zaterdag 7 april 2012

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!

vrijdag 6 april 2012

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། །།