Archive for the ‘News’ Category

There are 3 important reasons why a Chö distant learning approach is so vital at this time.

1. Over the years we have received requests to have our trainings in England, Scandinavia, South America, New Zealand and even South Africa. The difficulty in traveling to all these places is obvious. Moreover, many people have wanted to attend our trainings in America, but time and the expense of travel and lodging can be a real obstacles. Now, through our Distance Learning Program, any suitable student anywhere in the world can access these extraordinary teachings and trainings.

2. Cramming what is essentially weeks of material into a 2 or 3 day seminar has been challenging. Now, each student can proceed with all these trainings at your own pace. However, to help structure your studies, there is a suggested 12-week approach to integrate these trainings gradually and thoroughly. In this way, new Chod meditations/rituals can be each be put into practice weekly, without overwhelm!
A daily practice regimen is also suggested, that is brief enough to be integrated into one’s lifestyle and other spiritual commitments.

3. The Distance model also allows ongoing contact with the students. There will be discussions and Q & A sessions, either as webinars (via computer) and/or teleseminars (via phone). Our new Chod youtube channel and Chö internet TV channel will also nurture the ongoing relationship between students and teachers.

Online Empowerment

In Vajrayana, a student must receive the wong, lung and tri, i.e. the empowerment, reading transmission and teaching. The texts that you will receive provide comprehensive explanations.

Live Transmission

Since an empowerment is a live, mind-to-mind transmission, this cannot be received through a book or recording. However, through modern technology, students can now receive this blessing stream in real time, via their computer. This method has already been used form many years by lamas such as Namkai Norbu Rinpoche, with great effect. We will be broadcast the empowerment via Telestream, at a time convenient for the Western Hemisphere, with an additional Eastern Hemisphere broadcast if there is enough demand.

Tsewong Rinpoche will transmit the Opening the Sky Door Empowerment (Namkai Go Je) from the Precious Rosary Collection (Rinchen Tsogley Trengwa) collection, the oldest Chöd empowerment, directly from the oral tradition of MaChik.

Student will receive a word by word translation and explanation through the entire process, and will recite various passages in English (these are part of their Distance Learning texts).

Chöd in Bhutan: April 3-17

As an auspicious beginning of the year of the Iron Rabbit, we have the rare opportunity for a Chöd journey to the Land of the Thunder Dragon!

Bhutan is the last Vajrayana country in the world where the pure energies of Guru Rinpoche, Yeshe Tsogyal, Tontang Gyalpo, Pema Lingpa, PeGyal Lingpa and dwell and where the yidams, dakinis, protectors are vibrantly alive.

In this place, where synchronicity is commonplace, the sacred environment  has the power to transform. Through the guidance of a unique Dzokchen master and a skilled Western Buddhist teacher, we will discover a renewed energy and dynamic that will inform the rest of our days, and create a seed in all future lives.

Practices

Participants will receive (or re-receive) the Chöd Initiation, and various transmissions (lungs). During our time in Bhutan, aside from the full-day Rinchen Trengwa, we will learn and practice the PeGyal Lingpa Chod, Kusli Tsok Chod, short Chod Tsok, Laughter of the Dakinis, and especially the Chod Ngondro (translated and presented for the VERY FIRST time in the West), as well as various other daily practices, protector practice, and so on!

Look here for the schedule and email me for more information:

http://www.tibetanchod.com/events/bhutan

The Ngakpa

Knowing that the basis of all phenomena, animate and inanimate, is patterns of vibrational energy, the “mantra speaker” trains in ways to resonate with the sound DNA of different levels of reality. Through inner transformation, he/she can benefit limitless outer beings and open the doors of the infinite inner universe. While our old mothers wander in an endless ocean of karmic insanity, he fulfills the purpose of existence. “Open Sesame!”

Dakini — Feminine Wisdom Energy

In Tibetan Buddhism, the unborn, luminous matrix of consciousness is identified as Feminine in nature. And the world of phenomena, objects, beings and activity, is connect to the Masculine.

But even within the formed, world, Feminine Wisdom manifests—as the Dakini. She is at once playful, ferocious, compassionate, terrifying. As event, inner experience or everyday woman, she shatters the stilted, rigid confines of thought and reactive feeling.

She is the portal to both Ultimate Truth and Authentic Being in the world.

The kangling is a reminder of impermanence. Yet it proclaims the yogi’s fearless Wisdom Mind. Our wind-borne life signature is offered to all karmic debtors, while the Dakini’s wail vibrates and awakens our energy channels.

