Summer retreats at Lerab Ling

After a short pitstop in Holland, it was time for the anual Lerab Ling summer retreats again, and needles to say there is a lot of work in relation to them. Here the writing team members, who put together the notes for Rinpoche's teaching, are sitting in the front of the temple, prepared for anything Rinpoche might ask for.

Then according to tradition, at the end of the retreat we are treated with some entertainment and thank you speeches and songs. This year some creative Rigpa youth members composed a jazz song to thank Sogyal Rinpoche for his teachings on meditation. ( See the Rigpa youth blog for a short video of the song)

But there are breaks as well, and the breaks where used by some for for a litle bit of physical activity.


My job involved as usual, along wiht many other things, supplying the visiting monks and lama's with tibetan books.


Then during a slightly more advanced retreat, we had the great fortune of having the great learned and accomplished master Orgyan Tobgyal Rinpoche expound on the topics of the profound and vast Vajrayana, with no less then Sogyal Rinpoche himself translating, being assisted by Gyurme and Marcia. [thnx to Boon for the picture]


Finally Ringu Tulku Rinpoche came for a short visit, mainly to pay respect to the recently deceased Khandro Tsering Chodron We went on a litle outing together with Mayumla, Sogyal Rinpoche's mother.

One day at the shedra

All things come to an end, and thus also my stay at the shedra. A short amateur clip for you amusement.

The last two days in Nepal were spend in Boudha, mainly running around.

View from the white gomba

Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche welcomes all the students enrolling in the summer program at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, and gave a short talk. He spoke about his wish of starting a shedra a long time ago. It would take a long time before all the buildings would be in place, but at some point Rinpoche decided they should just start. Classes would be held in the monks classes and the students would be housed with Tibetan families.

Students presented a katar to Rinpoche

Little monk Urgyan

Most of the Nepali monks arrive at a young age at the monastery's, and often from very remote places in the Himalaya's. One of the new monks came from a place very high up in the mountains, near Tibet, called Nubri. This is also where Mingyur Rinpoche comes from. Urgyan, as his name was, didn't speak either Nepali or Tibetan, and except for 2 or 3 other small monks, no one at the monastery spoke his language! I inquired with one of the main Khenpo's: 'isn't it very difficult for these litle kids, being seperated from their family, and placed in a completely different surrounding (the city of Kathmandu) with people who he doesn't understand?'. 'No,' Khenpo said 'it's okey, these kids are from the mountains. They're very tough!'

Urgyan eating

It was clear Urgyan was not used to some of our new technological inventions. Everytime a plane comes by he stares with big open eyes to the sky, and he is thrilled when he is given a telephone to play with. But I'm sure Urgyan will find his way.

Urgyan with his friend

The delivery man

As many of you might heard, the spiritual wife and consort of Jamyang Khyentse Lodro, Khandro Tsering Chodron has recently passed away, you can read about it on khandrotseringchodron.org. Just before she passed away Stefan had the great idea of hanging prayer flags at the Great Stupa :


After Khandro passed away I was the only Rigpa person in Nepal at the moment, and so I was asked to bring offerings, letters and pictures to some Rinpoche's and monastery's, and Nepal has a lot of them! A great opportunity to become more familiar with Kathmandu and it's surroundings. One of the teachers I had to visit was Trulshik Rinpoche. He was residing at Solo Kumbo though, so I had to find the brother of his main assistent, Tenshuk-la.

When I arrived at the monastery, besides all the Nepali painters and craftsman, I saw one elderly monk moving stones. I asked for the brother of Trulshik Rinpoche's main attendant, and he said 'oh that's me'. After being served tea, I told him Khandro had passed away. He had not heard the news yet, and he was genuinly saddened. Immidiatly he called Solo Khumbu, requesting prayers to be done. I was really impressed by the man, he seemed very kind and genuine, and despite the fact that he was not so young any more, he didnt mind making his hands dirty!

Tenshuk-la

Samdrup's Mom

Here is a litle story about the mother of Samdrup, the caretaker of the guesthouse and a very friendly monk. Like the monastery's lama and many other monks, he and his mother are from a remote himalayan area high up in the mountains called Nishang. Once Samdrup told me about his mother.

