The staff and visiting volunteers at Rigdzin Ling have been deep in the work of prayer-wheel making for many months now. This huge, profoundly significant project is a collaboration between Rigdzin Ling and Iron Knot Ranch, which will culminate in the installation of thirty-two giant prayer wheels, each containing mantras printed on paper rolls and imaged onto microfilm. For some sangha members this has meant scrupulously checking the mantras on masters, using eye loupes and microscopes; for some it has meant months of work building the pavilion itself; for some it has involved daily phone calls and e-mails to and from printers and film imagers. Others have spent months winding hundreds of spools of microfilm into the forty-four-inch-diameter “pancakes” that will sit atop the paper wheels. Yet other sangha members spent long days and nights on the design and structural engineering of the building.
Now that the fifteen three-ton wheels have been installed at Rigdzin Ling, the prayer-wheel pavilion is on its way to completion. The idea of housing the prayer wheels in an Asian-style pavilion came to Lama Drimed in a dream. The design itself is a blend of Chinese and Japanese temple elements, with striking green ceramic roof tiles and fragrant cedar wood beams.
Since the early spring, we have hosted several work week-ends, with many volunteers coming at crucial points in the construction to push the project closer to completion. Michael Bradfute has twice made the long drive from New Mexico, bringing the spindles and other fabricated metal pieces in rattling, monster-sized U-Hauls.
The major engineering for the works that turn the wheels was organized by Iron Knot Ranch, while Rigdzin Ling oversaw the paper-roll printing and microfilm manufacturing. The mantra team worked diligently and patiently with the vendors to obtain the sharpest and clearest mantras possible. All together the mantras on the paper and microfilm number several billion.
A path for circumambulation will surround the building, providing access to 108 smaller copper wheels that can be turned by hand. Lama Pema Tenzin is painting the artwork that will be reproduced to cover the large wheels. We have tentatively scheduled a consecration ceremony for the coming spring and hope to see many of you there.
Padma Publishing is happy to announce the publication of Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche’s history of the Nyingtik lineage, A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems: Biographies of Masters of Awareness in the Dzogchen Lineage. The translation, by Lama Chökyi Nyima, was undertaken as the result of a request Nyoshul Khenpo made to Chagdud Rinpoche. This book, pronounced a masterpiece by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the only comprehensive history of the Nyingtik lineage and is framed as a series of namtars, or spiritual biographies.
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We were delighted when His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche came to the Padmasambhava Peace Institute in April this year. Rinpoche led the sangha, as well as a number of new practitioners, in a four-day Yeshe Tsogyal retreat. Some attendees had traveled far for this momentous occasion, and the joy of seeing old friends turned the eighty-person gathering into something of a reunion. Once again we were honored to have a number of Chagdud Gonpa lamas join us: Lama Jigme, Lama Inge Zangmo, Lama Padma, Lama Dorje, and Lama Tsultrim, who updated the supplementary liturgies in time for the retreat, thus greatly facilitating everyone’s participation.
Focusing on this precious practice for four days with the tertön himself was a profoundly moving experience. The shrine room was packed, and everyone felt blessed by the powerful magic of his being. Rinpoche gave the empowerment and teachings on a text of Yeshe Tsogyal’s questions to Guru Rinpoche. Outside the long hours of puja, he granted interviews, offering advice and support to old and new students. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche’s great kindness and humor, the unfolding beauty of the practice, and the sheer joy of the retreatants made for a truly memorable retreat. We pray for the merit to welcome His Eminence back on many future occasions.
Last June Jigme Rinpoche and his son, Tulku Orgyen, led a pilgrimage to China organized by the Hong Kong sangha. A group of thirty traveled to Manjushri’s sacred mountain, Wu Tai Shan, and Chenrezik’s holy island, Pu Tuo Shan, near Shanghai. Then in July Rinpoche flew to Brazil for the Essence of Siddhi drupchen. He returned to the States to lead weekend retreats at Yeshe Ling and give the empowerments for the Chagdud Gonpa daily practices and Dudjom Tersar ngondro at PPI.
In September Ati Ling held the annual Rigdzin Dupa Hundred-Thousand Tsok Offerings retreat. We were delighted to welcome back Tulku Orgyen, as well as Lama Padma, Lama Thubten, and Lama Jigme, who had kindly agreed to start training people in lama dancing. Each day, the heavy rain and mists melted into bright sunshine, allowing the dancers to practice outside. About forty-five people participated in the retreat, a Guru Rinpoche practice at the heart of the Longchen Nyingtik lineage and the basis for the Great Perfection retreats Jigme Rinpoche leads in Brazil every January.
The monthly talks Rinpoche gives at the Open Secret Bookstore in San Rafael continue to inspire newcomers to seek further instruction and to join the Ati Ling sangha for other events. To make it easier for people closer to the Bay Area to practice together, Lisa Iacovelli and family have made their home available for puja on the fourth Sunday of each month. (Puja continues on a daily basis at PPI, and there is also a puja with potluck lunch at PPI on the second Sunday of each month.)
Ati Ling held two events in November to commemorate H.E. Chagdud Rinpoche’s parinirvana; on the anniversary, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, who was enthroned by Chagdud Rinpoche, joined Jigme Rinpoche at Berkeley Shambhala for evening puja. This was followed by a three-day Padma Dakini retreat at PPI.
In February Jigme Rinpoche will lead a three-day Vajrakilaya retreat at PPI. For more information on Ati Ling events and regular updates to Jigme Rinpoche’s schedule, visit www. Atiling.org.
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Opportunities for dharma practice circle the Venerable Lama Gyatso like planets around the sun. Those of us in his orbit at T’hondup Ling can look back on a year of profound blessings from the retreats, tsok feasts, saving of lives, and visits by lineage masters.
We rang in 2005 with a three-day Orgyen Dzambhala retreat, led by Lama Gyatso, the custodian of the treasure of this enrichment practice. Later in the month, he left for Asia for his annual winter pilgrimage to pay homage to his teachers Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Kyabjé Chatral Rinpoche, and tso’s participation in the annual ten-day Vajrakilaya drupchen, led by Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche at his monastery, Chorten Gonpa, in Gangtok, Sikkim. These yearly pilgrimages are dedicated in part to the swift rebirth of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and for the removal of hindrances to the indisputable recognition of Rinpoche’s reincarnation.
In Los Angeles our Losar celebration and Vajrakilaya ceremonies were led by Lama Ludrub and Lama Rabjoer of Thupten Chöling monastery in Nepal. In March we again welcomed Ven. Lama Thogme, an expert on mandalas, who led the creation of a Shi-tro sand mandala in Hollywood, an annual project sponsored by Lucy’s El Adobe Café.
H.E. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche returned as vajra master for the third annual Yeshe Tsogyal retreat, held in April at Ari Bhöd in Tehachapi. Rinpoche again commented on the powerful qualities of the land and was most pleased by the continued improvement of the facilities. Especially during the warm summer months, Lama Gyatso spends much of his time at Ari Bhöd, the American Foundation for Tibetan Cultural Preservation, comprising 475 acres in a beautiful forested valley two hours’ drive from Los Angeles. Ari Bhöd was founded by Lama Gyatso to preserve the sacred cultural heritage of Tibet, especially the profound and unsurpassable Nyingma lineage. Volunteers have been working with the lamas to renovate and rehabilitate the numerous structures, gradually transforming a former YMCA camp into a traditional retreat center. Numerous T’hondup Ling retreats have been held at Ari Bhöd, and it is a place of tremendous potential, greatly conducive to dharma practice.
In August we welcomed Ven. Lama Lhundrup, also from Thupten Chöling and an ordained monk. Lama Lhundrup is a master carver and craftsman, in addition to being fully accomplished in the ritual arts. We are most fortunate to have him with us. Lama Gyatso led the annual ngondro retreat at Ari Bhöd in late August, teaching the extensive Longchen Nyingtik ngondro. Dzatrul Rinpoche graced us with a brief visit in September, joining Lama Gyatso for one of our many live releases. We are quite pleased that he will return before the end of the year. In early October, Ven. Loppön Jigme Tutop Rinpoche led our eleventh annual Tröma drupchöd, held for nine days at Ari Bhöd, and blessed us with teachings. Rinpoche serves as the vajra master at Kyabjé Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery in Pharping, Nepal.
If you would like to be notified about future events at T’hondup Ling, including our live releases, e-mail us at thondupling@yahoo.com and ask to be put on our e-mail list. You can also visit our website, www.thondupling.org.
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We have had a busy summer and fall: Jigme Rinpoche led a Lion-Faced Dakini retreat in early August, during which he gave some wonderful teachings on the practice. Later in the month, we were delighted and fortunate to host Lama Sherab, who conducted a week-long ngondro retreat. At the end of the retreat, Jigme Rinpoche also gave a day of teachings.
Many years ago, Chagdud Rinpoche had given extensive Tröma teachings here, and in late August, during our annual Tröma retreat, Jigme Rinpoche gave the first phase of advanced teachings on the practice. At the end of September, Lama Tsering conducted an inspiring Tara retreat attended by a large group of people, many of whom were relatively new to the practice.
Work on the Guru Rinpoche statue has been steadily progressing. Glen Sandvoss applied some finishing touches with sandpaper and a grinder, and the statue itself has received a lovely coat of paint. Glen has gone back home to Spokane, but plans to return in the spring to work on the next phase. Jigme Rinpoche has decided that in addition to Chagdud Rinpoche’s relics, many other extraordinary objects will be placed in the statue when it is consecrated. So we hope that as many people as possible can help, with time and donations, to finish the project.
We encourage people to come to Yeshe Ling for puja on Sundays and to contact us about tsok days.
______
Somehow this field for accumulating merit and purifying karma has arisen.
Somehow beings with hearts longing to be tamed keep showing up.
Somehow the enlightened intentions of our father Lama continue manifesting.
Somehow the result is ongoing dreamlike activity: stupas, prayer wheels, shrine rooms, composting toilets.How lucky, how lucky, how lucky we are.
______
We are deeply grateful for the visits of Lama Padma and Lama Norbu this summer. We so appreciate their time and effort, kind words, guidance and inspiration. Our sangha continues to do weekly practice on Monday nights and feast days in our shrine room at Thupten (formerly Phillip Bossung) and Susan Ross’s house. Sangha members are also using the shrine room for various practices at other times. If you find yourself in the Boulder-Denver area, please contact Dennis Kennedy to arrange a time to practice or come join us on Mondays.
______
The sangha at Tromge Ling continues to practice simply, integrating dharma with daily life. Last June we held our seventh annual Orgyen Dzambhala retreat with Lama Gyatso, who continues to be extremely patient with and kind to all of us. We just completed our fifth annual Manjushri retreat with Jigme Rinpoche, who also bestowed very clear, precise teachings on this practice. Khentrul Lodrö Thaye Rinpoche returned for two weeks last February to teach The Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva; about a hundred people attended his public talk. Lama Zangpo continues to teach here twice a year to help the sangha “stitch things together,” which enriches our understanding of the teachings, helps to ground our practice in clarity, and inspires us to keep going.
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At Khadro Ling, with its two well-attended drupchens, group retreats (most recently, an inspiring tsa-lung retreat with Lama Padma Dorje), work on the Pureland project, and its constant stream of visitors, events pass like dreams. But the “Fair of Integration” (as it was named by town officials of Três Coroas) was a particularly vivid dream.