Sacred Implements

In Vajrayana we use sacred implements, instruments, clothing and various ritual material as part of the transformational process. This is a very real sacred technology, a highly developed science which makes objects that “work.” Once skill is attained, these implements help change energies, situations, and have tremendous physical, psychological and spiritual impact. But today, there has been a tremendous deterioration in the availability of authentic materials, with Westerners and even lamas using wholly inappropriate, cheap copies of genuine Vajrayana instruments.

DamaruWorks Damaru

Check the gallery of exquisite Damaru art and science.. We still have a few left, for those who want to practice Chöd as it was designed to be practiced and designated by MaChik and her followers.
www.damaruworks.com

Sacred Bones

We have, for the first time in the West, genuine skull damarus, skullcups, and kangling which are virtually impossible to find anywhere else. Generally, bone available today in Nepal, India or China, is made from robbed graves of Muslims, obtained in Hindu cremation grounds or from Chinese political prisoners or other dubious sources. Our source, however, is from skulls and thighbones of Buddhist practitioners of the Brokpa tribe of far Eastern Bhutan, obtained during the Chöd sky burial ritual!

Skull Damaru

These are fabricated from one male and one female skull, as per tradition. Male and female yidam mantras are hand lettered in gold on red background in the respective male and female skulls. The skins are “trin-pak” goat skins, treated by burying with mineral salts and sacred herbs, according to the ancient terma tradition. They are joined by wood and copper structures, and have a copper band with places for gems of your choosing.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lamajinpa9/DAMARUART#5510978681485597970

Kangling

Made from the same Buddhist bone source, there are a variety of factors and characteristics that make a human thighbone kangling poor, good or excellent. Price is based on these characteristics, as well as the unique nature of our kangling. (see potalagate.com for the prices of regular kangling.)

Skullcups

Every practitioner should have a skullcup. This is used in all kinds of sacred offerings, guru yoga, initiations, (including self-initiation practices) and various other rituals. And can also used as an eating vessel, imparting extraordinary qualities to our food. These are similarly from practicing Buddhists. The quality of skullcups depends on their various signs and characteristics, as well as type of sutures, age of the deceased, size and so on.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lamajinpa9/SKULLS#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lamajinpa9/KANGLINGBuddhist#

Preserving the Tradition

In spite of the tremendous growth in Western Buddhism, the above tantric traditions are in grave danger of extinction. In this age of spiritual degeneration, the wise practitioner will seek out the authentic opportunities, during their brief, fleeing availability.

Download Latest Catalog!

We practice the ancient and profound path of Vajrayana. To do so, we follow the traditions, knowledge and realization transmitted from Wisdom mind, through an unbroken lineage of living masters, down to the present moment. That these methods even exist in our time and space is already miraculous, as we are told that the rapid and demanding path of Tantra only appears rarely in the cycle of world creation and destruction—and whole eons can pass without its appearance.  Vast, profound, sometimes complex, the intricate detail of the sadhanas, visualizations, mantra and mudras, are the container that keeps dharma intact, free of contamination or distortion.

An essential part of this matrix of practice is the remarkable spectrum of sacred implements and instruments that are used daily in Vajrayana practice. Their nature is both practical and symbolic and they perform energetic functions that directly impact the fabric of experience and phenomena. Thus, just like the practice itself, their fabrication, form, proportions, materials and details are all a matter of exacting specifications and standards.

However, since the diaspora from Tibet, and the fracturing of the population and culture, there has been a dramatic degradation of the level of the available sacred objects. Yet these ritual arts have not been lost. The texts describing the proper qualities and characteristics of these items still exist, and far more importantly, skilled craftsmen can be discovered who have kept these traditions intact. However, few Westerns have been exposed to these quality materials so that the difference can be discerned.

We are entering a new era of challenges. With economic, social and personal difficulties on all sides, now more than ever we need an impeccable approach to our dharma practice. Guarding our tradition and its sacred intentions, this can be, not a time of loss and shadow, but a time of transformation.

The mission and vision of DamaruWorks is 5-fold:

1. To perpetuate and preserve the traditions of Vajrayana though the accurate creation and dispersal of ancient Tibetan ritual crafts with absolute integrity.

2. To provide the highest quality traditional practice materials to serious Vajrayana practitioners, especially Chöpas, Ngakpas and Yogis and Yoginis—lay practitioners of the West. Such materials are increasingly rare as commercial, low quality goods have become the norm in India, Nepal and the outlets that sell these products in America and Europe.

3. To support the best traditional craftsmen, who are few in number, so that they may flourish and continue their work, passing on their art to future generations of skilled workers.

4. To provide financial support for our Tibetan, Bhutanese and Nepalese lamas who coordinate acquiring these sacred and precious items.

5. To use funds from sales to further unique projects, related to the preservation and perpetuation of various texts, translations, audio and video archives and so on. In fact, 100% of all profits are to be used to benefit the Dharma, and most specifically the various lineages of Chöd.