Samdrup

When his mother was getting a litle bit older, a lot of her friends and relatives started dying. Frightened by the prospect that she would also die one day and not knowing what to do at the time of death, she decided she should really start practicing the Dharma.

Luckily a great lama, who spent a lot of years in retreat, was residing in the area. So she decided to ask for instructions on how to practice and go on retreat. Her family was very supportive, and they told her she would not have to worry about food and other things. Traditionally in Buddhist cultures, the kindness of the mother is used as the prime example of compassion, and thus one should do everything one can to repay her kindness. So they build a litle hut, with only a small opening through which they could give her food.

Not having received much Dharma education, it was very difficult in the beginning, and often she didn't understand the instructions on how to practice and meditate. She told Samdrup and others: 'Since I was quite old when I started retreat, it was very difficult for me. My channels [the energy channels in everyone's body] where all rusty. You guys are young, you should do retreat now while your channels are still flexible!". But she persevered and finally spend about 10 years in retreat. Now she's back home again, and always radiating with joy. And she is not afraid of dying anymore. That was the story of Samdrup's mom.

Interlude

Monastery Life
A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws by hand.
He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.
The head monk, says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."
He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot.

So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing, "We missed the "R" ! , we missed the "R" !"
His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.
The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?"
With A choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was... CELEBRATE !!! "

The Pope, Sai Baba and the Dalai Lama
It was a beautiful day along the coast, quiet, sunny and warm. The Pope, Sai Baba and the Dalai Lama had decided to take a day off from their various opinions and duties, rented a boat, and went fishing.
A couple hours pass, at the expense of several ocean-creatures. Then Sai Baba spots a McDonalds at the beach. "Hey, I'm dead hungry. I'm off for a Big Mac". He jumps from the boat and quickly steps across the water. The Dalai Lama goes: "Great, I'm in." Jumps from the boat, runs across the water to land, where Sai Baba is already ordering.
The Pope stands a little behind, having never walked on water. But if those two non-Christians can do that, it should be no problem for him. He jumps the boat, goes "plop", and disappears.
Sai Baba and the Dalai Lama, enjoying their freshly materialized burgers, watch the scene.
Dalai Lama: "That didn't look good."
Sai Baba: "No, we really should have told him about those underwater stepping stones."
Dalai Lama: "Stepping stones??"

Flapping flag
Four monks were meditating in a monastery. All of a sudden the prayer flag on the roof started flapping.
The younger monk came out of his meditation and said: "Flag is flapping"
A more experienced monk said: "Wind is flapping"
A third monk who had been there for more than 20 years said: "Mind is flapping."
The fourth monk who was the eldest said: "Mouths are flapping!"

The other side

A student is on one side of a raging river. There are no bridges. He has no boat. He shouts out to the master on the opposite bank. “How do I get to the other side?” The master shouts back: “You are on the other side.”

The afterlife

A Catholic, a Muslim, and a Buddhist are discussing their beliefs about the afterlife:

The Catholic: "I will spend eternity in heaven worshipping the Lord."

The Muslim: "I will spend eternity in Paradise with 10,000 virgins."

The Buddhist (after meditating on the question):
"I will be reborn as a Muslim."

(thnx to rudyh.org and some other sites)

Work in a Monastery part 2

Although slightly delayed, I still wanted to share some more pictures of the various activity's taking place in Orgyan Tobgyal Rinpoche's Monastery in Bir.

Here OT is overseeing the painters working on one of the three main Buddha statues in the main shrine hall. Next to him sits the main painter, who is also the teacher of all the other painters.

One newly arrived painter working on the top ornaments:

Scaffolds around one of the three Buddha's in the main temple:

Leaving the temple, we take a visit to OT's house which has a shrine particularly dedicated to Chime Phakme Nyingtik. Here an artist is working on the detailed decorations:

Artist working on a Statue:

In the shrine are all the deities of the CPN practice and the lineage masters. The artists worked very hard to get everything done before Losar, and this is the result:

But that's not all. Here a monk is purifying gold, in order to to decorate an old sword, which belonged to some famous Tibetan warrior, the name of which I can't remember. While purifying the gold was grey colored but somehow it turning into gold later on. The Khampa's at OT's monastery really enjoyed playing around with the sword, so you had to be a bit careful :)


Part 1 can be found here