Random events in Bir

The month follwing Losar was a busy one for the Chokling monks in Bir. Not one or two but three drupchen's were performed.

The first one was the Padma Khandro.

The torma-factory just below the temple in Tsering Jong: monks preparing for the Padma Khandro Drupchen.

Invoking Mahadeva or Lha chen during the Pamda Khandro Drupchen

In a Drupchen there are outer, inner and secret boundary's, which are established on the preliminary day and normally also taken down again on the siddhi-day. However, this time there was no break between the first drupchen -Padma Khandro- and the next one -Chime Phakma Nyingtik-. So the boundary's were not taken down and we immidiatly, with only 1 torma making day in between, launched ourselves into the second Drupchen. After that, for me recovery took about 5 days ;)

Luckily I dont have to make torma's and so in between I could go for a little bike ride: Sherab Ling in the distance.




Light offerings during the Chime Phakma Nyingtik Drupchen

Orgyan Tobgyal Rinpoche with two Chokling Tulku's during the Chime Phakma Nyingtik Drupchen.

OT blessing everybody with a Red Tara statue during the receiving of the Siddhi's

The third drupchen was performed in Chokling Monastery and was attended by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.


Note: for those who dont know what a Drupchen is, a very beautiful description from the Rigpa Wiki:
"Drupchen (Tib. གྲུབ་ཆེན་, Wyl. sgrub chen) — literally “vast accomplishment,” is a form of intensive group practice that epitomizes the depth, power, and precision of the Vajrayana, drawing together the entire range of its skilful methods—mystical, ritual, and artistic—and including: the creation of the mandala house; the complete sadhana practice with visualization, mudra, chant, and music; continuous day and night practice of mantra; the creation of tormas and offerings, with sacred substances and precious relics; the tsok feast; the sacred dance of cham; as well as the construction of the sand mandala. All blend to create the transcendent environment of the pure realm of the deity and awaken, for all those taking part, the pure perception of this world as a sacred realm.

So it is said that several days participating in a drupchen can yield the same results as years of solitary retreat, and great contemporary masters such as Kyabjé Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche have made a point of encouraging and reviving the practice of drupchen, because of its power of transformation in this degenerate age."

Advanced Colloquial Tibetan or kha skad book

With the encouragement of the author i'm very pleased to present to you a free colloquial Tibetan book, with audio!

The words in this book are very usefull because, unlike many Tibetan Textbooks, they are the words actually used by Tibetans in exile.

From the introduction:
"This book should take up where the other textbooks such as The Manual of Standard Tibetan, Colloquial Tibetan leave off. One who has studied such textbooks should have a good foundation and know many basic terms, sentence structures, and vocabulary dealing with coming, going, eating, sleeping--what is called in Tibetan "eating and drinking language ." What is provided here should help to bring one to the next level--to be able to express one's feelings and desires, discuss politics, religion and other complex topics."

"This book is a side project of mine and is still a work in progress. Please distribute it freely and updates will be made available online as I continue to add more example sentences, mp3s etc"

If you only want the book please go to this link: Advanced Colloquial Tibetan kha skad.pdf
If you also want the audio go to: Advanced Colloquial Tibetan with audio

Thanks to Justin!

Dusum Sangye / Six Vajra Verses chanted by Chokling monks

At the end of each Drupchen in Bir, the Chokling monks have an amazing way of chanting the Dusum Sangye prayer . The chants seems slightly different as Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche's version, but correct me if i'm wrong.

You can listen here .

If you cannot see the text below it means your computer cannot display Tibetan script. Go to www.digitaltibetan.org for help.

དུས་གསུམ་སངས་རྒྱས་གུ་རུ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ༔

དངོས་གྲུབ་ཀུན་བདག་བདེ་བ་ཆེན་པོའི་ཞབས༔

བར་ཆད་ཀུན་སེལ་བདུད་འདུལ་དྲག་པོ་རྩལ༔

གསོལ་བ་འདེབས་སོ་བྱིན་གྱིས་བརླབ་ཏུ་གསོལ༔

ཕྱི་ནང་གསང་བའི་བར་ཆད་ཞི་བ་དང༌༔

བསམ་པ་ལྷུན་གྱིས་འགྲུབ་པར་བྱིན་གྱིས་རློབས༔

ཞེས་གཏེར་ཆེན་མཆོག་གྱུར་བདེ་ཆེན་གླིང་པས་སེང་ཆེན་གནམ་བྲག་གི་གཡས་ཟུར་བྲག་རི་རིན་ཆེན་བརྩེགས་པ་ནས་སྤྱན་དྲངས་པའི་དུས་བབས་ཀྱི་གསོལ་འདེབས་འདི་ཉིད་བྱིན་རླབས་ཤིན་ཏུ་ཆེ་བས་ཀུན་གྱིས་ཁ་ཏོན་དུ་གཅེས་པར་ཟུངས་ཤིག། །།

