Volume 22, Number 5/ October 2022
Letter from the Editors
Taking Time to Connect
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and friends together in Italy, summer 2022Dear Friends,
How do we connect with each other? Or disconnect? In this teaching excerpt from the Serenity Ridge summer retreat, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche explains how our connections to our world, and to ourselves, are of utmost importance in our lives. It all seems so obvious when you say it: Connect to your family, to your friends, to your work, to nature, to the moment! But what about the obstacles to doing so? The ego's pain body? The challenges? The blocks? Rinpoche's reminders hit home, especially to the Western mind; they offer us not only sound logic and reason for why connections are vital, but the gift of heartfelt words to motivate us to connect even more. And when we feel stuck in certain situations, the truth of the matter is that this, too, is a door to connect! Enjoy this excerpt.
Do you know what the mirror in dzogchen refers to? See the Student and Teacher article for Rinpoche's brief explanation given during the recent summer retreat.
Lots more in this issue:
- See Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's latest teaching schedule.
- You can still attend the Fall Retreat & Serenity Ridge Dialogues in person or on Zoom! Starts October 11.
- New Edition of Tibetan Yogas of Dream & Sleep just released. And a new A-tri Dzogchen book is coming.
- Serenity Ridge Retreat Center now has its own newsletter!
- Upcoming CyberSangha events.
- Read about the Seminar for Young Tibetologists at UVA, with dinner afterward at Serenity Ridge.
- Ligmincha Learning's online course Three Heart Mantras of Bon starts October 7.
- The 3 Doors Compassion Project begins seventh year starting October 19.
- Mark your calendar for GlideWing's next online workshop beginning in January 2023.
- Listen to Dreamworld Far Flung podcast featuring Rinpoche and students.
- Recent in-depth interview with Tulku Ponse Yigme Tenzin (Jorge Rene) from Shenten Dargye Ling's newsletter.
- Enjoy the photo montage of Rinpoche's recent retreats in Europe.
- View the Spanish translation for the August VOCL.
In Bon,
Aline and Jeff Fisher
Nourishing Connections
An Excerpt from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's Summer 2022 Retreat at Serenity Ridge
A study from Harvard shows that one of the primary factors affecting our longevity is our social connection. Now, if that's the case, that you can live healthier and longer by connecting with others, then you might live an even healthier life if you learn how to connect with yourself. That's certainly true, but it's harder. We know how to connect with each other better than we know how to connect to ourselves. In all of the things that we are trying to do here on retreat, it all comes down to trying to connect. You see, fundamentally, ignorance begins when it does not know itself. And once ignorance begins, then disconnection begins. That disconnection is the root of all of the events, the stories. So you can see how connection is very important.
Therefore, I really feel that it is important to explore where it is that we find connection. Because at the end of the day, it's about nourishment, right? Food is nourishing and we feel that. But are there other means to nourish yourself besides food? What I've come to realize is that I can be nourished simply through encouraging myself to be happy or joyful, and allowing the joy in myself and feeling the nourishment from my joy and my feeling grateful for life. When I feel gratitude strongly enough, then I feel nourished and I feel it healing my body. I know, too, that connecting with people will nourish me. And the nourishment comes when in any encounter I can be a little bit aware that I am simply trying to connect right here and now with this or that person.
Many in the Western world are driven by a focus on what needs to be accomplished. This focus on outcomes is very strong and carefully calculated, and leaves little room for focus on connections. But if people would only begin to realize that there is so much more that we can gain by connecting with each other. If that awareness is there, then it wouldn't matter what we are talking about, right? Just like when you are talking with a beautiful child. If you love children, then you will have such a great time talking. But are you trying to make a deal with the child? No. Are you trying to earn something from the child? No. Expecting something? No. You are just being and doing in order to stay connected; that's where the nourishment is.
That is true in any relationship. It comes down to this deep sense of connection. However, connection is very limited for us. Many people don't know what their connection is. They can have so much abundance in their life, but no connection. It can be because they've lost a connection that their pain identity has designated as the single most important connection that they had. Losing that one connection, they then lose all of their other connections, because they've lost their ability to connect at all. That's what happens in many people's lives. In this way one loses the vitality that comes not from food, but from other important sources such as connecting with nature and with people.
So you see, connections are important, and we limit ourselves in the way we connect. You can connect to anything, to everything! You can connect with food, but you can also connect without having food. Whatever you have that makes you feel, Oh I'm so happy I have this, means that you are making a connection with that situation. Can you also make the same connection without that situation? Yes, it's possible, but not everybody can.
So a simple question in life is, how many connections do you have? You see, having a family does not mean that you are connected with the family. Having a house does not mean that you connect with that place. So where do we find our connections? You have so many things where you could have a connection, and yet you've lost the connection.