The idea for the fair arose in Chagdud Khadro’s mind as she sat, after serving as vajra master of the Vajrakilaya drupchen, watching the sacred lama dances with some town officials. They immediately saw the possibilities, and at the end of April, on a glorious sunny day, more than one thousand people gathered to buy products made by local residents, to hear singers from the region’s German choral societies and two good rock groups, and to watch traditional German and Tibetan dances. Old Brazilian ladies of German descent bought Tibetan momos, while Bhutanese artists sampled the meter-long bread prepared by German cooks. Our chöpons bought beeswax flowers handcrafted by local artisans, and the queen and king of the town’s senior class drifted through the crowd wearing their regal crowns. A hugely successful DVD about Khadro Ling, soon to be available with English and Spanish subtitles, helped orient new visitors.
The pervasive warmth of community that this event inspired was an aspiration of Chagdud Rinpoche, who always remembered that Chagdud Gonpa Tibet was spared not just because of the heroism of its lamas and monks, or the power of its guardian deities, but also because of the loyalty of laypeople in the region.
Amitabha Buddha now serenely presides over the Pureland project from his lotus throne on the octagonal third floor of the Guru Rinpoche Palace. The image, completed by Chagdud Rinpoche three days before his parinirvana, was beautifully repainted and installed with a lot of strain and grunting by the sangha men, advice and applauding by the sangha women, and frantic barking by the sangha dogs. Rinpoche might have smiled, because he had made statues that defied installation before.
On the second floor, a magnificent Avalokiteshvara, surprisingly large for the room, is flanked by smaller statues of Manjushri and Vajrapani. The smooth, hard clay resembles polished granite and has an artistic presence of its own, although the statues will be painted eventually. On the first floor, Guru Padmasambhava has been joined by Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava, although none of the three have been completed. Our Bhutanese artists and their apprentice, Adam Koch, have maintained their standards of perfection, undaunted by the work that lies ahead—Shantarakshita, Trisong Detsun, protector statues, and the Vajrakilaya mandala.
A number of consecration ceremonies were conducted in June by Lama Rigdzin Samdrup, a respected Bhutanese yogi who arrived at Khadro Ling in May at the request of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Afterward, the sangha embarked on the amazing task of preparing mantras for insertion into the lotuses of the statues. Although this phase of the project seemed overwhelming at first, Lama Rigdzin inspired the volunteers with his tireless energy, and the mantra consecration ceremonies and placement of the mantras were completed before he returned at the end of October to Bhutan, where he is retreat master for 35 five-year retreatants. He will come back to Brazil in 2006.
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Renamed and reorganized with the help of a dynamic business consultant and a very capable editor, Makara, the publishing arm of Chagdud Gonpa Brasil (CGB), published the Portuguese translation of Lord of the Dance in May. We celebrated this long-awaited event with a party and book signing, accompanied by lama dancing, in a beautiful cultural center in Porto Alegre. Chagdud Khadro, Lama Tsering, Lama Rigdzin, and a large crowd of well-wishers attended.
A book of photographs, quotations, and sangha stories about Chagdud Rinpoche, which extend the original biography to the eight years Rinpoche spent in Brazil, is in preparation at Makara.
A second, pivotal publication, the Portuguese translation of Dudjom Lingpa’s Buddhahood Without Meditation, came out at the end of this year’s Dzogchen retreat at Khadro Ling with Jigme Tromge Rinpoche. This unsurpassed Dzogchen manual will be Jigme Rinpoche’s source text during the January 2006 retreat.
Tibetan Program
Many Brazilian students have a natural affinity for foreign languages, and their Portuguese pronunciation lends itself to Tibetan. A group from Khadro Ling has studied for a year with Tenzin Dorje Sherpa, developing a good foundation and creating Portuguese –Tibetan language materials in the process. More recently, Tenzin has traveled to various Brazilian centers, offering intensives on the Tibetan alphabet and beginning grammar.
A committee has been established to translate Tibetan and English texts into Portuguese. Working with trained translators in Asia and the Tibetan lamas in Brazil, discussing terms, faltering through the first written translations, the committee members have developed tremendous enthusiasm for their work. We strongly aspire that some day, with diligence and patience, some of us will be fluent enough to translate orally the words of Tibetan-speaking Nyingma masters into Portuguese.
Casa Amitabha and End-of-Life Issues
Casa Amitabha is both a hospice care facility located at Khadro Ling and an educational program for end-of-life issues. Under its auspices, successful grief support groups, supervised by volunteers trained by a professional therapist from the sangha, have been meeting regularly in Três Coroas. We hope to extend the training and the support groups to other cities. As well, Casa Amitabha recently sponsored Dr. Maria Helena Franco, Ph.D., a renowned grief therapist from São Paulo, to lead a training session for healthcare professionals. It was well attended and well received. We are planning a professional seminar in pain management for early next year.
Dr. Marilyn Stoner, Ph.D., R.N., a member of the L.A. sangha, has traveled to Brazil on three occasions to offer professional training for regional doctors and nurses and to conduct a needs assessment for end-of-life care in three cities near Khadro Ling.
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Since September 2004, the Odsal Ling sangha has been working with great effort and joy to construct a Tibetan temple at our country retreat center. H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche had conceived of the project and indicated exactly where the temple should be built. As a result of his blessings, Lama Tsering and Lama Norbu’s aspirations are unfolding before our eyes.
Since the initial planning and design phase, the work has never stopped. Supplementing donations from individuals, the sangha has organized many fund-raising activities to support the project. Thus, the number of people participating and contributing, each in their own way and in all the different steps of the temple construction, has continued to grow. At this point, the external walls are almost complete. To decorate the doors, windows, and roof, we have cast many lightweight cement details, which are in the process of being elaborately painted by various sangha members, many of whom have uncovered hidden talents.
When it is finished, the temple will be home to the large red stupa that was completed last year and contains the relics of our precious master, Chagdud Rinpoche. Thanks to the generosity and perseverance of many lamas and students, all the proper steps were taken to ensure that the stupa was constructed, filled, and consecrated in the traditional manner. The stupa is replete with sacred relics and a wealth of sacred substances offered by great lamas. In July 2005, Jigme Tromge Rinpoche consecrated the stupa during a lengthy ceremony, enriching its spiritual presence as an object of refuge for innumerable future practitioners.
At the urban center as well as the retreat land, Lama Tsering and Lama Norbu regularly offer teachings and retreats, particularly for the practice of Tara and ngondro. In July Lama Padma Dorje gave extensive teachings and demonstrations of a White Tara and Padampa Sangye long-life practice, as well as empowerments and teachings for a Green Tara practice, a treasure of Chagdud Rinpoche.
We welcome you to visit both our centers in the São Paulo area, especially our country center, which has excellent retreat facilities. Information about the temple project and how you can participate, as well as our schedule of events, can be found on our Website, lamatsering.org.
The staff and visiting volunteers at Rigdzin Ling have been deep in the work of prayer-wheel making for many months now. This huge, profoundly significant project is a collaboration between Rigdzin Ling and Iron Knot Ranch, which will culminate in the installation of thirty-two giant prayer wheels, each containing mantras printed on paper rolls and imaged onto microfilm. For some sangha members this has meant scrupulously checking the mantras on masters, using eye loupes and microscopes; for some it has meant months of work building the pavilion itself; for some it has involved daily phone calls and e-mails to and from printers and film imagers. Others have spent months winding hundreds of spools of microfilm into the forty-four-inch-diameter “pancakes” that will sit atop the paper wheels. Yet other sangha members spent long days and nights on the design and structural engineering of the building.
Now that the fifteen three-ton wheels have been installed at Rigdzin Ling, the prayer-wheel pavilion is on its way to completion. The idea of housing the prayer wheels in an Asian-style pavilion came to Lama Drimed in a dream. The design itself is a blend of Chinese and Japanese temple elements, with striking green ceramic roof tiles and fragrant cedar wood beams.
Since the early spring, we have hosted several work week-ends, with many volunteers coming at crucial points in the construction to push the project closer to completion. Michael Bradfute has twice made the long drive from New Mexico, bringing the spindles and other fabricated metal pieces in rattling, monster-sized U-Hauls.
The major engineering for the works that turn the wheels was organized by Iron Knot Ranch, while Rigdzin Ling oversaw the paper-roll printing and microfilm manufacturing. The mantra team worked diligently and patiently with the vendors to obtain the sharpest and clearest mantras possible. All together the mantras on the paper and microfilm number several billion.
A path for circumambulation will surround the building, providing access to 108 smaller copper wheels that can be turned by hand. Lama Pema Tenzin is painting the artwork that will be reproduced to cover the large wheels. We have tentatively scheduled a consecration ceremony for the coming spring and hope to see many of you there.
Padma Publishing is happy to announce the publication of Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche’s history of the Nyingtik lineage, A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems: Biographies of Masters of Awareness in the Dzogchen Lineage. The translation, by Lama Chökyi Nyima, was undertaken as the result of a request Nyoshul Khenpo made to Chagdud Rinpoche. This book, pronounced a masterpiece by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the only comprehensive history of the Nyingtik lineage and is framed as a series of namtars, or spiritual biographies.
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We were delighted when His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche came to the Padmasambhava Peace Institute in April this year. Rinpoche led the sangha, as well as a number of new practitioners, in a four-day Yeshe Tsogyal retreat. Some attendees had traveled far for this momentous occasion, and the joy of seeing old friends turned the eighty-person gathering into something of a reunion. Once again we were honored to have a number of Chagdud Gonpa lamas join us: Lama Jigme, Lama Inge Zangmo, Lama Padma, Lama Dorje, and Lama Tsultrim, who updated the supplementary liturgies in time for the retreat, thus greatly facilitating everyone’s participation.
Focusing on this precious practice for four days with the tertön himself was a profoundly moving experience. The shrine room was packed, and everyone felt blessed by the powerful magic of his being. Rinpoche gave the empowerment and teachings on a text of Yeshe Tsogyal’s questions to Guru Rinpoche. Outside the long hours of puja, he granted interviews, offering advice and support to old and new students. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche’s great kindness and humor, the unfolding beauty of the practice, and the sheer joy of the retreatants made for a truly memorable retreat. We pray for the merit to welcome His Eminence back on many future occasions.
Last June Jigme Rinpoche and his son, Tulku Orgyen, led a pilgrimage to China organized by the Hong Kong sangha. A group of thirty traveled to Manjushri’s sacred mountain, Wu Tai Shan, and Chenrezik’s holy island, Pu Tuo Shan, near Shanghai. Then in July Rinpoche flew to Brazil for the Essence of Siddhi drupchen. He returned to the States to lead weekend retreats at Yeshe Ling and give the empowerments for the Chagdud Gonpa daily practices and Dudjom Tersar ngondro at PPI.
In September Ati Ling held the annual Rigdzin Dupa Hundred-Thousand Tsok Offerings retreat. We were delighted to welcome back Tulku Orgyen, as well as Lama Padma, Lama Thubten, and Lama Jigme, who had kindly agreed to start training people in lama dancing. Each day, the heavy rain and mists melted into bright sunshine, allowing the dancers to practice outside. About forty-five people participated in the retreat, a Guru Rinpoche practice at the heart of the Longchen Nyingtik lineage and the basis for the Great Perfection retreats Jigme Rinpoche leads in Brazil every January.
