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New posts and photos from the Speech Empowerment

a blog
by Carolyn Rose Gimian


Installing the Kangyur,

a video presentation from the Shambhala Archives


Chogyam Trungpa on CKGM Radio in Montreal

Photo by James Gritz
©2008, all rights reserved


The Karmapa's teachings in Seattle

Christine Keyser reporting


1974 Seminary

a short film
by Vicki Genson


Reggie Ray on Dispatches

(Photo by Christine Alicino)


An open page for thoughts, recollections, aspirations, and comments


Beverley Webster on Dispatches


Barbara Bash talks about her work and practice with Elizabeth Richardson


An excerpt from
Living Buddha

a youtube excerpt from a documentary film by Clemens Kuby


His Holiness's visit to KTC in New Jersey

reports from Trudy Sable and Elain Yuen


An open page for thoughts, recollections, aspirations, and comments


The Great Vajradhara of Dorje Dzong and the Karmapa's golden handprint


Clarke Warren blogs the visit in Boulder


Barbara Stewart blogs the visit in NYC


The visit of His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa


Chronicles Radio presents: Ken Green, Dan Cooper, and David Sanford
discussing the visits of the Karmapas, past, present and future.


Offerings
,
April Fourth, 2008


Exploring the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa
,
by James Gimian


Chögyam the Translator


Remembering Dorje Chokyi Lewis


Images and words from Losar/Shambhala Day 2008


Shambhala Day Address,
1984: Year of the Wood Rat


Stories from Kham


Open pages

Red Pine's Heart Sutra


Dharma art with CTR,

a slideshow with Jack Niland


Such Thunderstorm
,
a calligraphy
by Barbara Bash

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Listen to a 16 minute conversation with Karma Senge Rinpoche about this practice.

Click on the photo to listen,
or download the mp3 file.

Recorded in Halifax on 15 May 2007.
Thank you to Lama Ngodup Dorje for interpreting this conversation.


This weekend in Halifax:

Karma Senge performs
abhisheka for sadhana
Trungpa Rinpoche received
from Ekajati in 1959

From the Nalanda Translation Committee:

In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the parinirvana of the Vidyadhara, Karma Senge ("Karseng") Rinpoche will confer the abhisheka for one of Trungpa Rinpoche's most important termas discovered during his youth in Tibet. Open to all tantrikas, this will empower students to practice the terma sadhana entitled, The Ritual without Meditation and Practice without Activity, Drawn from the "Heart Treasure of Samantabhadra," an ati-yana sadhana practice of Avalokiteshvara, bodhisattva of compassion. This visit will be hosted by the Nalanda Translation Committee and the Chogyam Trungpa Legacy Project. Senior Shambhala teachers will lead participants in the practice of this sadhana and help to incorporate relevant teachings by the Vidyadhara on this topic.

Background. The Vidyadhara spent many months on retreat during his teenage years at the special site for most of his terma discoveries in Tibet: Kyere Shelkar, a mountain near Kyere Monastery. This monastery was given to the tenth Trungpa Rinpoche by his student, the king of Lhathok, the kingdom in which the monastery was located, and it thus became part of the Surmang group of monasteries from that time onward. Before he left Tibet, the Vidyadhara moved his family there from Surmang Dütsi Tel, feeling that it would be safer, as it indeed proved to be. This remains the home of Damcho Tenphel Rinpoche (the Vidyadhara's younger brother) and Karma Senge Rinpoche (his nephew). Karseng Rinpoche has spent many years collecting all the existing termas and writings by the Vidyadhara from his remaining students in Tibet.

The terma place of Kyere Shelkar has been described by Karseng Rinpoche as follows:

Guru Rinpoche visited this sacred place and blessed it; he called it Osel Namkhe Photrang ("Palace of Luminosity Sky"). Guru Rinpoche declared that it was inseparable from other great holy sites, such as Uddiyana, Shambhala, and Five Peaked Mountain (Wu Tai Shan) in China, and that other places have great blessings of the nirmanakaya and sambhogakaya, but none have more blessings of the dharmakaya than this one.

During his first visit to the West in 2003, Karseng Rinpoche told us a little about this particular Avalokiteshvara sadhana:

At one time, when Trungpa Rinpoche was at Kyere Shelkar practicing a drupchen, he encountered the mantra guardian, Ekajati, in person. She arrived in the sky from the south holding a terma casket, which she placed in front of him. The casket contained a sadhana of Ekajati and another text related to the Tsasum Gongdü cycle, which includes sadhanas of the guru, yidam, dakini, and dharma protector. The first of the scrolls contained prophecies about the future, a yidam practice called Künsang Chemchok Heruka, and a very profound Avalokiteshvara sadhana, which includes a method of practicing ritual without meditation. I hold the empowerment and scriptural transmission of those practices. They have a very strong samaya seal, but maybe in the future I might be able to give them—if I get permission from the dakinis.

As the colophon to the actual terma states:

In that way, the proper conditions were created for manifesting the red signs of nine syllables on the dark blue scroll—one fingerwidth wide and four fingerwidths long—that was given to me, Trakthung Rigdzin Tsalchang [VCTR's terma name], by the only mother, Lady of the Charnel Ground [Ekajati]. The entrustment seal of realizing space and luminosity has been opened. Without doubt, it is a cause for having confidence.

In Lhathok, near the bank of the flowing dark blue Turquoise River, at the top of the mountain Luminosity Sky Palace Joyful Supreme Secret, in the delightful cave called the Crystal Cave of Vajrasattva, this was properly established. May it be a source of virtue. By this virtue may all beings quickly attain Avalokiteshvara.




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