What might help to reconnect with our body and self is to nurture all of our connections with the outer world. Enjoy them! A sip of water! A sip of coffee! A glass of wine. A little sweet. It's the simple connections that I'm talking about.
Particularly in this culture, there are a lot of lost connections. For instance, the drive-thrus at fast food restaurants. They are like gas stations for human beings. Drive through, fill up and go to work. But what you fill up with is worse than gasoline. [laughter] That is the culture. It doesn't mean that every time there is a meal, we need to share and sit together, but doing so sometimes would be good. In India every meal is eaten together, and after a meal sitting together at the fire, chatting and telling stories is a way of connecting with each other. We don't do that so much in this culture.
So the important question is: how many places can you connect where you are not presently connecting? It is true that most times in our life, in the strong cases, what we lose becomes the door to finding ourselves. Big losses become the doorway to self-discovery, self-growth, self-strengthening. That's very true! Many times for those people who have wanted to find themselves, they did not find themselves through what they gained, but through what they lost. For so many lucky people, so many strong and mature people, this is what they experienced. Buddha did not achieve enlightenment in the middle of a dance, in a club on a Friday night. Buddha achieved enlightenment through suffering, because Buddha found the best relationship to the suffering. And suffering is true. It really does wake us up. It really opens the door and really makes you grow.
In an individual sense, the strongest most important place of disconnection happens with our suffering, with our pain. Oh, I don't want pain. I don't want suffering. I don't want this feeling, this thought. I don't want this experience. I don't want this situation. I don't want the discomfort. But you are disconnecting with what is actually inviting you to connect! That's because you think, Here I cannot connect. And what I really wanted to connect to, I lost: the dream job, the dream house, the dream partner.
How many resources do we have that we can connect to? It is a very simple thing. First of all, connect with all the people that you are kind of connected with, or that you're supposed to be connected with, like your family, right? If you've decided to live with someone, then that is a commitment to connect. Of course, there will be ups and downs in the relationship, but that is the work that you need to do for connection. And you will connect. You will find the beauty, the love, the connection, the support. You can find that in a life partner. You also find it in friends. Sometimes it is not easy to find friends, right? But it is important to find friends and to feel friendship, where you can relax and be yourself, share freely what you feel, and enjoy what this other person has to share and all that you have in common.
Finding friends is important. It doesn't matter how many people there are in one's life, finding a friend is important. There is so much loneliness and isolation in areas that are crowded with people. There may be a thousand people living in one building, and there can still be so much loneliness within the individual apartments. People value privacy, but we fail to see its relation to loneliness.
Here at the retreat we are creating the space for everyone to come together and begin to make connections and become closer to others, making your experience here more memorable. This is a place where you can feel connections more. We are not on retreat to focus simply on accomplishing things. We are also finding connection with ourselves through connecting with each other, and through becoming connected with the different goddesses and channels and chakras inside ourselves, all to learn and connect.
Don't think that you've lost connection simply because you have lost one or two connections in your life. You have so much opportunity to connect in life. And it doesn't necessarily even have to be with people. You can connect with nature. You can connect with silence. For example, every single meditation that we do is ultimately trying to connect, trying to calm down your body, trying to be in the stillness of the absence of actions, trying to connect with inner stillness. But most of the time for us, we find connection with others not so much through the stillness, but in doing things together. Let's do a project together, walk together, eat together, drink together. Whatever it might be, we know how to connect with each other by doing things.
But how about just saying, Let's get together, and let's do nothing. We'll just decide spontaneously once we meet, and go wherever we choose to go. Or maybe we'll not go anywhere, and I just come say hello and sit on your couch, and we spend the whole day there connecting with each other. You see, it doesn't matter what you do or don't do when you are connecting. However, connecting to others through not doing is generally far harder than connecting with them through doing things. But through all that we try to do in our daily lives, when it comes down to it, it's just simply trying to connect.
This is an important journey we are on, one where we go to the source and come to recognize and see that the negative conditions and situations that we face in our life arise largely as consequences of more subtle underlying negative emotions. In this way you come to see that your pain identity is the source of those emotions. No matter how sick you get or how much of an emotional crisis you have, if you never get to look at the source of it, then every pain is wasted and every conflict is wasted, because it did not bring about any extra awareness. You see, if every conflict or challenge leads to your going more toward the source, then every challenge is causing you to expand. As a result you actually come to want challenges so that you can expand. People who want challenges know that after the challenge comes expansion. They make something out of the challenge and expand themselves. Everyone loves to expand their sense of self and their creativity. But those who hate challenge have seen that after being challenged they get stuck.