The monthly talks Rinpoche gives at the Open Secret Bookstore in San Rafael continue to inspire newcomers to seek further instruction and to join the Ati Ling sangha for other events. To make it easier for people closer to the Bay Area to practice together, Lisa Iacovelli and family have made their home available for puja on the fourth Sunday of each month. (Puja continues on a daily basis at PPI, and there is also a puja with potluck lunch at PPI on the second Sunday of each month.)
Ati Ling held two events in November to commemorate H.E. Chagdud Rinpoche’s parinirvana; on the anniversary, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, who was enthroned by Chagdud Rinpoche, joined Jigme Rinpoche at Berkeley Shambhala for evening puja. This was followed by a three-day Padma Dakini retreat at PPI.
In February Jigme Rinpoche will lead a three-day Vajrakilaya retreat at PPI. For more information on Ati Ling events and regular updates to Jigme Rinpoche’s schedule, visit www. Atiling.org.
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Opportunities for dharma practice circle the Venerable Lama Gyatso like planets around the sun. Those of us in his orbit at T’hondup Ling can look back on a year of profound blessings from the retreats, tsok feasts, saving of lives, and visits by lineage masters.
We rang in 2005 with a three-day Orgyen Dzambhala retreat, led by Lama Gyatso, the custodian of the treasure of this enrichment practice. Later in the month, he left for Asia for his annual winter pilgrimage to pay homage to his teachers Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Kyabjé Chatral Rinpoche, and tso’s participation in the annual ten-day Vajrakilaya drupchen, led by Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche at his monastery, Chorten Gonpa, in Gangtok, Sikkim. These yearly pilgrimages are dedicated in part to the swift rebirth of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and for the removal of hindrances to the indisputable recognition of Rinpoche’s reincarnation.
In Los Angeles our Losar celebration and Vajrakilaya ceremonies were led by Lama Ludrub and Lama Rabjoer of Thupten Chöling monastery in Nepal. In March we again welcomed Ven. Lama Thogme, an expert on mandalas, who led the creation of a Shi-tro sand mandala in Hollywood, an annual project sponsored by Lucy’s El Adobe Café.
H.E. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche returned as vajra master for the third annual Yeshe Tsogyal retreat, held in April at Ari Bhöd in Tehachapi. Rinpoche again commented on the powerful qualities of the land and was most pleased by the continued improvement of the facilities. Especially during the warm summer months, Lama Gyatso spends much of his time at Ari Bhöd, the American Foundation for Tibetan Cultural Preservation, comprising 475 acres in a beautiful forested valley two hours’ drive from Los Angeles. Ari Bhöd was founded by Lama Gyatso to preserve the sacred cultural heritage of Tibet, especially the profound and unsurpassable Nyingma lineage. Volunteers have been working with the lamas to renovate and rehabilitate the numerous structures, gradually transforming a former YMCA camp into a traditional retreat center. Numerous T’hondup Ling retreats have been held at Ari Bhöd, and it is a place of tremendous potential, greatly conducive to dharma practice.
In August we welcomed Ven. Lama Lhundrup, also from Thupten Chöling and an ordained monk. Lama Lhundrup is a master carver and craftsman, in addition to being fully accomplished in the ritual arts. We are most fortunate to have him with us. Lama Gyatso led the annual ngondro retreat at Ari Bhöd in late August, teaching the extensive Longchen Nyingtik ngondro. Dzatrul Rinpoche graced us with a brief visit in September, joining Lama Gyatso for one of our many live releases. We are quite pleased that he will return before the end of the year. In early October, Ven. Loppön Jigme Tutop Rinpoche led our eleventh annual Tröma drupchöd, held for nine days at Ari Bhöd, and blessed us with teachings. Rinpoche serves as the vajra master at Kyabjé Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery in Pharping, Nepal.
If you would like to be notified about future events at T’hondup Ling, including our live releases, e-mail us at thondupling@yahoo.com and ask to be put on our e-mail list. You can also visit our website, www.thondupling.org.
______
We have had a busy summer and fall: Jigme Rinpoche led a Lion-Faced Dakini retreat in early August, during which he gave some wonderful teachings on the practice. Later in the month, we were delighted and fortunate to host Lama Sherab, who conducted a week-long ngondro retreat. At the end of the retreat, Jigme Rinpoche also gave a day of teachings.
Many years ago, Chagdud Rinpoche had given extensive Tröma teachings here, and in late August, during our annual Tröma retreat, Jigme Rinpoche gave the first phase of advanced teachings on the practice. At the end of September, Lama Tsering conducted an inspiring Tara retreat attended by a large group of people, many of whom were relatively new to the practice.
Work on the Guru Rinpoche statue has been steadily progressing. Glen Sandvoss applied some finishing touches with sandpaper and a grinder, and the statue itself has received a lovely coat of paint. Glen has gone back home to Spokane, but plans to return in the spring to work on the next phase. Jigme Rinpoche has decided that in addition to Chagdud Rinpoche’s relics, many other extraordinary objects will be placed in the statue when it is consecrated. So we hope that as many people as possible can help, with time and donations, to finish the project.
We encourage people to come to Yeshe Ling for puja on Sundays and to contact us about tsok days.
______
Somehow this field for accumulating merit and purifying karma has arisen.
Somehow beings with hearts longing to be tamed keep showing up.
Somehow the enlightened intentions of our father Lama continue manifesting.
Somehow the result is ongoing dreamlike activity: stupas, prayer wheels, shrine rooms, composting toilets.How lucky, how lucky, how lucky we are.
______
We are deeply grateful for the visits of Lama Padma and Lama Norbu this summer. We so appreciate their time and effort, kind words, guidance and inspiration. Our sangha continues to do weekly practice on Monday nights and feast days in our shrine room at Thupten (formerly Phillip Bossung) and Susan Ross’s house. Sangha members are also using the shrine room for various practices at other times. If you find yourself in the Boulder-Denver area, please contact Dennis Kennedy to arrange a time to practice or come join us on Mondays.
______
The sangha at Tromge Ling continues to practice simply, integrating dharma with daily life. Last June we held our seventh annual Orgyen Dzambhala retreat with Lama Gyatso, who continues to be extremely patient with and kind to all of us. We just completed our fifth annual Manjushri retreat with Jigme Rinpoche, who also bestowed very clear, precise teachings on this practice. Khentrul Lodrö Thaye Rinpoche returned for two weeks last February to teach The Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva; about a hundred people attended his public talk. Lama Zangpo continues to teach here twice a year to help the sangha “stitch things together,” which enriches our understanding of the teachings, helps to ground our practice in clarity, and inspires us to keep going.
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At Khadro Ling, with its two well-attended drupchens, group retreats (most recently, an inspiring tsa-lung retreat with Lama Padma Dorje), work on the Pureland project, and its constant stream of visitors, events pass like dreams. But the “Fair of Integration” (as it was named by town officials of Três Coroas) was a particularly vivid dream.
The idea for the fair arose in Chagdud Khadro’s mind as she sat, after serving as vajra master of the Vajrakilaya drupchen, watching the sacred lama dances with some town officials. They immediately saw the possibilities, and at the end of April, on a glorious sunny day, more than one thousand people gathered to buy products made by local residents, to hear singers from the region’s German choral societies and two good rock groups, and to watch traditional German and Tibetan dances. Old Brazilian ladies of German descent bought Tibetan momos, while Bhutanese artists sampled the meter-long bread prepared by German cooks. Our chöpons bought beeswax flowers handcrafted by local artisans, and the queen and king of the town’s senior class drifted through the crowd wearing their regal crowns. A hugely successful DVD about Khadro Ling, soon to be available with English and Spanish subtitles, helped orient new visitors.
The pervasive warmth of community that this event inspired was an aspiration of Chagdud Rinpoche, who always remembered that Chagdud Gonpa Tibet was spared not just because of the heroism of its lamas and monks, or the power of its guardian deities, but also because of the loyalty of laypeople in the region.
Amitabha Buddha now serenely presides over the Pureland project from his lotus throne on the octagonal third floor of the Guru Rinpoche Palace. The image, completed by Chagdud Rinpoche three days before his parinirvana, was beautifully repainted and installed with a lot of strain and grunting by the sangha men, advice and applauding by the sangha women, and frantic barking by the sangha dogs. Rinpoche might have smiled, because he had made statues that defied installation before.
On the second floor, a magnificent Avalokiteshvara, surprisingly large for the room, is flanked by smaller statues of Manjushri and Vajrapani. The smooth, hard clay resembles polished granite and has an artistic presence of its own, although the statues will be painted eventually. On the first floor, Guru Padmasambhava has been joined by Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava, although none of the three have been completed. Our Bhutanese artists and their apprentice, Adam Koch, have maintained their standards of perfection, undaunted by the work that lies ahead—Shantarakshita, Trisong Detsun, protector statues, and the Vajrakilaya mandala.
A number of consecration ceremonies were conducted in June by Lama Rigdzin Samdrup, a respected Bhutanese yogi who arrived at Khadro Ling in May at the request of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Afterward, the sangha embarked on the amazing task of preparing mantras for insertion into the lotuses of the statues. Although this phase of the project seemed overwhelming at first, Lama Rigdzin inspired the volunteers with his tireless energy, and the mantra consecration ceremonies and placement of the mantras were completed before he returned at the end of October to Bhutan, where he is retreat master for 35 five-year retreatants. He will come back to Brazil in 2006.
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Renamed and reorganized with the help of a dynamic business consultant and a very capable editor, Makara, the publishing arm of Chagdud Gonpa Brasil (CGB), published the Portuguese translation of Lord of the Dance in May. We celebrated this long-awaited event with a party and book signing, accompanied by lama dancing, in a beautiful cultural center in Porto Alegre. Chagdud Khadro, Lama Tsering, Lama Rigdzin, and a large crowd of well-wishers attended.
A book of photographs, quotations, and sangha stories about Chagdud Rinpoche, which extend the original biography to the eight years Rinpoche spent in Brazil, is in preparation at Makara.
A second, pivotal publication, the Portuguese translation of Dudjom Lingpa’s Buddhahood Without Meditation, came out at the end of this year’s Dzogchen retreat at Khadro Ling with Jigme Tromge Rinpoche. This unsurpassed Dzogchen manual will be Jigme Rinpoche’s source text during the January 2006 retreat.
Tibetan Program
Many Brazilian students have a natural affinity for foreign languages, and their Portuguese pronunciation lends itself to Tibetan. A group from Khadro Ling has studied for a year with Tenzin Dorje Sherpa, developing a good foundation and creating Portuguese –Tibetan language materials in the process. More recently, Tenzin has traveled to various Brazilian centers, offering intensives on the Tibetan alphabet and beginning grammar.
A committee has been established to translate Tibetan and English texts into Portuguese. Working with trained translators in Asia and the Tibetan lamas in Brazil, discussing terms, faltering through the first written translations, the committee members have developed tremendous enthusiasm for their work. We strongly aspire that some day, with diligence and patience, some of us will be fluent enough to translate orally the words of Tibetan-speaking Nyingma masters into Portuguese.
Casa Amitabha and End-of-Life Issues
Casa Amitabha is both a hospice care facility located at Khadro Ling and an educational program for end-of-life issues. Under its auspices, successful grief support groups, supervised by volunteers trained by a professional therapist from the sangha, have been meeting regularly in Três Coroas. We hope to extend the training and the support groups to other cities. As well, Casa Amitabha recently sponsored Dr. Maria Helena Franco, Ph.D., a renowned grief therapist from São Paulo, to lead a training session for healthcare professionals. It was well attended and well received. We are planning a professional seminar in pain management for early next year.
