His Holiness the Dalai Lama Visits Nottingham, England

His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be giving five days of teachings in Nottingham, England, from 24-28 May 2008. His Holiness has been invited by Dharma Network, an affiliation of Tibetan Buddhist and Bon organisations in the UK, of which Rigpa is also a signatory.

His Holiness will give three public talks, two on Bringing Meaning to Our Lives and one on Caring for Our World. He will also give three full days of teachings on, Investigating the Nature of Reality: Commentaries on "Praise to the Buddha for His Discourses on Dependent Origination"—(Tendrel Toepa)
and Nagarjuna's "Hymn to (the Buddha) the World Transcendent."

To register for His Holiness' teachings, click here!

As part of this five day event, Sogyal Rinpoche has also been invited to give a public talk on Monday, 26 May at 5:30pm, in the Nottingham Arena, capacity 10,000.

Join us for what is sure to be an exhilarating event! It is free, all you need to do is show up!

Nottingham is easily accessible from all areas of England, for more information, click here!

Remembering Dzongsar Ngari Tulku

We have just received the sad news that Dzongsar Ngari Tulku, one of Sogyal Rinpoche's closest childhood friends and an important tulku from Dzongsar Monastery, passed away yesterday following a tragic accident in Germany. Rinpoche has asked the sangha to think of him in their practice and prayers.

Here is an extract from an interview Rigpa students conducted with him several years ago:

Question: Was there a particular incident that you remember when you got to know Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö? When you felt like you had an interaction with him, for the first time?

Ngari Tulku: Oh yes, oh yes. I was a very cowardly boy from my childhood and I was really very scared of dying. Until, at a certain time, it became almost unbearable. And I wanted to go to see Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö, but it was also not a very proper time. But I went to see him, almost in tears. He was walking in his wang khang, the initiation room, and he saw me coming in, and he sat down and said: "What's happened to you? What's happened to you?"

Then I said to him: "Rinpoche, Rinpoche, now you must help me. Because, you know, everybody's dying. Everybody's going to die. I'm going to die, I know. But how can I make it so that I will never die? Because I don't want to die."

And Rinpoche was really looking at me and laughing. He said: "Yes, everybody is dying. You're right. I will die. You will die. Even the Buddha Shakyamuni passed away as well. But, you know, when you get older, you will understand this: physical dying is one thing, but spiritual continuation is another thing. And in that there is also a point at which you don't die."

And I said to him: "Do you think that I'll understand this?" He said: "Yes, you will understand one day."

As small as I was, that was a great moment for me. And I must also have returned back happily with that understanding. And I think it is also very useful for us all.

Rinpoche teaches Australian Business and Community Leaders in Sydney

At the seventh annual Practical Wisdom Retreat in Sydney this year, forty-five business and community leaders gathered at the Royal Motor Yacht Club overlooking Sydney Harbour for one and a half days of teachings with Sogyal Rinpoche (7-8 March 2008). For some of the participants, this was their first introduction to Rinpoche and Tibetan Buddhism. However, about two-thirds of the participants had attended previous Practical Wisdom Retreats with Rinpoche and were inspired to return once again this year.

Rinpoche taught several times throughout the Retreat, giving instruction on meditation. He also shared teachings of the Buddha on how to use meditation to directly face and overcome difficulties and negative emotions like anger, in both the personal and professional lives of the participants.

All the participants expressed enormous gratitude for the opportunity to receive these precious teachings and many of those who have attended Practical Wisdom Retreats in past years said how important they have been in changing their personal lives and helping them in their leadership roles.

The first Practical Wisdom Retreat was held in Sydney in 2002. Since then, the number of students has grown consistently each year, from twelve in 2002 to twenty-six in 2006 to forty-five in 2008.

The Practical Wisdom programme aims to bring the teachings of the Buddha to people who, because of their position as leaders in the community, are able to have a beneficial influence in the world. The participants are personally invited into the programme and they come from the business world, as well as from community, arts, non-profit and philanthropic organisations. In addition to the annual Practical Wisdom Retreat, some of the participants meet once a month to watch teachings and to study and practise together. These sessions are led by senior Rigpa instructors.

Practical Wisdom and some of the programme's participants, have given substantial support to Sogyal Rinpoche's activities over the last few years, including sponsoring students to attend the Three Year Retreat at Lerab Ling, donating to the Terton Sogyal Trust Endowment Fund, and supporting various Rigpa Australia activities including the Australian Building Fund. This year Practical Wisdom will also support the Tenzin Gyatso Institute in the USA and the Spiritual Care Centre at Dzogchen Beara in Ireland.

Chagdud Khadro visits Rigpa's Berlin Centre

Chagdud Khadro (centre) with members of the Rigpa monastic and lay sangha.

Berlin, Germany, February 2008.

Chagdud Khadro, the spiritual wife of His Eminence Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche who passed away in 2002, visited the Rigpa Centre in Berlin to give a weekend of teachings (15 – 17 February 2008).

Chagdud Khadro received many teachings from Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and was ordained as a lama in 1997. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche invested her as the Spiritual Director of Chagdud Gonpa Brasil, one of the four retreat centres he established.