So for every situation in which you feel that you have lost something, it's always good to think about what you have gained from it. For me sometimes it is amazing and eye opening. Just normal situations in life, when it feels like it has taken away something from my life, then I would say, Ah! I see that I am trying to disconnect here. Then I can come to see what that situation has actually given me in life; it gives me this mood of connecting. When I open my eyes in that way, and ask the right question, then I get countless amazing answers in life with that event; what it brought me in my life that I would otherwise never have seen due to not being open enough or clear enough or having power enough to connect with it. But now I feel that I can connect with what it brought to me. Then I can embrace that fully. And I feel so much more richness, wealth, completeness with what I have received from this one situation that I had originally labeled as a loss of something, of one thing.
The power to connect, the ability to connect, is so limited for most of us. Look at your life right now, all of the things that maybe you're worried about such as your health, your energy, or that you're draining yourself and other people. All those issues might have to do with just a few things, or even sometimes just one thing: that you are losing something and you don't have any relationship to that situation other than thinking that you are losing something. You cannot see how freeing it might also be, what a gift it is, and what you're getting out of it. You're not able to see it with different eyes. The result is you're not connecting; instead, you are losing connection. Sure, you may definitely have lost something due to that situation, but you are unable to see every other door that it opens up in your life. And in most cases there are more doors opening due to those situations than those doors that you feel have closed. The essential truth is that all of the doors are open all of the time, but you're simply not seeing that. And the strong push that you get from strong experiences gives you a greater opportunity to open your eyes! Even then, though, you are often not able to open them.
We are simply talking about one thing here, connection. We limit where we connect. That's my point. You don't need much to connect. If you are in the mood to connect, then you can absolutely connect even with disconnection. If your mood is one of disconnecting, though, then you can disconnect all of the connections that you have. You know that very well, right? So, again, an important question is, where do we connect? Connection is a source of healing, connection is a practice of longevity, it's a source of power for charging our battery. Connection is a source of vitality, of creativity, of fun, of everything! Even enlightenment, if you are interested in that, because enlightenment requires connection too.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's Upcoming Teaching Schedule
Through December 2022
Here is Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's teaching schedule for the remainder of 2022. Rinpoche will offer two more seasonal retreats at Serenity Ridge in Virginia this year, both in person and online, as well as well as a three-day retreat in Berkeley, California and also online.
You can find the latest listings and any changes in the Events section of the Ligmincha website or the Serenity Ridge website. Please register for these online retreats through the specific Events box on the website.
- October 11-16, 2022: Fall Retreat & Serenity Ridge Dialogues
- October 28-30, 2022: Berkeley, California: The 21 Nails (Part 2 of 6)
- December 26, 2022-January 1, 2023: Serenity Ridge Winter Retreat, Experiential Transmission of Zhang Zhung, Part 3
Still Time to Register! Fall Retreat: The Five Elements & Serenity Ridge Dialogues
October 11-16, 2022 in Person or Online
Join us October 11-16 for five very special days with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and special guests. This year, for the first time, the annual Fall Retreat and Serenity Ridge Dialogues will be held together. In the mornings, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will teach on the Five Elements. During the afternoons, the Dialogues will bring presenters together for discussion and practice.
You can join us in person or on Zoom, but participants are encouraged to attend in person at Serenity Ridge to benefit from the richness of in-person teachings and informal interactions.
Rinpoche's teachings on the Five Elements will include a special emphasis on the cleansing and healing power of the five tsa lung exercises and the nine breathings of purification. In the afternoon he will be joined by Geshe YongDong Losar, from Vancouver Island, Canada, and researchers and healthcare practitioners of both Eastern and Western medicine. They include Menpa Phuntsok Wangmo, director of the Shang Shung Institute School of Tibetan Medicine; Lonny Jarrett, a leading practitioner, author, scholar and teacher of East Asian medicine; Sat-Bir Singh Khalsa, Ph.D., a researcher in the field of body mind medicine, specializing in yoga therapy; and Alejandro Chaoul-Reich, Ph.D., director of the Mind Body Spirit Institute at the Jung Center of Houston, who has studied for nearly 30 years in the Tibetan Bon tradition.
Collectively they will present research, knowledge and their own experiences regarding how connecting to the elements, to the breath, awareness and the body, can help us to connect more fully to the joy of life, to heal injury and trauma, and to be more present to each moment.
New Edition of Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
Revised and Updated!
A revised edition of The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche has recently been published by Shambhala Publications and is now available in Ligmincha's online store.
First published in 1998, this book offers a powerful method for liberation through dream and sleep yoga. In the Tibetan traditions of dream yoga especially, profound practices for tapping into our dreams have been cultivated over centuries and have become renowned for their transformative power among many yogis and great Tibetan masters.