Dr. Marilyn Stoner, Ph.D., R.N., a member of the L.A. sangha, has traveled to Brazil on three occasions to offer professional training for regional doctors and nurses and to conduct a needs assessment for end-of-life care in three cities near Khadro Ling.
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Since September 2004, the Odsal Ling sangha has been working with great effort and joy to construct a Tibetan temple at our country retreat center. H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche had conceived of the project and indicated exactly where the temple should be built. As a result of his blessings, Lama Tsering and Lama Norbu’s aspirations are unfolding before our eyes.
Since the initial planning and design phase, the work has never stopped. Supplementing donations from individuals, the sangha has organized many fund-raising activities to support the project. Thus, the number of people participating and contributing, each in their own way and in all the different steps of the temple construction, has continued to grow. At this point, the external walls are almost complete. To decorate the doors, windows, and roof, we have cast many lightweight cement details, which are in the process of being elaborately painted by various sangha members, many of whom have uncovered hidden talents.
When it is finished, the temple will be home to the large red stupa that was completed last year and contains the relics of our precious master, Chagdud Rinpoche. Thanks to the generosity and perseverance of many lamas and students, all the proper steps were taken to ensure that the stupa was constructed, filled, and consecrated in the traditional manner. The stupa is replete with sacred relics and a wealth of sacred substances offered by great lamas. In July 2005, Jigme Tromge Rinpoche consecrated the stupa during a lengthy ceremony, enriching its spiritual presence as an object of refuge for innumerable future practitioners.
At the urban center as well as the retreat land, Lama Tsering and Lama Norbu regularly offer teachings and retreats, particularly for the practice of Tara and ngondro. In July Lama Padma Dorje gave extensive teachings and demonstrations of a White Tara and Padampa Sangye long-life practice, as well as empowerments and teachings for a Green Tara practice, a treasure of Chagdud Rinpoche.
We welcome you to visit both our centers in the São Paulo area, especially our country center, which has excellent retreat facilities. Information about the temple project and how you can participate, as well as our schedule of events, can be found on our Website, lamatsering.org.
The staff and visiting volunteers at Rigdzin Ling have been deep in the work of prayer-wheel making for many months now. This huge, profoundly significant project is a collaboration between Rigdzin Ling and Iron Knot Ranch, which will culminate in the installation of thirty-two giant prayer wheels, each containing mantras printed on paper rolls and imaged onto microfilm. For some sangha members this has meant scrupulously checking the mantras on masters, using eye loupes and microscopes; for some it has meant months of work building the pavilion itself; for some it has involved daily phone calls and e-mails to and from printers and film imagers. Others have spent months winding hundreds of spools of microfilm into the forty-four-inch-diameter “pancakes” that will sit atop the paper wheels. Yet other sangha members spent long days and nights on the design and structural engineering of the building.
Now that the fifteen three-ton wheels have been installed at Rigdzin Ling, the prayer-wheel pavilion is on its way to completion. The idea of housing the prayer wheels in an Asian-style pavilion came to Lama Drimed in a dream. The design itself is a blend of Chinese and Japanese temple elements, with striking green ceramic roof tiles and fragrant cedar wood beams.
Since the early spring, we have hosted several work week-ends, with many volunteers coming at crucial points in the construction to push the project closer to completion. Michael Bradfute has twice made the long drive from New Mexico, bringing the spindles and other fabricated metal pieces in rattling, monster-sized U-Hauls.
The major engineering for the works that turn the wheels was organized by Iron Knot Ranch, while Rigdzin Ling oversaw the paper-roll printing and microfilm manufacturing. The mantra team worked diligently and patiently with the vendors to obtain the sharpest and clearest mantras possible. All together the mantras on the paper and microfilm number several billion.
A path for circumambulation will surround the building, providing access to 108 smaller copper wheels that can be turned by hand. Lama Pema Tenzin is painting the artwork that will be reproduced to cover the large wheels. We have tentatively scheduled a consecration ceremony for the coming spring and hope to see many of you there.
Padma Publishing is happy to announce the publication of Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche’s history of the Nyingtik lineage, A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems: Biographies of Masters of Awareness in the Dzogchen Lineage. The translation, by Lama Chökyi Nyima, was undertaken as the result of a request Nyoshul Khenpo made to Chagdud Rinpoche. This book, pronounced a masterpiece by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the only comprehensive history of the Nyingtik lineage and is framed as a series of namtars, or spiritual biographies.
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We were delighted when His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche came to the Padmasambhava Peace Institute in April this year. Rinpoche led the sangha, as well as a number of new practitioners, in a four-day Yeshe Tsogyal retreat. Some attendees had traveled far for this momentous occasion, and the joy of seeing old friends turned the eighty-person gathering into something of a reunion. Once again we were honored to have a number of Chagdud Gonpa lamas join us: Lama Jigme, Lama Inge Zangmo, Lama Padma, Lama Dorje, and Lama Tsultrim, who updated the supplementary liturgies in time for the retreat, thus greatly facilitating everyone’s participation.
Focusing on this precious practice for four days with the tertön himself was a profoundly moving experience. The shrine room was packed, and everyone felt blessed by the powerful magic of his being. Rinpoche gave the empowerment and teachings on a text of Yeshe Tsogyal’s questions to Guru Rinpoche. Outside the long hours of puja, he granted interviews, offering advice and support to old and new students. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche’s great kindness and humor, the unfolding beauty of the practice, and the sheer joy of the retreatants made for a truly memorable retreat. We pray for the merit to welcome His Eminence back on many future occasions.
Last June Jigme Rinpoche and his son, Tulku Orgyen, led a pilgrimage to China organized by the Hong Kong sangha. A group of thirty traveled to Manjushri’s sacred mountain, Wu Tai Shan, and Chenrezik’s holy island, Pu Tuo Shan, near Shanghai. Then in July Rinpoche flew to Brazil for the Essence of Siddhi drupchen. He returned to the States to lead weekend retreats at Yeshe Ling and give the empowerments for the Chagdud Gonpa daily practices and Dudjom Tersar ngondro at PPI.
In September Ati Ling held the annual Rigdzin Dupa Hundred-Thousand Tsok Offerings retreat. We were delighted to welcome back Tulku Orgyen, as well as Lama Padma, Lama Thubten, and Lama Jigme, who had kindly agreed to start training people in lama dancing. Each day, the heavy rain and mists melted into bright sunshine, allowing the dancers to practice outside. About forty-five people participated in the retreat, a Guru Rinpoche practice at the heart of the Longchen Nyingtik lineage and the basis for the Great Perfection retreats Jigme Rinpoche leads in Brazil every January.
The monthly talks Rinpoche gives at the Open Secret Bookstore in San Rafael continue to inspire newcomers to seek further instruction and to join the Ati Ling sangha for other events. To make it easier for people closer to the Bay Area to practice together, Lisa Iacovelli and family have made their home available for puja on the fourth Sunday of each month. (Puja continues on a daily basis at PPI, and there is also a puja with potluck lunch at PPI on the second Sunday of each month.)
Ati Ling held two events in November to commemorate H.E. Chagdud Rinpoche’s parinirvana; on the anniversary, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, who was enthroned by Chagdud Rinpoche, joined Jigme Rinpoche at Berkeley Shambhala for evening puja. This was followed by a three-day Padma Dakini retreat at PPI.
In February Jigme Rinpoche will lead a three-day Vajrakilaya retreat at PPI. For more information on Ati Ling events and regular updates to Jigme Rinpoche’s schedule, visit www. Atiling.org.
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Opportunities for dharma practice circle the Venerable Lama Gyatso like planets around the sun. Those of us in his orbit at T’hondup Ling can look back on a year of profound blessings from the retreats, tsok feasts, saving of lives, and visits by lineage masters.
We rang in 2005 with a three-day Orgyen Dzambhala retreat, led by Lama Gyatso, the custodian of the treasure of this enrichment practice. Later in the month, he left for Asia for his annual winter pilgrimage to pay homage to his teachers Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Kyabjé Chatral Rinpoche, and tso’s participation in the annual ten-day Vajrakilaya drupchen, led by Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche at his monastery, Chorten Gonpa, in Gangtok, Sikkim. These yearly pilgrimages are dedicated in part to the swift rebirth of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and for the removal of hindrances to the indisputable recognition of Rinpoche’s reincarnation.
In Los Angeles our Losar celebration and Vajrakilaya ceremonies were led by Lama Ludrub and Lama Rabjoer of Thupten Chöling monastery in Nepal. In March we again welcomed Ven. Lama Thogme, an expert on mandalas, who led the creation of a Shi-tro sand mandala in Hollywood, an annual project sponsored by Lucy’s El Adobe Café.
H.E. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche returned as vajra master for the third annual Yeshe Tsogyal retreat, held in April at Ari Bhöd in Tehachapi. Rinpoche again commented on the powerful qualities of the land and was most pleased by the continued improvement of the facilities. Especially during the warm summer months, Lama Gyatso spends much of his time at Ari Bhöd, the American Foundation for Tibetan Cultural Preservation, comprising 475 acres in a beautiful forested valley two hours’ drive from Los Angeles. Ari Bhöd was founded by Lama Gyatso to preserve the sacred cultural heritage of Tibet, especially the profound and unsurpassable Nyingma lineage. Volunteers have been working with the lamas to renovate and rehabilitate the numerous structures, gradually transforming a former YMCA camp into a traditional retreat center. Numerous T’hondup Ling retreats have been held at Ari Bhöd, and it is a place of tremendous potential, greatly conducive to dharma practice.
In August we welcomed Ven. Lama Lhundrup, also from Thupten Chöling and an ordained monk. Lama Lhundrup is a master carver and craftsman, in addition to being fully accomplished in the ritual arts. We are most fortunate to have him with us. Lama Gyatso led the annual ngondro retreat at Ari Bhöd in late August, teaching the extensive Longchen Nyingtik ngondro. Dzatrul Rinpoche graced us with a brief visit in September, joining Lama Gyatso for one of our many live releases. We are quite pleased that he will return before the end of the year. In early October, Ven. Loppön Jigme Tutop Rinpoche led our eleventh annual Tröma drupchöd, held for nine days at Ari Bhöd, and blessed us with teachings. Rinpoche serves as the vajra master at Kyabjé Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery in Pharping, Nepal.
If you would like to be notified about future events at T’hondup Ling, including our live releases, e-mail us at thondupling@yahoo.com and ask to be put on our e-mail list. You can also visit our website, www.thondupling.org.
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We have had a busy summer and fall: Jigme Rinpoche led a Lion-Faced Dakini retreat in early August, during which he gave some wonderful teachings on the practice. Later in the month, we were delighted and fortunate to host Lama Sherab, who conducted a week-long ngondro retreat. At the end of the retreat, Jigme Rinpoche also gave a day of teachings.
Many years ago, Chagdud Rinpoche had given extensive Tröma teachings here, and in late August, during our annual Tröma retreat, Jigme Rinpoche gave the first phase of advanced teachings on the practice. At the end of September, Lama Tsering conducted an inspiring Tara retreat attended by a large group of people, many of whom were relatively new to the practice.
