It has thousands of temples, an "altar room" in every home, and many boys still become monks for life.
While they gazed at the black and gold altar room, I slid along the ancient, satiny floor in my socks.
"He's pure Monpa, the only Monpa to be a Dalai Lama," said Jamparema, 60, a hunched woman in a striped red dress who was pouring oil out of brass candle holders in the altar room.
She used to keep an "altar room" in her house -- honoring deities like the Virgin of Guadalupe, Jesus and Che Guevara -- but has recently dismantled it and covered her Buddha with a purple cloth.
They were invited to the altar room, where the officiant poured mezcal on the floor in the shape of a cross and offered toasts, round after round, until everyone had had a drink.
Joumabon lights a pipe of tobacco in his altar room.
Although this woman died not long after we met, the time we spent together had an incredible impact on me: She opened up her to me home and took me to her altar room.
If you have gathered all 7 Chaos Emeralds by the time you reached Hidden Palace Zone, they will teleport from Sonic (or Knuckles) and to the altar room.
You must reach the Hidden Palace Zone and have all 7 Chaos Emeralds before getting to the altar room where the Master Emerald sits or else it will be useless.
Heizer, 70, is presenting a new exhibition at Gagosian that features two massive boulders suspended in steel frames and a suite of "altars": room-filling, inclined steel sculptures in the shapes of wishbones, barbells, boomerangs.