The new second edition, Tibetan Yogas of Dream & Sleep: Practices for Awakening, was edited by Mark Dahlby, who also edited the original 1998 book. The first edition grew out of oral teachings Rinpoche gave in California and New Mexico, beginning in the mid-1990s, and has been translated into 25 languages. In addition, this second edition also incorporates teachings given through online retreats in 2020 and 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The essence of Rinpoche's teaching is dzogchen, the nature of mind. That hasn't changed, but over time, and with fresh insight born from years of teaching to Westerners, he has adjusted how he teaches to be clearer and more accessible. These changes have been integrated into this new edition.
Tenzin Wangyal presents a powerful method to find liberation through the yogas of dream and sleep. With clearly illustrated Tibetan syllables and the places they are to be visualized, this practical guide will be of use to both new and more seasoned practitioners.
Check the store for more information/to order.
New A-tri Dzogchen Book Coming Soon!
Based on Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's Teachings in the Netherlands
Look for Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's new book, A-tri Dzogchen: Recognizing the Nature of Mind in the Bon Tradition, in the Ligmincha Store later in October. In A-tri Dzogchen, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche shares essential teachings and practices for recognizing and resting with open awareness in the true nature of one's mind.
This book grew out of teachings given to students Amsterdam from 2013-2019. The Netherlands sangha put together a book based on these teachings that was distributed in 2021 only in the Netherlands in a very limited edition. Now the book has been revised for a broader audience.
A-tri is one of the major lineages of dzogchen, the highest teachings within the Tibetan Bon tradition, which points to the nature of one's mind as spacious and open, luminous and aware, and the source of all positive qualities. The teachings in this book draw on a text by thirteenth century master Drugyalwa Yungdrung, condensed into 15 sessions from an even earlier text.
Check the store for updates on when the book will be available.
New Monthly Newsletter from Serenity Ridge Retreat Center!
Ligmincha International's Home in the Mountains of Virginia
Serenity Ridge Retreat Center, headquarters of Ligmincha International, now has a monthly newsletter. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia, Serenity Ridge was established in 1998 by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, teacher and meditation master in the Tibetan Bon tradition.
With this monthly newsletter, readers are invited to get to know a little more about Serenity Ridge. Find out the latest news and information about upcoming retreats and events at the center, meet some of the sangha and staff, learn about weekly practices, see how you can get involved and more. And, of course, be sure to come visit in person when you are able, to see how special this magical place is!
Upcoming CyberSangha Events
Next Broadcast October 8 with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
The CyberSangha team warmly invites you to join in the following new offerings. They include a teaching and guided meditation with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche on October 8 followed by a 24-hour full moon practice on October 9. They're open to all, and we hope you can join us. The free yearlong program, called Bring Body, Speech and Mind to Life, continues with these events, and in November there is a free, monthlong interactive online course with Aleez Sattar Moss, on Zoom.
Saturday, October 8, 2022, 12 noon New York time
Realizing Your Full Potential: Ripening the Conditions of Speech
In a live online broadcast, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche offers a teaching and guides a meditation to mark the start of the Month of Speech, part of his free yearlong program Bring Body, Speech & Mind to Life. Open to all.
Learn more & view live
Sunday, October 9, 2022, 10 a.m. New York time
24-Hour Full Moon Practice: Through Silence, Realize Your True Voice
During the full moon of October 9, 2022, join us online for a meditation guided by Alejandro Chaoul-Reich, followed by a 24-hour session of mantra recitation, contemplative silence and further periods of guided meditation. We will be supported by Ligmincha Internationa's global community of practitioners. Unlike Rinpoche's CyberSangha Facebook Live broadcasts, the 24-hour full moon practice takes place via Zoom, in an online meeting space. There is no cost to participate, but registration is required.
Learn more & register now
Sunday, November 6, 2022, 12 noon New York time
Realizing Your Full Potential: Ripening the Conditions of the Mind, a teaching and guided meditation with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.
More information to come.
Monday, November 7, 2022, 10 a.m. New York time
24-Hour Full Moon Practice: Through Spaciousness, Manifest Qualities That Benefit Others
Registration opens after October 10.
NEW! Begins Monday, November 14, 2022
Through Openness, Benefiting Others, a free, monthlong interactive online course. Four Mondays at 12 noon New York time with Aleez Sattar Moss, via Zoom. Class size is limited. Includes weekly small-group sessions.
Learn more & register now
Wednesday, November 16, 2022, 11 a.m. New York time
Science/Spirituality Dialog, Change Your Mind, Ease Your Pain: How Meditation Works to Relieve Pain & Suffering with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal, and host Alejandro Chaoul-Reich.