Work on the Guru Rinpoche statue has been steadily progressing. Glen Sandvoss applied some finishing touches with sandpaper and a grinder, and the statue itself has received a lovely coat of paint. Glen has gone back home to Spokane, but plans to return in the spring to work on the next phase. Jigme Rinpoche has decided that in addition to Chagdud Rinpoche’s relics, many other extraordinary objects will be placed in the statue when it is consecrated. So we hope that as many people as possible can help, with time and donations, to finish the project.
We encourage people to come to Yeshe Ling for puja on Sundays and to contact us about tsok days.
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Somehow this field for accumulating merit and purifying karma has arisen.
Somehow beings with hearts longing to be tamed keep showing up.
Somehow the enlightened intentions of our father Lama continue manifesting.
Somehow the result is ongoing dreamlike activity: stupas, prayer wheels, shrine rooms, composting toilets.How lucky, how lucky, how lucky we are.
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We are deeply grateful for the visits of Lama Padma and Lama Norbu this summer. We so appreciate their time and effort, kind words, guidance and inspiration. Our sangha continues to do weekly practice on Monday nights and feast days in our shrine room at Thupten (formerly Phillip Bossung) and Susan Ross’s house. Sangha members are also using the shrine room for various practices at other times. If you find yourself in the Boulder-Denver area, please contact Dennis Kennedy to arrange a time to practice or come join us on Mondays.
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The sangha at Tromge Ling continues to practice simply, integrating dharma with daily life. Last June we held our seventh annual Orgyen Dzambhala retreat with Lama Gyatso, who continues to be extremely patient with and kind to all of us. We just completed our fifth annual Manjushri retreat with Jigme Rinpoche, who also bestowed very clear, precise teachings on this practice. Khentrul Lodrö Thaye Rinpoche returned for two weeks last February to teach The Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva; about a hundred people attended his public talk. Lama Zangpo continues to teach here twice a year to help the sangha “stitch things together,” which enriches our understanding of the teachings, helps to ground our practice in clarity, and inspires us to keep going.
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At Khadro Ling, with its two well-attended drupchens, group retreats (most recently, an inspiring tsa-lung retreat with Lama Padma Dorje), work on the Pureland project, and its constant stream of visitors, events pass like dreams. But the “Fair of Integration” (as it was named by town officials of Três Coroas) was a particularly vivid dream.
The idea for the fair arose in Chagdud Khadro’s mind as she sat, after serving as vajra master of the Vajrakilaya drupchen, watching the sacred lama dances with some town officials. They immediately saw the possibilities, and at the end of April, on a glorious sunny day, more than one thousand people gathered to buy products made by local residents, to hear singers from the region’s German choral societies and two good rock groups, and to watch traditional German and Tibetan dances. Old Brazilian ladies of German descent bought Tibetan momos, while Bhutanese artists sampled the meter-long bread prepared by German cooks. Our chöpons bought beeswax flowers handcrafted by local artisans, and the queen and king of the town’s senior class drifted through the crowd wearing their regal crowns. A hugely successful DVD about Khadro Ling, soon to be available with English and Spanish subtitles, helped orient new visitors.
The pervasive warmth of community that this event inspired was an aspiration of Chagdud Rinpoche, who always remembered that Chagdud Gonpa Tibet was spared not just because of the heroism of its lamas and monks, or the power of its guardian deities, but also because of the loyalty of laypeople in the region.
Amitabha Buddha now serenely presides over the Pureland project from his lotus throne on the octagonal third floor of the Guru Rinpoche Palace. The image, completed by Chagdud Rinpoche three days before his parinirvana, was beautifully repainted and installed with a lot of strain and grunting by the sangha men, advice and applauding by the sangha women, and frantic barking by the sangha dogs. Rinpoche might have smiled, because he had made statues that defied installation before.
On the second floor, a magnificent Avalokiteshvara, surprisingly large for the room, is flanked by smaller statues of Manjushri and Vajrapani. The smooth, hard clay resembles polished granite and has an artistic presence of its own, although the statues will be painted eventually. On the first floor, Guru Padmasambhava has been joined by Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava, although none of the three have been completed. Our Bhutanese artists and their apprentice, Adam Koch, have maintained their standards of perfection, undaunted by the work that lies ahead—Shantarakshita, Trisong Detsun, protector statues, and the Vajrakilaya mandala.
A number of consecration ceremonies were conducted in June by Lama Rigdzin Samdrup, a respected Bhutanese yogi who arrived at Khadro Ling in May at the request of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Afterward, the sangha embarked on the amazing task of preparing mantras for insertion into the lotuses of the statues. Although this phase of the project seemed overwhelming at first, Lama Rigdzin inspired the volunteers with his tireless energy, and the mantra consecration ceremonies and placement of the mantras were completed before he returned at the end of October to Bhutan, where he is retreat master for 35 five-year retreatants. He will come back to Brazil in 2006.
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Renamed and reorganized with the help of a dynamic business consultant and a very capable editor, Makara, the publishing arm of Chagdud Gonpa Brasil (CGB), published the Portuguese translation of Lord of the Dance in May. We celebrated this long-awaited event with a party and book signing, accompanied by lama dancing, in a beautiful cultural center in Porto Alegre. Chagdud Khadro, Lama Tsering, Lama Rigdzin, and a large crowd of well-wishers attended.
A book of photographs, quotations, and sangha stories about Chagdud Rinpoche, which extend the original biography to the eight years Rinpoche spent in Brazil, is in preparation at Makara.
A second, pivotal publication, the Portuguese translation of Dudjom Lingpa’s Buddhahood Without Meditation, came out at the end of this year’s Dzogchen retreat at Khadro Ling with Jigme Tromge Rinpoche. This unsurpassed Dzogchen manual will be Jigme Rinpoche’s source text during the January 2006 retreat.
Tibetan Program
Many Brazilian students have a natural affinity for foreign languages, and their Portuguese pronunciation lends itself to Tibetan. A group from Khadro Ling has studied for a year with Tenzin Dorje Sherpa, developing a good foundation and creating Portuguese –Tibetan language materials in the process. More recently, Tenzin has traveled to various Brazilian centers, offering intensives on the Tibetan alphabet and beginning grammar.
A committee has been established to translate Tibetan and English texts into Portuguese. Working with trained translators in Asia and the Tibetan lamas in Brazil, discussing terms, faltering through the first written translations, the committee members have developed tremendous enthusiasm for their work. We strongly aspire that some day, with diligence and patience, some of us will be fluent enough to translate orally the words of Tibetan-speaking Nyingma masters into Portuguese.
Casa Amitabha and End-of-Life Issues
Casa Amitabha is both a hospice care facility located at Khadro Ling and an educational program for end-of-life issues. Under its auspices, successful grief support groups, supervised by volunteers trained by a professional therapist from the sangha, have been meeting regularly in Três Coroas. We hope to extend the training and the support groups to other cities. As well, Casa Amitabha recently sponsored Dr. Maria Helena Franco, Ph.D., a renowned grief therapist from São Paulo, to lead a training session for healthcare professionals. It was well attended and well received. We are planning a professional seminar in pain management for early next year.
Dr. Marilyn Stoner, Ph.D., R.N., a member of the L.A. sangha, has traveled to Brazil on three occasions to offer professional training for regional doctors and nurses and to conduct a needs assessment for end-of-life care in three cities near Khadro Ling.
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Since September 2004, the Odsal Ling sangha has been working with great effort and joy to construct a Tibetan temple at our country retreat center. H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche had conceived of the project and indicated exactly where the temple should be built. As a result of his blessings, Lama Tsering and Lama Norbu’s aspirations are unfolding before our eyes.
Since the initial planning and design phase, the work has never stopped. Supplementing donations from individuals, the sangha has organized many fund-raising activities to support the project. Thus, the number of people participating and contributing, each in their own way and in all the different steps of the temple construction, has continued to grow. At this point, the external walls are almost complete. To decorate the doors, windows, and roof, we have cast many lightweight cement details, which are in the process of being elaborately painted by various sangha members, many of whom have uncovered hidden talents.
When it is finished, the temple will be home to the large red stupa that was completed last year and contains the relics of our precious master, Chagdud Rinpoche. Thanks to the generosity and perseverance of many lamas and students, all the proper steps were taken to ensure that the stupa was constructed, filled, and consecrated in the traditional manner. The stupa is replete with sacred relics and a wealth of sacred substances offered by great lamas. In July 2005, Jigme Tromge Rinpoche consecrated the stupa during a lengthy ceremony, enriching its spiritual presence as an object of refuge for innumerable future practitioners.
At the urban center as well as the retreat land, Lama Tsering and Lama Norbu regularly offer teachings and retreats, particularly for the practice of Tara and ngondro. In July Lama Padma Dorje gave extensive teachings and demonstrations of a White Tara and Padampa Sangye long-life practice, as well as empowerments and teachings for a Green Tara practice, a treasure of Chagdud Rinpoche.
We welcome you to visit both our centers in the São Paulo area, especially our country center, which has excellent retreat facilities. Information about the temple project and how you can participate, as well as our schedule of events, can be found on our Website, lamatsering.org.
The staff and visiting volunteers at Rigdzin Ling have been deep in the work of prayer-wheel making for many months now. This huge, profoundly significant project is a collaboration between Rigdzin Ling and Iron Knot Ranch, which will culminate in the installation of thirty-two giant prayer wheels, each containing mantras printed on paper rolls and imaged onto microfilm. For some sangha members this has meant scrupulously checking the mantras on masters, using eye loupes and microscopes; for some it has meant months of work building the pavilion itself; for some it has involved daily phone calls and e-mails to and from printers and film imagers. Others have spent months winding hundreds of spools of microfilm into the forty-four-inch-diameter “pancakes” that will sit atop the paper wheels. Yet other sangha members spent long days and nights on the design and structural engineering of the building.
Now that the fifteen three-ton wheels have been installed at Rigdzin Ling, the prayer-wheel pavilion is on its way to completion. The idea of housing the prayer wheels in an Asian-style pavilion came to Lama Drimed in a dream. The design itself is a blend of Chinese and Japanese temple elements, with striking green ceramic roof tiles and fragrant cedar wood beams.
Since the early spring, we have hosted several work week-ends, with many volunteers coming at crucial points in the construction to push the project closer to completion. Michael Bradfute has twice made the long drive from New Mexico, bringing the spindles and other fabricated metal pieces in rattling, monster-sized U-Hauls.
The major engineering for the works that turn the wheels was organized by Iron Knot Ranch, while Rigdzin Ling oversaw the paper-roll printing and microfilm manufacturing. The mantra team worked diligently and patiently with the vendors to obtain the sharpest and clearest mantras possible. All together the mantras on the paper and microfilm number several billion.
A path for circumambulation will surround the building, providing access to 108 smaller copper wheels that can be turned by hand. Lama Pema Tenzin is painting the artwork that will be reproduced to cover the large wheels. We have tentatively scheduled a consecration ceremony for the coming spring and hope to see many of you there.
Padma Publishing is happy to announce the publication of Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche’s history of the Nyingtik lineage, A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems: Biographies of Masters of Awareness in the Dzogchen Lineage. The translation, by Lama Chökyi Nyima, was undertaken as the result of a request Nyoshul Khenpo made to Chagdud Rinpoche. This book, pronounced a masterpiece by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the only comprehensive history of the Nyingtik lineage and is framed as a series of namtars, or spiritual biographies.