While visiting the Rigpa Berlin Centre in February, Chagdud Khadro gave a public talk about the Six Bardos according to the “Bardo Thödol” of Padmasambhava.

She also gave a Phowa empowerment and taught the practice of Amitabha Phowa of Rigdzin Longsal Nyingpo. She then generously answered many students' questions about the integration of this practice in caring for the dying.

Khadro joined the sangha for the Tendrel Nyesel tsok practice on Tertön Sogyal's anniversary (16 February).

About 140 people, mainly from the Rigpa sanghas in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic attended the teachings. They found Khadro's teachings very inspiring. In turn, Chagdud Khadro said she was inspired by the sangha and their practice questions.

Khadro's visit was a great success and an auspicious and joyous occasion.

Australian Retreat at Myall Lakes 2008

The main retreat of the annual Australian Rigpa retreat at Myall Lakes has just finished. Four hundred people from all over Australia, as well as from the United States, Switzerland, Singapore, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom, attended the ten-day retreat (17th-27th January) with Sogyal Rinpoche.

In the beautiful setting on the shores of Lake Wallis on the east coast of Australia, Rinpoche continued the extraordinary teachings he began in Kirchheim in December 2007 on four methods to overcome difficulties in our daily lives.

With these profound but highly practical teachings, Rinpoche showed how we can use shamatha meditation, the compassion practices of loving kindness and tonglen, contemplation on shunyata and realisation of the true nature of our minds to transform difficulties of all kinds, whether due to outer circumstances or our inner emotions.

In the context of his teachings on these four methods, Rinpoche also taught extensively on bodhichitta, setting out a clear and simple, but complete daily practice.

Sixty-five children also participated in the retreat through Rigpa's programme for children and parents, Rigpe Yeshe. The children, ranging in age from 3 to 18, attended daily dharma and meditation sessions, where they focussed on loving-kindness and stillness. The older children watched some of Rinpoche's earlier teachings, including on meditation and loving-kindness, while some of the teenagers came to Rinpoche's teachings every day. Rinpoche also taught all the children directly.

The retreat now continues for a further two weeks (27 January-10 February) for students following the Home Retreat, an intensive programme of study and practice that allows people at home to participate in the Three Year Retreat currently being held at Rigpa's main retreat centre, Lerab Ling, in France.

Kirchheim Winter Retreat 2007

The twenty-second annual Rigpa winter retreat at Kirchheim, Germany has recently concluded.

Sogyal Rinpoche taught for ten days (28 December - 6 January), giving profound, but highly practical, advice on how to work with our minds in every moment of our daily lives, from the moment we wake up in the morning until we go to bed at night.

He also shared insights gathered from Three-Year Retreatants at Lerab Ling and Home Retreatants from around the world, on how they apply the teachings in their daily life and in their spiritual practice.

The retreat was attended by about 700 students from around Germany, as well as from France, The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, India, Australia and the United States.

At midnight on New Years' Eve, Rinpoche joined the celebrations to pray with the sangha for an auspicious 2008.

Christmas Lights at Lerab Ling

In Memory of Ian Maxwell

Ian Maxwell, one of Sogyal Rinpoche's oldest students, passed away in Paris on 4 December 2005.

Ian first met Sogyal Rinpoche in London in 1977. He began to work for Rigpa shortly afterwards. While in London, he met all the great teachers who passed through the centre in those early years. He received teachings and empowerments from Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche and Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche on many occasions. In the 1980s, he was one of the first Western students to complete a traditional three year retreat.

Ian's contribution to Rigpa was enormous. He established a long-term retreat programme at Dzogchen Beara, Rigpa's retreat centre in Ireland, where so far more than 100 people have successfully completed long-term retreats.

He also worked hard to establish the Rigpa Shedra, or 'centre of learning', which is now in its sixth year and which has attracted many of the most eminent teachers of Tibetan Buddhism and numerous students from all parts of the world.

In the 1990s, Ian traveled extensively throughout America, Australia and all over Europe, giving talks, guiding countless students and clarifying their practice.

Ian played a central role in the development of the Rigpa curriculum which established a structured programme of study and practice for students throughout the whole Rigpa Sangha. He also played a major part in the planning and development of the three year retreat currently being held at Rigpa's main retreat centre, Lerab Ling, in southern France.

Toward the end of his life he became increasingly excited about developing new ways for Rigpa to take the Dharma into the business and professional world as an expression of the ideals in the 'Servants of Peace' chapter in 'The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying'. In fact, there is hardly an area within Rigpa today that Ian did not contribute to.

Ian Maxwell had a great command of Buddhist teachings and had an extraordinary talent for communicating the meaning of Vajrayana teachings and sadhana practice, making them accessible to everyone.

Towards the end of his life he placed great emphasis on the practice of loving kindness. He was an inspiration to many who knew him as an outstanding student of Sogyal Rinpoche and for his exceptional ability to communicate. Whatever question was thrown at him he not only displayed an extraordinary comprehension of the subject in question but also the student felt completely understood and grateful for his empathetic response.