Learn more & view live
Note: In the United States, daylight saving time begins on Sunday, March 13, 2022, and ends on Sunday, November 6, 2022, so be sure to take this one-hour difference into account when determining the time conversion for scheduled events.
More about the free yearlong program
For schedule updates, visit cybersangha.net
6th International Seminar of Young Tibetologists
Three Bon Geshes Give Presentations
The Department of Religious Studies and the Tibet Center at University of Virginia, located in Charlottesville, was host to the 6th International Seminar of Young Tibetologists recently. Rinpoches, tulkus, Ph.D. students and graduates came together to share their areas of study and research. From the Bon community, Geshe Nyima Oser Choekhortshang Rinpoche, Geshe Tri Yungdrung and Geshe Yungdrung Kalsang attended and each gave a presentation.
Geshe Choekhortshang Rinpoche's presentation, The Secretly Coded Languages of Tibet, talked about the special ethnic and regional secret communication that is slowly disappearing and has never been properly documented or studied academically. He explains, "Two examples are: dkrug-yig (interchanging two alphabets), and any-yig (replacing letters with numbers). . . . It is used for various purposes, such as to keep information secret from enemies; to communicate, mostly among nomads and salt-men, when they wish to ensure that discussing their daily plans will not cause misfortune or bring about unfavorable consequences, as they strongly believe that evil beings would understand if they communicated in normal terms; and for vulgar conversation among youths."
Geshe Tri Yungdrung, director of the library at Menri Monastery, presented A Study of the Meteoric Iron of Great Lightning Being the Ordinance of the Skygoer Od dan Bzang mo. This ordinance was issued in 1903 by the princess Od dan bzang mo (1849-1923). This ordinance is also known as the Code of the Convent, with rules that must be observed by her followers at the nunnery of Dozhi. She was a great practitioner and taught meditation to her disciples in Dozhi.
Geshe Yungdrung Kalsang, who received his geshe degree from Menri Monastery, was in the same graduating class as Geshe Tri Yungdrung. Geshe Kalsang participated in a session whose topic was Emerging Himalayan Voice.The title of his talk was "New Discovery of Bonpo Manuscripts in Mon, Arunachal Pradesh, India." His talk was based on a specific manuscript from northeast India which describes the ritual for Summoning the Forces of Prosperity (Tib.ÃÂ g.yang 'gugs). Most of the present Bonpo ritual texts mention sheep as a support for this ritual, but the manuscript describes the deer as a base of the ritual. Geshe Kalsang shed light on how sheep have been replaced with deer and possible reasons for this change. He also connected why there often are images of deer in ancient rock paintings in Tibet.
In honor of this first-time Young Tibetologist Seminar being held at UVA, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche sponsored a dinner for the Tibetan guests, organizers, representatives of the local Charlottesville Tibetan Association and local sangha. About 50 people attended, driving about 35 minutes from UVA to Serenity Ridge. On arrival, everyone was greeted with Tibetan tea and chai, followed by a tour of Serenity Ridge. At the end of the tour, everyone joined together for a meal in Kunzang Khang, Serenity Ridge's "House of All Goodness." It was a joyous occasion, with laughter and conversation.
This was the first time where attendees for the International Seminar of Young Tibetologists gathered for an evening at a dharma center. There is now talk of offering similar events at future conferences in locations where there is a dharma center nearby.
View video of Geshe Choekhortshang Rinpoche presenting his work.
Ligmincha Learning's Upcoming Courses
The Three Heart Mantras of Bon October 7, Sherap Chamma November 18
Ligmincha Learning is pleased to offer The Three Heart Mantras of Bon with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, October 7-November 12 and Sherap Chamma: Mother of Wisdom and Love, with Marcy Vaughn, November 18-December 3. These online courses feature beautiful video teachings, guided meditations, readings, journal writing activities, and the opportunity to interact with senior mentors and classmates from around the world.
October 7-November 12, 2022
The Three Heart Mantras of Bon with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
The Three Heart Mantras are used in many different meditations in the Bon tradition and play a major role in the ngondro (preliminary) practices. They are said to be the essence of enlightenment in sound and energy, and as we sing or chant the mantras our awareness is transformed to be in union with the Buddhas. They are used for purification, protection and as primary practices toward self-realization.
It is said that creating these mantras in any form brings merit and purification, so they are commonly found carved into stones, printed on prayer flags where they spread their benefits through the winds, and even drawn with gold ink and kept on shrines as an object of reverence and meditation. Their blessings are said to be endless. Also within this course Tenzin Rinpoche explains the essence of the guru yoga, refuge and bodhicitta practices, making this an excellent introduction to the tradition.