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We were delighted when His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche came to the Padmasambhava Peace Institute in April this year. Rinpoche led the sangha, as well as a number of new practitioners, in a four-day Yeshe Tsogyal retreat. Some attendees had traveled far for this momentous occasion, and the joy of seeing old friends turned the eighty-person gathering into something of a reunion. Once again we were honored to have a number of Chagdud Gonpa lamas join us: Lama Jigme, Lama Inge Zangmo, Lama Padma, Lama Dorje, and Lama Tsultrim, who updated the supplementary liturgies in time for the retreat, thus greatly facilitating everyone’s participation.
Focusing on this precious practice for four days with the tertön himself was a profoundly moving experience. The shrine room was packed, and everyone felt blessed by the powerful magic of his being. Rinpoche gave the empowerment and teachings on a text of Yeshe Tsogyal’s questions to Guru Rinpoche. Outside the long hours of puja, he granted interviews, offering advice and support to old and new students. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche’s great kindness and humor, the unfolding beauty of the practice, and the sheer joy of the retreatants made for a truly memorable retreat. We pray for the merit to welcome His Eminence back on many future occasions.
Last June Jigme Rinpoche and his son, Tulku Orgyen, led a pilgrimage to China organized by the Hong Kong sangha. A group of thirty traveled to Manjushri’s sacred mountain, Wu Tai Shan, and Chenrezik’s holy island, Pu Tuo Shan, near Shanghai. Then in July Rinpoche flew to Brazil for the Essence of Siddhi drupchen. He returned to the States to lead weekend retreats at Yeshe Ling and give the empowerments for the Chagdud Gonpa daily practices and Dudjom Tersar ngondro at PPI.
In September Ati Ling held the annual Rigdzin Dupa Hundred-Thousand Tsok Offerings retreat. We were delighted to welcome back Tulku Orgyen, as well as Lama Padma, Lama Thubten, and Lama Jigme, who had kindly agreed to start training people in lama dancing. Each day, the heavy rain and mists melted into bright sunshine, allowing the dancers to practice outside. About forty-five people participated in the retreat, a Guru Rinpoche practice at the heart of the Longchen Nyingtik lineage and the basis for the Great Perfection retreats Jigme Rinpoche leads in Brazil every January.
The monthly talks Rinpoche gives at the Open Secret Bookstore in San Rafael continue to inspire newcomers to seek further instruction and to join the Ati Ling sangha for other events. To make it easier for people closer to the Bay Area to practice together, Lisa Iacovelli and family have made their home available for puja on the fourth Sunday of each month. (Puja continues on a daily basis at PPI, and there is also a puja with potluck lunch at PPI on the second Sunday of each month.)
Ati Ling held two events in November to commemorate H.E. Chagdud Rinpoche’s parinirvana; on the anniversary, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, who was enthroned by Chagdud Rinpoche, joined Jigme Rinpoche at Berkeley Shambhala for evening puja. This was followed by a three-day Padma Dakini retreat at PPI.
In February Jigme Rinpoche will lead a three-day Vajrakilaya retreat at PPI. For more information on Ati Ling events and regular updates to Jigme Rinpoche’s schedule, visit www. Atiling.org.
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Opportunities for dharma practice circle the Venerable Lama Gyatso like planets around the sun. Those of us in his orbit at T’hondup Ling can look back on a year of profound blessings from the retreats, tsok feasts, saving of lives, and visits by lineage masters.
We rang in 2005 with a three-day Orgyen Dzambhala retreat, led by Lama Gyatso, the custodian of the treasure of this enrichment practice. Later in the month, he left for Asia for his annual winter pilgrimage to pay homage to his teachers Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Kyabjé Chatral Rinpoche, and tso’s participation in the annual ten-day Vajrakilaya drupchen, led by Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche at his monastery, Chorten Gonpa, in Gangtok, Sikkim. These yearly pilgrimages are dedicated in part to the swift rebirth of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and for the removal of hindrances to the indisputable recognition of Rinpoche’s reincarnation.
In Los Angeles our Losar celebration and Vajrakilaya ceremonies were led by Lama Ludrub and Lama Rabjoer of Thupten Chöling monastery in Nepal. In March we again welcomed Ven. Lama Thogme, an expert on mandalas, who led the creation of a Shi-tro sand mandala in Hollywood, an annual project sponsored by Lucy’s El Adobe Café.
H.E. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche returned as vajra master for the third annual Yeshe Tsogyal retreat, held in April at Ari Bhöd in Tehachapi. Rinpoche again commented on the powerful qualities of the land and was most pleased by the continued improvement of the facilities. Especially during the warm summer months, Lama Gyatso spends much of his time at Ari Bhöd, the American Foundation for Tibetan Cultural Preservation, comprising 475 acres in a beautiful forested valley two hours’ drive from Los Angeles. Ari Bhöd was founded by Lama Gyatso to preserve the sacred cultural heritage of Tibet, especially the profound and unsurpassable Nyingma lineage. Volunteers have been working with the lamas to renovate and rehabilitate the numerous structures, gradually transforming a former YMCA camp into a traditional retreat center. Numerous T’hondup Ling retreats have been held at Ari Bhöd, and it is a place of tremendous potential, greatly conducive to dharma practice.
In August we welcomed Ven. Lama Lhundrup, also from Thupten Chöling and an ordained monk. Lama Lhundrup is a master carver and craftsman, in addition to being fully accomplished in the ritual arts. We are most fortunate to have him with us. Lama Gyatso led the annual ngondro retreat at Ari Bhöd in late August, teaching the extensive Longchen Nyingtik ngondro. Dzatrul Rinpoche graced us with a brief visit in September, joining Lama Gyatso for one of our many live releases. We are quite pleased that he will return before the end of the year. In early October, Ven. Loppön Jigme Tutop Rinpoche led our eleventh annual Tröma drupchöd, held for nine days at Ari Bhöd, and blessed us with teachings. Rinpoche serves as the vajra master at Kyabjé Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery in Pharping, Nepal.
If you would like to be notified about future events at T’hondup Ling, including our live releases, e-mail us at thondupling@yahoo.com and ask to be put on our e-mail list. You can also visit our website, www.thondupling.org.
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We have had a busy summer and fall: Jigme Rinpoche led a Lion-Faced Dakini retreat in early August, during which he gave some wonderful teachings on the practice. Later in the month, we were delighted and fortunate to host Lama Sherab, who conducted a week-long ngondro retreat. At the end of the retreat, Jigme Rinpoche also gave a day of teachings.
Many years ago, Chagdud Rinpoche had given extensive Tröma teachings here, and in late August, during our annual Tröma retreat, Jigme Rinpoche gave the first phase of advanced teachings on the practice. At the end of September, Lama Tsering conducted an inspiring Tara retreat attended by a large group of people, many of whom were relatively new to the practice.
Work on the Guru Rinpoche statue has been steadily progressing. Glen Sandvoss applied some finishing touches with sandpaper and a grinder, and the statue itself has received a lovely coat of paint. Glen has gone back home to Spokane, but plans to return in the spring to work on the next phase. Jigme Rinpoche has decided that in addition to Chagdud Rinpoche’s relics, many other extraordinary objects will be placed in the statue when it is consecrated. So we hope that as many people as possible can help, with time and donations, to finish the project.
We encourage people to come to Yeshe Ling for puja on Sundays and to contact us about tsok days.
______
Somehow this field for accumulating merit and purifying karma has arisen.
Somehow beings with hearts longing to be tamed keep showing up.
Somehow the enlightened intentions of our father Lama continue manifesting.
Somehow the result is ongoing dreamlike activity: stupas, prayer wheels, shrine rooms, composting toilets.How lucky, how lucky, how lucky we are.
______
We are deeply grateful for the visits of Lama Padma and Lama Norbu this summer. We so appreciate their time and effort, kind words, guidance and inspiration. Our sangha continues to do weekly practice on Monday nights and feast days in our shrine room at Thupten (formerly Phillip Bossung) and Susan Ross’s house. Sangha members are also using the shrine room for various practices at other times. If you find yourself in the Boulder-Denver area, please contact Dennis Kennedy to arrange a time to practice or come join us on Mondays.
______
The sangha at Tromge Ling continues to practice simply, integrating dharma with daily life. Last June we held our seventh annual Orgyen Dzambhala retreat with Lama Gyatso, who continues to be extremely patient with and kind to all of us. We just completed our fifth annual Manjushri retreat with Jigme Rinpoche, who also bestowed very clear, precise teachings on this practice. Khentrul Lodrö Thaye Rinpoche returned for two weeks last February to teach The Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva; about a hundred people attended his public talk. Lama Zangpo continues to teach here twice a year to help the sangha “stitch things together,” which enriches our understanding of the teachings, helps to ground our practice in clarity, and inspires us to keep going.
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At Khadro Ling, with its two well-attended drupchens, group retreats (most recently, an inspiring tsa-lung retreat with Lama Padma Dorje), work on the Pureland project, and its constant stream of visitors, events pass like dreams. But the “Fair of Integration” (as it was named by town officials of Três Coroas) was a particularly vivid dream.
The idea for the fair arose in Chagdud Khadro’s mind as she sat, after serving as vajra master of the Vajrakilaya drupchen, watching the sacred lama dances with some town officials. They immediately saw the possibilities, and at the end of April, on a glorious sunny day, more than one thousand people gathered to buy products made by local residents, to hear singers from the region’s German choral societies and two good rock groups, and to watch traditional German and Tibetan dances. Old Brazilian ladies of German descent bought Tibetan momos, while Bhutanese artists sampled the meter-long bread prepared by German cooks. Our chöpons bought beeswax flowers handcrafted by local artisans, and the queen and king of the town’s senior class drifted through the crowd wearing their regal crowns. A hugely successful DVD about Khadro Ling, soon to be available with English and Spanish subtitles, helped orient new visitors.
The pervasive warmth of community that this event inspired was an aspiration of Chagdud Rinpoche, who always remembered that Chagdud Gonpa Tibet was spared not just because of the heroism of its lamas and monks, or the power of its guardian deities, but also because of the loyalty of laypeople in the region.
Amitabha Buddha now serenely presides over the Pureland project from his lotus throne on the octagonal third floor of the Guru Rinpoche Palace. The image, completed by Chagdud Rinpoche three days before his parinirvana, was beautifully repainted and installed with a lot of strain and grunting by the sangha men, advice and applauding by the sangha women, and frantic barking by the sangha dogs. Rinpoche might have smiled, because he had made statues that defied installation before.
On the second floor, a magnificent Avalokiteshvara, surprisingly large for the room, is flanked by smaller statues of Manjushri and Vajrapani. The smooth, hard clay resembles polished granite and has an artistic presence of its own, although the statues will be painted eventually. On the first floor, Guru Padmasambhava has been joined by Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava, although none of the three have been completed. Our Bhutanese artists and their apprentice, Adam Koch, have maintained their standards of perfection, undaunted by the work that lies ahead—Shantarakshita, Trisong Detsun, protector statues, and the Vajrakilaya mandala.
A number of consecration ceremonies were conducted in June by Lama Rigdzin Samdrup, a respected Bhutanese yogi who arrived at Khadro Ling in May at the request of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Afterward, the sangha embarked on the amazing task of preparing mantras for insertion into the lotuses of the statues. Although this phase of the project seemed overwhelming at first, Lama Rigdzin inspired the volunteers with his tireless energy, and the mantra consecration ceremonies and placement of the mantras were completed before he returned at the end of October to Bhutan, where he is retreat master for 35 five-year retreatants. He will come back to Brazil in 2006.
