Benalmadena Tibetan Buddhist Stupa

The last few days have seen torrential rain and low temperatures in Spain almost everywhere apart from the Mediterranean coast, where temperatures stayed around 25C, with little cloud. With Sunday preparation completed, I went out in the car, first up to Mijas, and then turing east along the old high road that descends to Benalmadena, to savour the different views of the coastal strip from 400+m above sea level. This road meets the A7 motorway near the top of the Riserva del Higueron, where I walked a few days ago. From here, I followed the road to Benalmadena Pueblo to reach the Buddhist Stupa overlooking Benalmadena and Fuengirola from a promontory 250m above the coastal strip.

Completed in 2003, at 33m high, this is the largest of a series of Tibetan Buddhist Stupas constructed in western Europe under the initative of Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche. Its location on a high ridge makes it visible for 20km to the west. I haven't yet explored to the east. It doesn't describe itself as a chapel or a shrine. A Stupa is, above all, a place associated with the memory of one or more spiritual masters, a meeting place for Buddhist teaching and meditation.

Its architecture is precisely disciplined to convey a sense of harmony, space and peace. It is made sacred by the loving regard and veneration of those who come here to learn the Eightfold Path and to meditate. The meditation hall has images of the Buddha.

There's a throne for teachers past and present.  The walls are covered with bright murals depicting stories from the life of the Buddha. 

It's a serene cheerful place, with views of enfolding mountains and the coast through windows and the door. Underneath is a complex of meeting rooms and an exhibition space. At a dignified distance behind the Stupa, at the edge of the great platform on which it sits, are a cafe and a souvenir shop. It's not at all like a school, yet it's a place of teaching and learning, like an embassy for a realm of non-violent ethical citizens. How many Buddhists are there in the region? It matters not nearly as much as this symbol of  trans-national witness for peace and harmony.

Right next to the Stupa is a building with a far eastern architectural facade. When I first saw it from afar, I thought it was perhaps a monastic building. Not so. 

Behind the facade is the visitor centre for a large building with a climate controlled environment hosting multitudes of rare butterfles. This project is evidently a fruit of Buddhist presence here.

Reverence for creation, and the moral impulse that makes environmental conservation a spiritual priority for Buddhists has, in the past quarter century, led to international partnership between the WWF and Buddhist monasteries to manage sacred forests and the content of ecosystems belonging to them. Bees and butterflies are 'flagship' species. If they die off, plants relying on them for pollination can't reproduce. Every creature relying on plants for food suffers, as well as predator species.

The Mariposa centre isn't just a nice place to charm the kids with beautiful creatures to see, it's a place to discover crucial things about the interdependence of all living things on each other, and what needs to be done by world citizens to protect the earth that sustains our lives through such complex bio-diversity. It brings the spirituality of the Stupa right down to earth.