Learn more/register
November 18-December 3, 2022
Sherap Chamma: Mother of Wisdom and Love with Marcy Vaughn
In many cultures the primordial female energy is seen as the origin of existence and the source of all positive qualities. Sherap Chamma, Mother of Wisdom and Love, is the source of wisdom, and her medicine is love and compassion. The teachings of Sherap Chamma comprise one of the most important tantric cycles of the ancient Bon tradition.
In this online course, participants will learn a beautiful and simple meditation practice enabling each to directly connect with the divine feminine energy. Within the support of the group, we create an environment to promote profound healing of physical, energetic, emotional,and spiritual dimensions of life.
Learn more/register
Upcoming: Meditation, Breath and Movement, December 2-31, 2022
Learn more at ligminchalearning.com. (Find descriptions in the top menu under Courses.)
Wisdom and Compassion: Caring for Yourself While Caring for Others
The 3 Doors Compassion Project Begins October 19
On October 19, 2022, the Compassion Project will begin its seventh year. This nine-month immersive program led by 3 Doors senior teachers Marcy Vaughn and Gabriel Rocco will support participants to embody the practices and teachings of The 3 Doors in everyday life.
It takes courage and resourcefulness to navigate the practical, emotional and spiritual challenges of caring for others on an ongoing basis. Often, despite our best intentions, we find ourselves depleted and unable to be fully present to the people we care for. Without a way to tap into our inner resources, our own well-being may be at risk.
Since the early history of The 3 Doors, the teachers have aspired to meet the needs that surface for those who are serving others. In the warmth of community and the support of the 3 Doors practices, we can discover an inner refuge where we can be present to the impact of the challenges in our lives, our families and our communities and bring forth the gifts of an open heart.
Participants will learn to apply these practices to:
- Reduce stress and meet challenges with renewed energy.
- Bring self-compassion to feelings of overwhelm and burnout.
- Connect with oneself and others from a place of presence and compassion.
While the Compassion Project was originally developed for those in caregiving roles, it is open to all and can benefit anyone motivated by compassion. A study published last fall in the peer-reviewed journal Current Psychology reveals the measurable benefits of participating in The 3 Doors Compassion Project, showing significant incremental monthly improvements in participants' mindfulness, depression and stress. The findings also speak to a larger body of research showing the importance of frequency of meditation over a duration of time for positive, measurable outcomes.
Within the support of community, all who participate in the Compassion Project will discover how to open to their inner wisdom to make real personal transformations, enabling greater compassion for self and all those we touch.
For a full list of upcoming programs, visit The 3 Doors homepage.
Look to 2023 for Next GlideWing Online Workshops
Tibetan Meditation, The Nature of Mind Begins January 7
GlideWing is pleased to offer Tibetan Meditation: The Nature of Mind, Achieving Great Bliss Through Pure Awareness, a three-week online video workshop with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche from January 7-29, 2023. Participants will practice from their own homes, at their own schedule, with guidance from Rinpoche.
In this interactive course, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche guides you through five steps of a simple yet profound meditation practice. Each step permits you to progressively expand and deepen your state of conscious awareness, supporting you to let go of the conventional, ego-based identity that causes suffering and to discover and rest in your inner essence, the blissful reality of who you truly are.
Dawa Gyaltsen, an eighth century dzogchen meditation master, directly introduced his own students to the nature of mind through these five simple lines, known as the Fivefold Teachings:
- Vision is mind
- Mind is empty
- Emptiness is clear light
- Clear light is union
- Union is great bliss
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche devotes each primary session of his teaching videos to explaining one line in depth, and each session concludes with a guided meditation that helps to transport you directly to the intended state of consciousness described by that line.
Upcoming: The Truth That Sets You Free, February 11-March 5, 2023
Ongoing: Focusing and Calming Your Mind: The Tibetan Practice of Zhine, a free two-week self-guided online workshop
Learn more at glidewing.com
Dream Podcast Features Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and Students
Created and Produced for TED Far Flung Series
Last spring at Serenity Ridge, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and others from the spring retreat were interviewed about dreams and their power to transform. Saleem Reshamwala and Elyse Blennerhassett, who also attended the retreat, produced and broadcast their conversations on this podcast, Journey Into the Dreamworld. It was broadcast in early August on Far Flung with Saleem Reshamwala, a TED podcast series in which Reshamwala journeys across the globe in search of surprising and imaginative ideas.