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Renamed and reorganized with the help of a dynamic business consultant and a very capable editor, Makara, the publishing arm of Chagdud Gonpa Brasil (CGB), published the Portuguese translation of Lord of the Dance in May. We celebrated this long-awaited event with a party and book signing, accompanied by lama dancing, in a beautiful cultural center in Porto Alegre. Chagdud Khadro, Lama Tsering, Lama Rigdzin, and a large crowd of well-wishers attended.
A book of photographs, quotations, and sangha stories about Chagdud Rinpoche, which extend the original biography to the eight years Rinpoche spent in Brazil, is in preparation at Makara.
A second, pivotal publication, the Portuguese translation of Dudjom Lingpa’s Buddhahood Without Meditation, came out at the end of this year’s Dzogchen retreat at Khadro Ling with Jigme Tromge Rinpoche. This unsurpassed Dzogchen manual will be Jigme Rinpoche’s source text during the January 2006 retreat.
Tibetan Program
Many Brazilian students have a natural affinity for foreign languages, and their Portuguese pronunciation lends itself to Tibetan. A group from Khadro Ling has studied for a year with Tenzin Dorje Sherpa, developing a good foundation and creating Portuguese –Tibetan language materials in the process. More recently, Tenzin has traveled to various Brazilian centers, offering intensives on the Tibetan alphabet and beginning grammar.
A committee has been established to translate Tibetan and English texts into Portuguese. Working with trained translators in Asia and the Tibetan lamas in Brazil, discussing terms, faltering through the first written translations, the committee members have developed tremendous enthusiasm for their work. We strongly aspire that some day, with diligence and patience, some of us will be fluent enough to translate orally the words of Tibetan-speaking Nyingma masters into Portuguese.
Casa Amitabha and End-of-Life Issues
Casa Amitabha is both a hospice care facility located at Khadro Ling and an educational program for end-of-life issues. Under its auspices, successful grief support groups, supervised by volunteers trained by a professional therapist from the sangha, have been meeting regularly in Três Coroas. We hope to extend the training and the support groups to other cities. As well, Casa Amitabha recently sponsored Dr. Maria Helena Franco, Ph.D., a renowned grief therapist from São Paulo, to lead a training session for healthcare professionals. It was well attended and well received. We are planning a professional seminar in pain management for early next year.
Dr. Marilyn Stoner, Ph.D., R.N., a member of the L.A. sangha, has traveled to Brazil on three occasions to offer professional training for regional doctors and nurses and to conduct a needs assessment for end-of-life care in three cities near Khadro Ling.
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Since September 2004, the Odsal Ling sangha has been working with great effort and joy to construct a Tibetan temple at our country retreat center. H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche had conceived of the project and indicated exactly where the temple should be built. As a result of his blessings, Lama Tsering and Lama Norbu’s aspirations are unfolding before our eyes.
Since the initial planning and design phase, the work has never stopped. Supplementing donations from individuals, the sangha has organized many fund-raising activities to support the project. Thus, the number of people participating and contributing, each in their own way and in all the different steps of the temple construction, has continued to grow. At this point, the external walls are almost complete. To decorate the doors, windows, and roof, we have cast many lightweight cement details, which are in the process of being elaborately painted by various sangha members, many of whom have uncovered hidden talents.
When it is finished, the temple will be home to the large red stupa that was completed last year and contains the relics of our precious master, Chagdud Rinpoche. Thanks to the generosity and perseverance of many lamas and students, all the proper steps were taken to ensure that the stupa was constructed, filled, and consecrated in the traditional manner. The stupa is replete with sacred relics and a wealth of sacred substances offered by great lamas. In July 2005, Jigme Tromge Rinpoche consecrated the stupa during a lengthy ceremony, enriching its spiritual presence as an object of refuge for innumerable future practitioners.
At the urban center as well as the retreat land, Lama Tsering and Lama Norbu regularly offer teachings and retreats, particularly for the practice of Tara and ngondro. In July Lama Padma Dorje gave extensive teachings and demonstrations of a White Tara and Padampa Sangye long-life practice, as well as empowerments and teachings for a Green Tara practice, a treasure of Chagdud Rinpoche.
We welcome you to visit both our centers in the São Paulo area, especially our country center, which has excellent retreat facilities. Information about the temple project and how you can participate, as well as our schedule of events, can be found on our Website, lamatsering.org.
The staff and visiting volunteers at Rigdzin Ling have been deep in the work of prayer-wheel making for many months now. This huge, profoundly significant project is a collaboration between Rigdzin Ling and Iron Knot Ranch, which will culminate in the installation of thirty-two giant prayer wheels, each containing mantras printed on paper rolls and imaged onto microfilm. For some sangha members this has meant scrupulously checking the mantras on masters, using eye loupes and microscopes; for some it has meant months of work building the pavilion itself; for some it has involved daily phone calls and e-mails to and from printers and film imagers. Others have spent months winding hundreds of spools of microfilm into the forty-four-inch-diameter “pancakes” that will sit atop the paper wheels. Yet other sangha members spent long days and nights on the design and structural engineering of the building.
Now that the fifteen three-ton wheels have been installed at Rigdzin Ling, the prayer-wheel pavilion is on its way to completion. The idea of housing the prayer wheels in an Asian-style pavilion came to Lama Drimed in a dream. The design itself is a blend of Chinese and Japanese temple elements, with striking green ceramic roof tiles and fragrant cedar wood beams.
Since the early spring, we have hosted several work week-ends, with many volunteers coming at crucial points in the construction to push the project closer to completion. Michael Bradfute has twice made the long drive from New Mexico, bringing the spindles and other fabricated metal pieces in rattling, monster-sized U-Hauls.
The major engineering for the works that turn the wheels was organized by Iron Knot Ranch, while Rigdzin Ling oversaw the paper-roll printing and microfilm manufacturing. The mantra team worked diligently and patiently with the vendors to obtain the sharpest and clearest mantras possible. All together the mantras on the paper and microfilm number several billion.
A path for circumambulation will surround the building, providing access to 108 smaller copper wheels that can be turned by hand. Lama Pema Tenzin is painting the artwork that will be reproduced to cover the large wheels. We have tentatively scheduled a consecration ceremony for the coming spring and hope to see many of you there.
Padma Publishing is happy to announce the publication of Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche’s history of the Nyingtik lineage, A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems: Biographies of Masters of Awareness in the Dzogchen Lineage. The translation, by Lama Chökyi Nyima, was undertaken as the result of a request Nyoshul Khenpo made to Chagdud Rinpoche. This book, pronounced a masterpiece by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the only comprehensive history of the Nyingtik lineage and is framed as a series of namtars, or spiritual biographies.
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We were delighted when His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche came to the Padmasambhava Peace Institute in April this year. Rinpoche led the sangha, as well as a number of new practitioners, in a four-day Yeshe Tsogyal retreat. Some attendees had traveled far for this momentous occasion, and the joy of seeing old friends turned the eighty-person gathering into something of a reunion. Once again we were honored to have a number of Chagdud Gonpa lamas join us: Lama Jigme, Lama Inge Zangmo, Lama Padma, Lama Dorje, and Lama Tsultrim, who updated the supplementary liturgies in time for the retreat, thus greatly facilitating everyone’s participation.
Focusing on this precious practice for four days with the tertön himself was a profoundly moving experience. The shrine room was packed, and everyone felt blessed by the powerful magic of his being. Rinpoche gave the empowerment and teachings on a text of Yeshe Tsogyal’s questions to Guru Rinpoche. Outside the long hours of puja, he granted interviews, offering advice and support to old and new students. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche’s great kindness and humor, the unfolding beauty of the practice, and the sheer joy of the retreatants made for a truly memorable retreat. We pray for the merit to welcome His Eminence back on many future occasions.
Last June Jigme Rinpoche and his son, Tulku Orgyen, led a pilgrimage to China organized by the Hong Kong sangha. A group of thirty traveled to Manjushri’s sacred mountain, Wu Tai Shan, and Chenrezik’s holy island, Pu Tuo Shan, near Shanghai. Then in July Rinpoche flew to Brazil for the Essence of Siddhi drupchen. He returned to the States to lead weekend retreats at Yeshe Ling and give the empowerments for the Chagdud Gonpa daily practices and Dudjom Tersar ngondro at PPI.
In September Ati Ling held the annual Rigdzin Dupa Hundred-Thousand Tsok Offerings retreat. We were delighted to welcome back Tulku Orgyen, as well as Lama Padma, Lama Thubten, and Lama Jigme, who had kindly agreed to start training people in lama dancing. Each day, the heavy rain and mists melted into bright sunshine, allowing the dancers to practice outside. About forty-five people participated in the retreat, a Guru Rinpoche practice at the heart of the Longchen Nyingtik lineage and the basis for the Great Perfection retreats Jigme Rinpoche leads in Brazil every January.
The monthly talks Rinpoche gives at the Open Secret Bookstore in San Rafael continue to inspire newcomers to seek further instruction and to join the Ati Ling sangha for other events. To make it easier for people closer to the Bay Area to practice together, Lisa Iacovelli and family have made their home available for puja on the fourth Sunday of each month. (Puja continues on a daily basis at PPI, and there is also a puja with potluck lunch at PPI on the second Sunday of each month.)
Ati Ling held two events in November to commemorate H.E. Chagdud Rinpoche’s parinirvana; on the anniversary, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, who was enthroned by Chagdud Rinpoche, joined Jigme Rinpoche at Berkeley Shambhala for evening puja. This was followed by a three-day Padma Dakini retreat at PPI.
In February Jigme Rinpoche will lead a three-day Vajrakilaya retreat at PPI. For more information on Ati Ling events and regular updates to Jigme Rinpoche’s schedule, visit www. Atiling.org.
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Opportunities for dharma practice circle the Venerable Lama Gyatso like planets around the sun. Those of us in his orbit at T’hondup Ling can look back on a year of profound blessings from the retreats, tsok feasts, saving of lives, and visits by lineage masters.
We rang in 2005 with a three-day Orgyen Dzambhala retreat, led by Lama Gyatso, the custodian of the treasure of this enrichment practice. Later in the month, he left for Asia for his annual winter pilgrimage to pay homage to his teachers Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Kyabjé Chatral Rinpoche, and tso’s participation in the annual ten-day Vajrakilaya drupchen, led by Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche at his monastery, Chorten Gonpa, in Gangtok, Sikkim. These yearly pilgrimages are dedicated in part to the swift rebirth of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and for the removal of hindrances to the indisputable recognition of Rinpoche’s reincarnation.
In Los Angeles our Losar celebration and Vajrakilaya ceremonies were led by Lama Ludrub and Lama Rabjoer of Thupten Chöling monastery in Nepal. In March we again welcomed Ven. Lama Thogme, an expert on mandalas, who led the creation of a Shi-tro sand mandala in Hollywood, an annual project sponsored by Lucy’s El Adobe Café.