Happy Losar

After having stayed in Holland for some time, I was very glad to arive once again in chaotic, beautiful, dirty and incredible India. Upon arrival in Delhi in Majnu Katilla, something like china town but then for Tibetans, I met an old friend. One of the Chokling monks was also packing to leave. It was quite ironic because he was leaving for europa and I was heading up to the mountain town of Bir where he came from. We contemplated exchanging visa's but probably the customs would have noticed so we didn't. It reminded me of this one documentary with Dzongsar Khyentse, where one monk quits his monkhood to become a dishwasher in Amerika, while a Taiwanese layperson decides to go to Dzongsar Shedra in Tibet.

I arrived just in time to join the anual Gutor ritual in which all the negativity of the old year is being thrown away. Then on the 1^st day of the new year Orgyan Tobgyal Rinpoche blessed all his monks including a following of lay people who came to receive his blessing.

For five days during lunch and diner there was a great banquet for everyone.

Although just like previous years some Tibetans do not celebrate Losar, Rinpoche mentioned in his talk that for us Vajrayana practitioners it's actually important and auspicious to have a great feast, or gaton in Tibetan. May all be auspicous for the coming year!

Monks waiting for Rinpoche to come for sang or smoke-offering practice at Tsering Jong.

My mother's passing away

Hi all,

It’s been almost two weeks since my mother passed away on the 13th of January and I felt it was time to write something about the events surrounding my mother’s death.

I want to especially thank our beloved teacher Sogyal Rinpochge with his equally lovely assistant, Eric and Jochem without whom all the events would not have been possible, everybody who came to practice and supported us and who practiced for my mom from all over the world, especially my friends at the Shedra in Nepal, the doctors who did the most horrible job in the world, my dad, the neighbors and everybody else!



Read the whole story My mother's passing away

Love Han

Stefan's adventures in Nepal and Trulshik Rinpoche's passing

My friend Stefan just recently started studying at the renowned Rangjung Yeshe shedra, which is kind of a mix between a traditional Tibetan shedra and a modern university. As you might know Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche is the mastermind behind a lot of it.

Stefan wrote a short story about his arrival and the first weeks of his study, which I thought some of you might enjoy to read [with his permission]. Here are some excerpts and also a short video about the passing away of Trulshik Rinpoche

Kathmandu, the studies begin:
The next days I was just filling out endless papers handing in 8 passport pictures :-) and trying to find accommodation in Bouddha. Luckily everything went well and I didn't face any major troubles. To my surprise the Bouddha Stupa was half green when I arrived covered with algae and smelling a little bit like old water. Apparently I rained for about a week before I arrived.

The program that is offered at the Rangjung Yeshe Shedra (RYS) is pretty amazing. I've 4 classes 5 days a week from 8 am till 12.30. Every morning starting with Colloquial Tibetan. For this class we have two teacher an American and a Tibetan. In addition to that we have so called “Drill classes” in which we repeat what a teacher tells us in Tibetan and language partner sessions with local Tibetans that have a basic training of explaining the language to foreigners.
Then I've History of Buddhism in Asia, Philosophy class in which we're studying the Bodhicharyavatara together with the commentary by Khenpo Kunpal and Classical Tibetan. I'm happy that I had Tibetan before, because we're going quite quickly through all the grammar.

One of my language partners, Drolkar-la offered me to stay with her, when she heard that I'm still looking for accommodation. So I'm currently living together with a Tibetan family almost in front of the gates to the White Gompa (RYS). I try my best to practice speaking Tibetan with them everyday and they offer me breakfast and dinner. My accommodation is quite cosy and I enjoy staying with them.