This short description introduced what this podcast is about:
Where do you go when you sleep? An enchanted forest or haunted woods? Flying over a breathtaking mountaintop or in a crowd, wearing just your underwear?! According to the Bon Tibetan Buddhist tradition, wherever you go in your dreams matters, and dreams can tell you a lot about yourself if you know how to listen. From dream yoga to dream journals, to lucid dreaming, journey into a realm where the conscious and unconscious blend and the hazy border between reality and illusion can lead you on a wild adventure of self-discovery, without ever leaving your bed.
Listen to the 33-minute podcast
An Excerpt from an Interview with Tulku Ponse Yigme Tenzin
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Tulku Ponse Yigme Tenzin, August, 2022. Photo by Jitka Polanska.The following is an excerpt from an interview with Tulku Ponse Yigme Tenzin, recognized as the reincarnation of Lopon Sangye Tenzin, the teacher of Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche and the first Lopon of Menri Monastery in India. This interview by Jitka Polanska is from the August 2022 issue of Speech of Delight, Shenten Dargye Ling's online magazine.
It was Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche who indicated you as a tulku, right?
Yes. He arrived in Mexico in September 1996. I was born one month earlier. He stayed again at our house and told my parents that before coming he had dreams in which Lopon Sangye Tenzin, who was also his teacher, appeared to him dressed in Western clothing and told him he was going to reincarnate in the West. Later on he had more dreams which led him to think that his teacher would reincarnate in our family. At the same time my mother started to have unusual dreams as well. She practiced guru yoga a lot and got very connected to this practice.
Lopon Sangye Tenzin Rinpoche was the first lopon, or head teacher, of Menri Monastery in India. Born in 1917 into the Jyab Og family, an esteemed lineage within the Bon tradition, he lived his early years in the nomadic region of Hor, Tibet. He studied for many years in the Drepung Monastery of the Gelug tradition, as well as under masters of other schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He became an accomplished master of sutra, tantra and dzogchen. He lived a simple life, much of it in solitude, yet he was considered by many to be the greatest Bon scholar of his generation. Source: www.ligmincha.org
Tenzin Wangyal said to us that he informed Yongdzin Rinpoche and Menri Trizin about those dreams since they were the only authority which could confirm that the dreams were carrying an authentic message. They both were a bit skeptical about it because it did not make sense to them why Lopon Sangye would reincarnate in Mexico, instead of Nepal or India. But the dreams contained some convincing signs and so both Yongdzin Rinpoche and Menri Trizin started to look for signs themselves.
In February 1997, when I was six months old, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche organized a trip to Menri monastery, which my father joined. One day, when they were already in Menri, it was raining and my father found shelter on the porch of a building of the monastery. He did not know that the building was the house of His Holiness Menri Trizin. When it stopped raining, His Holiness came out and asked my father, "You are Jorge Valles, aren't you? I just came out of a three-day-long meditation where I was asking for signs, and you are the first person I met after I left, and you see, there is not one, but two rainbows in the sky, stretching from east to west." This is how my father tells the story. Also, His Holiness pointed out to a cuckoo sitting on a tree nearby, which is considered another auspicious sign.
Tulku Ponse Yigme Tenzin at the teaching of Khenchen Tenpa Yungdrung at Shenten Dargye Ling, August, 2022. Photo by Jitka Polanska.Do you think being a tulku has helped your development as a human being and as a practitioner?
Yes, I think so, although in some periods of my life I had my doubts about all these things, especially as a teenager. I was thinking, What do I want to be in the future? Being a tulku seems so much out of Western context, I would say. I felt that the responsibilities and expectations were sometimes heavy, I felt overwhelmed with all that pressure. People coming and telling their stories of how they have a good connection with me. Also, the assumption that I would become a teacher. The pressure was pushing me on the wrong side, putting a question in my head, what if I do not become good enough? But when I engaged more deeply with the teaching, with a good knowledge of Tibetan, I started really to appreciate the opportunity to absorb all that knowledge. This tradition has an incredible insight in epistemology, the way we know things, how thought works. I like the philosophical aspect of the doctrine very much. It is uniquely profound, and unknown largely in the West.
Is the institution of tulkus emphasized in the Yungdrung Bon tradition? My impression was it is less important in Bon than in other Tibetan schools.
It is only my opinion, I do not know much about it, but I think that the difference is that other Buddhist schools think that just by being born a tulku one has all the necessary favorable conditions, while Bon insists on the fact that you still have to create all the conditions. You have to study, you have to learn. You are a tulku by the name, but you have to earn it, to become it by heart. But I am not sure if this difference really exists. Being born as a tulku is a karmic seed that has to meet the necessary secondary conditions.
Learn more about Shenten Dargye Ling, a spiritual center dedicated to the Tibetan Yungdrung Bon tradition in Blou, France
Photos from Recent Summer Retreats in Europe
With Reflections of the Day in Many Languages!
