Tibetan prayer flags flutter on a hillside above the Larung Wuming Buddhist Institute in the Larung Valley in the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Located high in the mountains of Sichuan, the Larung Wuming Buddhist Institute was founded in 1980 by an influential lama of the Nyingma sect - one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Thousands of followers are attending a week long annual gathering which takes place in the ninth month of the Tibetan calendar and marks Buddha’s descent from the heavens.