In 1992, at the inauguration of Dzogchen Monastery in South India, he caught the eye of no less than His Holiness the Dalai Lama when he made a speech in his presence. His Holiness was impressed and was later heard to remark, “He seems a very capable person.”

Ian Maxwell passed away in Paris with several of his closest Dharma friends by his side. Phowa practice was performed on his behalf by many great lamas, including Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche who was in Lerab Ling at the time. His funeral included, on his request, loving kindness meditation and chanting the Vajra Guru mantra.

Please post your own memories of Ian here!

Take Charge of Your Mind

TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR MIND
Liberating your Thoughts and Emotions and Transforming your Life
through the Buddhist Wisdom of Tibet

Kirchheim Winter Retreat in Germany
27 December 2007-6 January 2008
with Sogyal Rinpoche
world-renowned Buddhist teacher from Tibet
and author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has pointed out:
“A great Tibetan teacher of mind training once remarked that one of the mind’s most marvellous qualities is that it can be transformed.”

Mind is both our greatest asset and our worst, and most dangerous enemy. The mind can recognise, in the matter of an instant, its own nature, or it can grasp and chase its own deluded perceptions of reality, provoking negative thoughts and emotions, which perpetuate and intensify our suffering. The key to finishing with suffering, then, is to understand and tame this mind of ours, and this is the very essence of the teachings of the Buddha.

During this years’ Winter Retreat in Kirchheim, Germany, Sogyal Rinpoche will share teachings from the heart of his lineage that clearly show us the nature of delusion and of emotion, and will offer practical, authentic methods for working with our minds and for defusing the destructive power of our negative emotions and habitual tendencies. In particular, he will share the importance of training the mind in meditation, and its elements of carefulness, mindfulness and awareness; compassion, or lojong, and bodhichitta, the heart of the enlightened mind; and devotion, the entrance way for blessings, the ultimate method for arousing the wisdom of realization in one’s mind.

This retreat will provide a unique opportunity, not only to receive these teachings, but also to draw out the crucial points needed to be able to remember and actually apply the teachings to ourselves. Because, at the end of the day, even if we have been fortunate enough to receive many teachings, what do we really remember, and of that, what do we actually apply and integrate in our everyday lives? This year at Kirchheim, we will explore together how we can truly live a spiritual life in every moment of every day so as to bring meaningful transformation and a glimpse of our enlightened nature. We will experiment with working with our minds from the moment we wake up in the morning, until the moment we go to bed at night, in order to discover practically how we can avoid harming ourselves and others, always have good hearts, bring our minds back home and avoid falling into the vicious cycle of samsaric tendencies.

For upcoming on-line registration and more information, click here!

If we can tame the mind then nothing can frighten us, because all fear comes from a mind that is untamed.
—the Bodhicharyavatara

His Holiness the Dalai Lama Receives US Congressional Gold Medal

The United States Congress bestowed upon His Holiness the Dalai Lama its highest civilian honour, the Congressional Gold Medal. This historic ceremony took place in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington D.C. on 17 October 2007.

US President, George Bush, and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, presented the medal to His Holiness in front of an audience of four hundred. Sogyal Rinpoche and Patrick Gaffney were among the guests.

Seven thousand people gathered outside the US Capitol to watch the ceremony on giant screens, while tens of thousands of people in 172 different countries watched the ceremony on a live web cast.

The retreatants at Lerab Ling also watched from the Lerab Ling Temple.

President Bush spoke of others who had received the Gold Medal, including past US presidents, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and Elie Wiesel. He said:

Over the years, Congress has conferred the Gold Medal on many great figures in history -- usually at a time when their struggles were over and won.

Today Congress has chosen to do something different. It has conferred this honor on a figure whose work continues -- and whose outcome remains uncertain. In so doing, America raises its voice in the call for religious liberty and basic human rights. These values forged our Republic. They sustained us through many trials. And they draw us by conviction and conscience to the people of Tibet and the man we honor today.

The Gold Medal depicts His Holiness standing in front of three holy mountains—Kawalurig in Kham, Amnye Machen in Amdo, and Chomalungma (Mt. Everest) in Central Tibet.

The back of the Gold Medal quotes His Holiness, and reads:

World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not the absence of violence. Peace is the manifestation of human compassion.

In accepting the Gold Medal, His Holiness said,

It is a great honor for me to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. This recognition will bring tremendous joy and encouragement to the Tibetan people, for whom I have a special responsibility. Their welfare is my constant motivation and I always consider myself as their free spokesperson.

I believe that this award also sends a powerful message to those many individuals who are dedicated to promoting peace, understanding and harmony.

Read the complete transcript of His Holiness' speech.

Photos courtesy ICT/Sonam Zoksang.

Sogyal Rinpoche Teaching in Bhutan 2008

In 2008, Sogyal Rinpoche will teach in Bhutan for five days from 11–16 March.

As Rinpoche visits Bhutan rarely, this will be a special opportunity to receive teachings from him in this Buddhist kingdom.

For more information and to register, go to www.bhutanretreat.com.