Rigdzin Dupa - The Gathering of Vidyadharas: This 6-week course examines this key text from Jigme Lingpa's terma, Longchen Nyingtik. The text includes commentaries from several authors that address the sadhana, the empowerment, and other details of practice. The course will focus primarily on the translation of the sadhana in the text as well as an Ati Yoga version based on the text. "Jigme Lingpa writes that this text is entitled Rigdzin Dupa, the Gathering of Vidyadharas, because all the deitites of the six yogas and the vidyadharas--fully accomplished adepts--of India and Tibet are present in it as guests". The steps in the practice are:
1) Introduction to the true nature of mind - the sky-like awareness (rigpa), free from fixation
2) Let the mandala arise as the natural radiance of the awareness through meditations on (a) emptiness essence, (b) seed syllables, (c) forms of the deities, and (d)the vajra syllables of the deities
3) Meditate on approaching the deity by seeing, hearing, and feeling their forms, sounds, and dharmakaya; radiation and absorption
4) Meditate on realizing the accomplishments by focusing on the mantra garland that merges into wisdom--union of bliss and emptiness
5) Dissolve the mandala into the great wisdom free from concepts, the indivisibility of awareness and emptiness; remaining in it, as it is.
Text: The Gathering of Vidyadharas, trans. Gyurme Avertin
Prerequisite: Rigzin Dupa empowerment (or other Highest Yoga Tantra empowerment)
Videos: Khenpo Drimed Dawa (Khenpo Dean)
- Teacher: Khenpo Drimed Dawa
Vajrayogini is a highest yoga tantra deity practice of Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism. She is a female Buddha who is the essence of all the Buddhas. In these practices, we visualize or imagine ourselves as the deity as a means of training our mind to become a fully realized Buddha. Such a practice is said to be faster than other forms of meditative practices. And, according to scholar Miranda Shaw, Vajrayogini is "inarguably the supreme deity of the Tantric pantheon. No male Buddha…approaches her in metaphysical or practical import." Vajrayogini is also a significant figure in some of the completion-stage practices of Vajrayana, such as the Six Yogas (or Dharmas) of Naropa.
Participants should either have received a Vajrayogini empowerment (in one of her variety of forms), or at least some other form of highest yoga empowerment. We will be using the book Vajrayogini: Her Visualizations, Rituals, and Forms by Elizabeth English as the main text for this course (8 weeks). The fee is $80. We recommend that you register online in our eCollege in order to access handouts or watch the videos if you miss a class or would like further review of the course content.
- Teacher: Khenpo Drimed Dawa
The Kalachakra Tantra Part 1 -
Kalachakra is one of the most complex systems within tantric Buddhism. The Kalachakra tradition revolves around the concept of time and cycles. From the cycles of the planets to the cycles of human breathing, it teaches the practice of working with the most subtle energies within one's body on the path to enlightenment.
Since Kalachakra is time and everything is under the influence of time, Kalachakra knows all. Kalachakri, his spiritual consort and complement, is aware of everything that is timeless, not time-bound or out of the realm of time. In Yab-Yum, they are temporality and a-temporality conjoined. Similarly, the wheel is without beginning or end.
The Kalachakra deity resides in the center of the mandala in his palace consisting of four mandalas, one within the other: the mandalas of body, speech, and mind, and in the very center, wisdom and great bliss. The Kalachakra sand mandala is dedicated to both individual and world peace and physical balance. The Dalai Lama explains: “It is a way of planting a seed, and the seed will have karmic effect. One doesn’t need to be present at the Kalachakra ceremony in order to receive its benefits.”
This class will examine the tantra and commentaries, along with practice text(s).
Prerequisites: Generation and Completion Stage study and practice.
Texts: Ornament of Stainless Light: An Exposition of the Kalacakra Tantra by Khendrup Norsang Gyatso (OSL)
- Teacher: Khenpo Drimed Dawa
Kalachakra Tantra Part 2 continues the study of Kalachakra.
Kalachakra is one of the most complex systems within tantric Buddhism. The Kalachakra tradition revolves around the concept of time and cycles. From the cycles of the planets to the cycles of human breathing, it teaches the practice of working with the most subtle energies within one's body on the path to enlightenment.
Since Kalachakra is time and everything is under the influence of time, Kalachakra knows all. Vishvamati, his spiritual consort and complement, is aware of everything that is timeless, not time-bound or out of the realm of time. In Yab-Yum, they are temporality and a-temporality conjoined. Similarly, the wheel is without beginning or end.
The Kalachakra deity resides in the center of the mandala in his palace consisting of four mandalas, one within the other: the mandalas of body, speech, and mind, and in the very center, wisdom and great bliss. The Kalachakra sand mandala is dedicated to both individual and world peace and physical balance. The Dalai Lama explains: “It is a way of planting a seed, and the seed will have karmic effect. One doesn’t need to be present at the Kalachakra ceremony in order to receive its benefits.”
This class will examine the tantra and commentaries, along with practice text(s).
Prerequisites: Kalachakra Tantra Part 1.
Texts: Ornament of Stainless Light: An Exposition of the Kalacakra Tantra by Khendrup Norsang Gyatso (OSL)
- Teacher: Khenpo Drimed Dawa