By Leah George
Fans of music legend Kurt Cobain are marking the ten year anniversary of his death with events around the globe. But it was Buddhist monks in Ithaca who helped the Nirvana front man along the path to his next life.
The Tibetan translator for the monks at the Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca said Cobain’s Widow, Courtney Love, brought two handfuls of his ashes to the monastery to be consecrated. The translator, also a former monk, said Cobain’s Ithaca ashes were mixed with clay, and transformed into the symbolic image of Buddha’s heart known to Buddhists as tsatsas.
Monks say the consecration process influences the spiritual status of a person’s next birth. Where exactly the tsatsas made of Cobain’s ashes are today, is somewhat of a mystery.
“He says usually some people request tsatsas to be kept here for a day or year or two but they can come back and take it anytime they want to he thinks they may have taken it because nobody knows here whether it’s still here but they believe it had been taken by someone,” President of the Tibetan Association of Ithaca Tenzin Tsokyi said.
The one monk, who was in contact with Love the most, has recently gone onto to his next life. But the Tibetan Translator says he believes that monk may have delivered the tsatsas to Love during one of his many trips to see her.