Never have so many westerners come to the RYS before, then this year. (Also a few Nepalis and Tibetans are studying with us.) I think we're about 100 students and in some classes in the beginning up to 40 students were sitting in one classroom. Not all of them are there for the BA or MA program, many are visiting students from all over the world and stay for maybe 3 months. So we're quite a mixed group from all over the world. The atmosphere is also good, because I assume students who just wanna have fun and are not interested in studying at all, wouldn't come to a country like Nepal. Thats why I would say that most of the students are open to new experiences and new cultures. Therefore it's also not so difficult to talk about more personal stuff, like spiritual background and so on with many of them. I'm surprised though, because a lot of students are not Buddhist and are quite new to what Buddhism has to offer.

My days I often spend practicing in the morning. Then going to all the classes, have lunch, then a short rest followed by studying till late afternoon or dinner mostly I do that while sitting in one of the many cafes around the Stupa having a nice cup of tea at the same time. At the weekend I usually do something with my friends.

Two weeks ago we went up to Nagi Gompa, had tea with several nuns with whom I became friends, talking a lot and showing everybody the Yumka Dechen Gyalmo recording from 3 months ago. It was a fun trip and my friend, who is a student from Boston college enjoyed it very much as well.
He is quite curios about Buddhism and so we spent most of the time discussing the idea of emptiness :-) and other issues. He is always curios about comparing it with the ideas Ekard Tolle wrote in his books.

Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche:
Unfortunately as many of you probably know, Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche past away some time ago. (I forgot the exact date). Since last Monday everybody was allowed to come and visit his Kudung to pay their respect. Rinpoche lived in a monastery called Situpala, that is still in the progress of being built near Swayambunath. I heard so far that they will keep his body there for 49 days and then bring it to his main monastery in Solu Kumphu, where it will be kept for one more year. We visited his Kudung twice. The last time was really special, because Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche invited us all to come with him instead of giving his usual Saturday talk. So on Saturday around 9 am we left Bouddha with 4 buses, around 100 students (not only of the Shedra) went on the trip. The buses of course couldn't make it all the way up the steep hill so we had to walk the rest up.
We queued about 30 Minutes and to our surprise not only CN Rinpoche was there but also Dudjom Rinpoche Yangsi, Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche, Chokling Rinpoche, Phakchok Rinpoche and his wife. So it turned out to become a whole gathering of great masters. Afterwards CNR gave a shot talk about Trulshik Rinpoche and invited us to come with him visiting another monastery called Druk Amitabha, that is a 10 minute walk away from Situpala.

[A short movie including some of Rinpoche's remarks can be seen here: Pilgrimage to the Kudung of Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche ]

Druk Amitabha is mind blowing, its more like a paradise for retreat, it looks like a park built on a hill top. The air is free and clean flowers are everywhere. A huge Tsokje Dorje Statue in the main Tsuklhakang and a big Amitabha statue built on the highest point.

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso:
Thanks to my friends I found out a while ago, that Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso is currently living in Bouddha. Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso is as far as I know one of the main Khenpos of the Kagyü Lineage. Teacher of the 17th Karmapa and also of Dzogchen Pönlop Rinpoche. I don't know why but before nobody was allowed to see him. Now he is available again for short audiences in the morning. So anyway we went in a small group to get a blessing for our studies. We were asked not to ask him any questions. I've to say hes quite special and reminded me a little bit of Khandrola. He seems to be beyond this world and from time to time moves his arms through the air similarly then when you do debate :-). Can't really describe it but there is a lot of humor in it. Apparently I also heard that you shouldn't ask him any questions, because the only answer he gives is meditate on emptiness :-). Don't know though, whether thats exactly true, but when my friend couldn't hold back and said, that he had lung problems and what to do about it. Khen Rinpoche replied “Meditate on the illusory appearance of all phenomena.”

sayön – earthquake:
Probably you heard about it. We had an earthquake on Sunday evening around 18.00. The epicenter was close to Gangtok in Sikkim and 6.8. Everybody could feel it although KTM is about 270 km away from Gangtok. Luckily nothing happened except that the earth was shaking for about 20 seconds. After the earthquake whole of Bouddha was on the streets, discussing, texting and phoning friends. People got quite scared an we had an earthquake meeting on Monday. We're all hoping that this was it at least for a while and we won't face any stronger ones soon.

All my love and many greetings from KTM

True self

from gentlevoice.org