counsels "opening the self to receive great teachings." Indeed the case here.
While this film is composed such that the access to Oracle Lake is in every sense its high point, there is a sweet aftermath. Because Dancz has been our narrator, we've been invited to identify with him, from his early dream of Tibet to his sense of Spiritual home-coming. Thus it is quietly thrilling to glimpse the delighted expression on his face during their descent when they visit the cave and chapel of the great poet, yogi, and musical composer, Milarepa. Late in his life, the much-beloved mystic promised that "anyone who even hears his name, even once, will receive an instant blessing, and will not be reborn in a lesser state for the next seven life-times." As a musician himself, of refined sensibilities and sacred inclination, this must have resonated deeply within Dancz ~ how wonderful
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