Everyone loves when Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche travels to their community. It means so much, especially after the long gap of the past few years due to the worldwide pandemic. Here are some photos to enjoy from Rinpoche's recent summer retreats in Europe along with some of his Reflections of the Day. You can find these reflections on Rinpoche's Facebook page, along with their translations. Thank you to all the translators who are posting the translations!
In Buchenau, Germany, Rinpoche taught The Essence of the 21 Nails Practice Retreat, August 8-14, 2022.
Reflection of the Day
You can't have self-realization while clinging to the self. You can't have freedom from suffering while identifying with suffering.
Berlin, August 8, 2022
Rinpoche taught Tummo, Part 2 at Chamma Ling Poland, August 16-21, 2022
Reflection of the Day
Seeing and feeling the light in the present, the darkness of the past vanishes. When you can't see light in the future, it is the shadow of the past that obscures it.
Poland, August 12, 2022
Rinpoche traveled to Italy, visiting old friends at Merigar, the center established by Namkhai Norbu.
Reflection of the Day
The more you respect yourself, the less you will feel a need for respect from others.
Rome Airport, August 29, 2022
In Budapest, Hungary, Rinpoche taught a retreat on the Healing Practice of the 5 Elements, September 2-4, 2022
Reflection of the Day
It's simple, only when you know it's simple.
It's difficult, only when you think it's difficult.
Think less, know more.
Budapest, Hungary, September 6, 2022
Here are a few more of Rinpoche's Reflections of the Day while he was in Europe:
It is only when you acknowledge what you don't know that the door of knowledge opens for you.
Misfortune becomes fortune when you see it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Aggression is not power. True power comes from a deep connection to one's inner peace.
What you cannot change is not worth worrying about. What you can change is worth changing, not just wanting to change.
Life gives us what we are open to, and takes from us what we are closed to. Most of us are only open to what little we know, not to the great treasure of the unknown.
Don't stop expressing your love and affection for your family, even if you don't hear from them as often as you wish. Your expression is more important than their response.
Rinpoche on Facebook: Some of you may have seen my "reflection of the day" posts. Each day I'm trying to be aware of what is happening around me in my life, my family, and society at large. These experiences are like receiving a teaching. Those that seem particularly important for me or others, I have been essentializing as pith instructions. I try to share them here from a spacious, luminous, warm place in my heart. With each post, I pray: Whoever reads and reflects on these lines, may they benefit from them!
See more on Rinpoche's Facebook page
Student and Teacher
Together on the Path
During the recent annual summer retreat at Serenity Ridge, on the topic of The Seven Mirrors of Dzogchen, a student asked Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche to help with their understanding of why the symbol of the mirror is used.
Student: This is a basic question, but can you explain more about the use here of the symbol of the mirror?
TWR: A mirror allows whatever appears there. For instance, when you first get up in the morning and you go to the mirror, does the mirror get shocked by whatever appears? Is the mirror shaking, saying, "Oh my, is that you? What happened?" No, the mirror is peaceful, quiet, like Samantabhadra. Open, luminous, accommodating. That is the mirror.
And for all of us, our authentic self is like a mirror. For example, during practice when you are really resting, resting your pain identity, then you become like a mirror. Who is it that's resting? The one who is obscuring the mirror is resting. Therefore you become more like a mirror. What does that mean? It means at that moment, everything sounds okay, I'm not labeling anything. I'm not labeling anything as wrong, or identifying this or that as a problem. I'm not saying anything. I'm experiencing them, but I'm not labeling them.
The mirror here symbolizes the quality of spontaneous clarity. You come up to a mirror with your story of what is not nice about what appears in it. Whatever is not nice, though, is your story, it is not the story of the mirror. Clarity is the story of the mirror. The mirror is not obscuring what it is, it is clearly allowing to appear what is. You are obscuring by labeling what appears. The mirror simply allows to appear what is. That is the beauty of the mirror wisdom. But you are labeling what the mirror is not labeling. You might be saying, I don't look so good; that is your label; the mirror is not saying that, because that is not part of the appearance.
In dzogchen teachings, the mirror is one of the most important symbols of self-clear, of unobscured. Obscuring the mirror happens when the thought comes, when the emotion arises, and when you label; then mirror is getting obscured. Your authentic self is not able to experience what it is, rather it is experiencing what it is not. And that's why we say, in order to know who you are, it is best to recognize who you are not. That is because we normally engage more with who we are not, than with who we are. And you'll naturally have more chances to come to a realization about what you are more engaged with, rather than what you are less engaged with. Doing so, you can clearly realize that those are not you.
Rinpoche's book The Seven Mirrors of Dzogchen is available in the Ligmincha store.
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