Rongbuk Monastery is one of the highest monastery in the world. Located at the elevation 4800 meters it is the last inhabited spot before Everest Base Camp. Rongbuk monastery is situated in Basum Township, in Shigaste Prefecture of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, China. When seen from this monastery Mt. Everest appears like a lofty pyramid surrounded by mountains that touch the sky. When a pile of the thick clouds float above the peak on sunny days, it creates the magical site of 'The Highest Flag Cloud in the World'. The monastery is accessible today via vehicle by means of an undeveloped road.

Rongbuk Monastery was built by a local lama in about 1899. It was built in an area of meditation huts that had been in use by monks and hermits for over 400 years. Hermitage meditation caves dot the cliff walls all around the monastery complex and up and down the valley. Many walls and stones, carved with sacred syllables and prayers, line the paths. Zatul Rinpoche, the lama who founded this monastery was much respected by the Tibetans. In olden times, the Monastery was a active centre of the teachings. It was a site of special pilgrimage during the annual ceremonies with masked dancers. Throngs of the faithful would come from far and wide—some from Nepal and Mongolia—and sit on every level of all the many-tiered flat roofs of the monastery to watch the masked dancers in the great open courtyard. Cymbals clanged amid the ceaselessly overlapping thunder of the long Tibetan trumpets played in relay to accompany the monk dancers in their ritual. These ceremonies were shared with the satellite monasteries across the Himalaya also founded by the Rongbuk Lama. The ceremonies survive to this day, notably at the Sherpa monastery at Tengboche. The monastery houses a vast collection of books and costumes, which had been taken for safekeeping to Tengboche, were lost in a 1989 fire.

The monastery has five-tier building, but only two floors are in use now. In the front is the main hall, where there are the statues of Sakyamuni and Guru Rinpoche. There is a beautiful, large, round chorten, a reliquary with religious significance embedded in its terraced structure and crown of emblems of the sun and moon, symbolizing the light of Buddha's teaching.

In Rongbuk monastery both the monks and nuns reside and celebrate the Buddhist festivals together. Monastery hold the three days Saga Dawa Festival which is held to celebrate the birth of Sakyamuni. During the play, many monks disguise themselves as Rabbis and dance many scenes one after another, and most scenes portray different characters and clothing. Another Tibetan festival is held in the month of December of Tibetan Calendar to placate wandering ghosts, and monks
The chorten dramatically marks this last human dwelling place before one heads up to the stark valley to Base Camp. Walking forward from Rongbuk Monastery, you can see the famous Rongbuk Glacier Zone, which is the largest among all the hundreds of glaciers formed around the Mt. Everest. The three glaciers north of the Mt. Everest flow south and assemble at a river traversing the foot of the monastery. This is called 'Rongbuk River', and the water here is extremely cold.