H.E. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche returned as vajra master for the third annual Yeshe Tsogyal retreat, held in April at Ari Bhöd in Tehachapi. Rinpoche again commented on the powerful qualities of the land and was most pleased by the continued improvement of the facilities. Especially during the warm summer months, Lama Gyatso spends much of his time at Ari Bhöd, the American Foundation for Tibetan Cultural Preservation, comprising 475 acres in a beautiful forested valley two hours’ drive from Los Angeles. Ari Bhöd was founded by Lama Gyatso to preserve the sacred cultural heritage of Tibet, especially the profound and unsurpassable Nyingma lineage. Volunteers have been working with the lamas to renovate and rehabilitate the numerous structures, gradually transforming a former YMCA camp into a traditional retreat center. Numerous T’hondup Ling retreats have been held at Ari Bhöd, and it is a place of tremendous potential, greatly conducive to dharma practice.
In August we welcomed Ven. Lama Lhundrup, also from Thupten Chöling and an ordained monk. Lama Lhundrup is a master carver and craftsman, in addition to being fully accomplished in the ritual arts. We are most fortunate to have him with us. Lama Gyatso led the annual ngondro retreat at Ari Bhöd in late August, teaching the extensive Longchen Nyingtik ngondro. Dzatrul Rinpoche graced us with a brief visit in September, joining Lama Gyatso for one of our many live releases. We are quite pleased that he will return before the end of the year. In early October, Ven. Loppön Jigme Tutop Rinpoche led our eleventh annual Tröma drupchöd, held for nine days at Ari Bhöd, and blessed us with teachings. Rinpoche serves as the vajra master at Kyabjé Chatral Rinpoche’s monastery in Pharping, Nepal.
If you would like to be notified about future events at T’hondup Ling, including our live releases, e-mail us at thondupling@yahoo.com and ask to be put on our e-mail list. You can also visit our website, www.thondupling.org.
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We have had a busy summer and fall: Jigme Rinpoche led a Lion-Faced Dakini retreat in early August, during which he gave some wonderful teachings on the practice. Later in the month, we were delighted and fortunate to host Lama Sherab, who conducted a week-long ngondro retreat. At the end of the retreat, Jigme Rinpoche also gave a day of teachings.
Many years ago, Chagdud Rinpoche had given extensive Tröma teachings here, and in late August, during our annual Tröma retreat, Jigme Rinpoche gave the first phase of advanced teachings on the practice. At the end of September, Lama Tsering conducted an inspiring Tara retreat attended by a large group of people, many of whom were relatively new to the practice.
Work on the Guru Rinpoche statue has been steadily progressing. Glen Sandvoss applied some finishing touches with sandpaper and a grinder, and the statue itself has received a lovely coat of paint. Glen has gone back home to Spokane, but plans to return in the spring to work on the next phase. Jigme Rinpoche has decided that in addition to Chagdud Rinpoche’s relics, many other extraordinary objects will be placed in the statue when it is consecrated. So we hope that as many people as possible can help, with time and donations, to finish the project.
We encourage people to come to Yeshe Ling for puja on Sundays and to contact us about tsok days.
______
Somehow this field for accumulating merit and purifying karma has arisen.
Somehow beings with hearts longing to be tamed keep showing up.
Somehow the enlightened intentions of our father Lama continue manifesting.
Somehow the result is ongoing dreamlike activity: stupas, prayer wheels, shrine rooms, composting toilets.How lucky, how lucky, how lucky we are.
______
We are deeply grateful for the visits of Lama Padma and Lama Norbu this summer. We so appreciate their time and effort, kind words, guidance and inspiration. Our sangha continues to do weekly practice on Monday nights and feast days in our shrine room at Thupten (formerly Phillip Bossung) and Susan Ross’s house. Sangha members are also using the shrine room for various practices at other times. If you find yourself in the Boulder-Denver area, please contact Dennis Kennedy to arrange a time to practice or come join us on Mondays.
______
The sangha at Tromge Ling continues to practice simply, integrating dharma with daily life. Last June we held our seventh annual Orgyen Dzambhala retreat with Lama Gyatso, who continues to be extremely patient with and kind to all of us. We just completed our fifth annual Manjushri retreat with Jigme Rinpoche, who also bestowed very clear, precise teachings on this practice. Khentrul Lodrö Thaye Rinpoche returned for two weeks last February to teach The Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva; about a hundred people attended his public talk. Lama Zangpo continues to teach here twice a year to help the sangha “stitch things together,” which enriches our understanding of the teachings, helps to ground our practice in clarity, and inspires us to keep going.
______
At Khadro Ling, with its two well-attended drupchens, group retreats (most recently, an inspiring tsa-lung retreat with Lama Padma Dorje), work on the Pureland project, and its constant stream of visitors, events pass like dreams. But the “Fair of Integration” (as it was named by town officials of Três Coroas) was a particularly vivid dream.
The idea for the fair arose in Chagdud Khadro’s mind as she sat, after serving as vajra master of the Vajrakilaya drupchen, watching the sacred lama dances with some town officials. They immediately saw the possibilities, and at the end of April, on a glorious sunny day, more than one thousand people gathered to buy products made by local residents, to hear singers from the region’s German choral societies and two good rock groups, and to watch traditional German and Tibetan dances. Old Brazilian ladies of German descent bought Tibetan momos, while Bhutanese artists sampled the meter-long bread prepared by German cooks. Our chöpons bought beeswax flowers handcrafted by local artisans, and the queen and king of the town’s senior class drifted through the crowd wearing their regal crowns. A hugely successful DVD about Khadro Ling, soon to be available with English and Spanish subtitles, helped orient new visitors.
The pervasive warmth of community that this event inspired was an aspiration of Chagdud Rinpoche, who always remembered that Chagdud Gonpa Tibet was spared not just because of the heroism of its lamas and monks, or the power of its guardian deities, but also because of the loyalty of laypeople in the region.
Amitabha Buddha now serenely presides over the Pureland project from his lotus throne on the octagonal third floor of the Guru Rinpoche Palace. The image, completed by Chagdud Rinpoche three days before his parinirvana, was beautifully repainted and installed with a lot of strain and grunting by the sangha men, advice and applauding by the sangha women, and frantic barking by the sangha dogs. Rinpoche might have smiled, because he had made statues that defied installation before.
On the second floor, a magnificent Avalokiteshvara, surprisingly large for the room, is flanked by smaller statues of Manjushri and Vajrapani. The smooth, hard clay resembles polished granite and has an artistic presence of its own, although the statues will be painted eventually. On the first floor, Guru Padmasambhava has been joined by Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava, although none of the three have been completed. Our Bhutanese artists and their apprentice, Adam Koch, have maintained their standards of perfection, undaunted by the work that lies ahead—Shantarakshita, Trisong Detsun, protector statues, and the Vajrakilaya mandala.
A number of consecration ceremonies were conducted in June by Lama Rigdzin Samdrup, a respected Bhutanese yogi who arrived at Khadro Ling in May at the request of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Afterward, the sangha embarked on the amazing task of preparing mantras for insertion into the lotuses of the statues. Although this phase of the project seemed overwhelming at first, Lama Rigdzin inspired the volunteers with his tireless energy, and the mantra consecration ceremonies and placement of the mantras were completed before he returned at the end of October to Bhutan, where he is retreat master for 35 five-year retreatants. He will come back to Brazil in 2006.
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Renamed and reorganized with the help of a dynamic business consultant and a very capable editor, Makara, the publishing arm of Chagdud Gonpa Brasil (CGB), published the Portuguese translation of Lord of the Dance in May. We celebrated this long-awaited event with a party and book signing, accompanied by lama dancing, in a beautiful cultural center in Porto Alegre. Chagdud Khadro, Lama Tsering, Lama Rigdzin, and a large crowd of well-wishers attended.
A book of photographs, quotations, and sangha stories about Chagdud Rinpoche, which extend the original biography to the eight years Rinpoche spent in Brazil, is in preparation at Makara.
A second, pivotal publication, the Portuguese translation of Dudjom Lingpa’s Buddhahood Without Meditation, came out at the end of this year’s Dzogchen retreat at Khadro Ling with Jigme Tromge Rinpoche. This unsurpassed Dzogchen manual will be Jigme Rinpoche’s source text during the January 2006 retreat.
Tibetan Program
Many Brazilian students have a natural affinity for foreign languages, and their Portuguese pronunciation lends itself to Tibetan. A group from Khadro Ling has studied for a year with Tenzin Dorje Sherpa, developing a good foundation and creating Portuguese –Tibetan language materials in the process. More recently, Tenzin has traveled to various Brazilian centers, offering intensives on the Tibetan alphabet and beginning grammar.
A committee has been established to translate Tibetan and English texts into Portuguese. Working with trained translators in Asia and the Tibetan lamas in Brazil, discussing terms, faltering through the first written translations, the committee members have developed tremendous enthusiasm for their work. We strongly aspire that some day, with diligence and patience, some of us will be fluent enough to translate orally the words of Tibetan-speaking Nyingma masters into Portuguese.
Casa Amitabha and End-of-Life Issues
Casa Amitabha is both a hospice care facility located at Khadro Ling and an educational program for end-of-life issues. Under its auspices, successful grief support groups, supervised by volunteers trained by a professional therapist from the sangha, have been meeting regularly in Três Coroas. We hope to extend the training and the support groups to other cities. As well, Casa Amitabha recently sponsored Dr. Maria Helena Franco, Ph.D., a renowned grief therapist from São Paulo, to lead a training session for healthcare professionals. It was well attended and well received. We are planning a professional seminar in pain management for early next year.
Dr. Marilyn Stoner, Ph.D., R.N., a member of the L.A. sangha, has traveled to Brazil on three occasions to offer professional training for regional doctors and nurses and to conduct a needs assessment for end-of-life care in three cities near Khadro Ling.
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Since September 2004, the Odsal Ling sangha has been working with great effort and joy to construct a Tibetan temple at our country retreat center. H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche had conceived of the project and indicated exactly where the temple should be built. As a result of his blessings, Lama Tsering and Lama Norbu’s aspirations are unfolding before our eyes.
Since the initial planning and design phase, the work has never stopped. Supplementing donations from individuals, the sangha has organized many fund-raising activities to support the project. Thus, the number of people participating and contributing, each in their own way and in all the different steps of the temple construction, has continued to grow. At this point, the external walls are almost complete. To decorate the doors, windows, and roof, we have cast many lightweight cement details, which are in the process of being elaborately painted by various sangha members, many of whom have uncovered hidden talents.
When it is finished, the temple will be home to the large red stupa that was completed last year and contains the relics of our precious master, Chagdud Rinpoche. Thanks to the generosity and perseverance of many lamas and students, all the proper steps were taken to ensure that the stupa was constructed, filled, and consecrated in the traditional manner. The stupa is replete with sacred relics and a wealth of sacred substances offered by great lamas. In July 2005, Jigme Tromge Rinpoche consecrated the stupa during a lengthy ceremony, enriching its spiritual presence as an object of refuge for innumerable future practitioners.
At the urban center as well as the retreat land, Lama Tsering and Lama Norbu regularly offer teachings and retreats, particularly for the practice of Tara and ngondro. In July Lama Padma Dorje gave extensive teachings and demonstrations of a White Tara and Padampa Sangye long-life practice, as well as empowerments and teachings for a Green Tara practice, a treasure of Chagdud Rinpoche.
We welcome you to visit both our centers in the São Paulo area, especially our country center, which has excellent retreat facilities. Information about the temple project and how you can participate, as well as our schedule of events, can be found on our Website, lamatsering.org.
