Thinley Norbu Rinpoche

Ngondro Online Retreat with Lama Sonam Tsering and Sam Bercholz

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

April 4-5 with Sam Bercholz
April 6-12 with Lama Sonam Tsering

The first weekend will feature teachings by Sam Bercholz, senior student of Dungse Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, who personally authorized him to teach. Sam has called the weekend, Meditation and the Development of Faith: Essential Teachings from H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche and Thinley Norbu Rinpoche. The weekend will be a combination of teachings from Dungse Rinpoche’s The Cascading Waterfall Of Nectar and also Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche’s teachings on meditation, The Play of Thought. Sam requests that each participant have a copy of The Cascading Waterfall of Nectar, available at Dharma Treasures. The Play of Thought can be downloaded for free here.

Sam has said, “The Play of Thought by Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche is one of the best teachings you can study to help stabilize your mind. It is an important aspect of dharma that sometimes is easily forgotten, especially for Ngondro and Vajrayana practice. It gives a necessary foundation for preliminary practices and advanced practices alike.”

The two days with Sam will also include teachings and practice on Shinay (calm abiding) and Lhakthong (penetrating insight) meditation. Participants will be able to submit questions that Sam will answer during one of the sessions on the second day. Sam is also giving participants the opportunity for a personal interview by Facetime or Zoom for up to one week after the teachings.

The retreat will continue with Lama Sonam Tsering Rinpoche, who will teach on “How Ngondro Can Support You in This Difficult Time”. Lama Sonam will give a series of one-hour teachings each day from April 6-12.

To receive the links for streaming, please make your offering through PayPal according to your circumstances. All donations will cover not only the cost of streaming, but will help support the ongoing expenses of Pema Osel Ling. If you are not able to offer at one of the suggested levels, please contact office@vajrayana.org. The links are not currently posted; please mark the URL (web address) of the page PayPal directs you to; we will also send the links to all participants in the days before the event. Thanks for your patience, Vajrayana Foundation

The recorded teachings will be available for at least one month after the conclusion of the weekend, so participants can review or access the teachings at their convenience.

Advice on What to do Before Beginning Daily Meditation

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

Before we begin our daily meditation, we should clean our room and prepare our altar by cleaning it and making offerings. If we have no altar, we do not need to worry, we can simply visualize Padmasambhava in front of us.

The seven offering bowls which are offered on the altar symbolize the seven offerings:
🔸Water for drinking,
🔸Water for washing hands and feet,
🔸Flowers for adorning the head or hair,
🔸Incense for smelling to please the nose,
🔸Lamp for seeing to please the eyes,
🔸Perfumed water to sprinkle on the body, to refresh it, and
🔸Food to please the taste.
Music to please the ears can be an eighth offering.

The offerings which we make on the altar are symbolic. In our minds, we offer all pleasant things that we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel. We offer the light of the sun and the moon, all fresh flowers, all pleasing smells, all delicious food, and so forth, everything wonderful. Since these offerings are made to the Three Jewels and the Three Roots, who do not have any greed or desire for these offerings, they are made for the benefit of all sentient beings. After we have prepared our room and our altar, we begin our meditation with the common outer practice which is the four thoughts to turn the mind.

These are:
🔸The preciousness of human birth,
🔸 Impermanence and death,
🔸the cause and effect of karma, and
🔸The suffering of saṃsāra.
By meditating on these four thoughts, the mind is subdued and one is led to renounce saṃsāra.

Then we do the extraordinary inner preparation, which is the preliminary practice. Within the Ngondro, there are:
🔸going for refuge,
🔸generating Bodhicitta,
🔸Vajrasattva purification,
🔸maṇḍala offering,
🔸and the prayer of Guru Yoga

Thinley Norbu
Small Golden Key
Translated by Lisa Anderson
Shambala ©️2012

Manifestations of Orgyen Padma Jungne

~ DudjomTersarNgondro

Guru Rinpoche -471x600

Padma Jungne is one of the names of Guru Rinpoche, as are Padmakara and Padmasambhava. Some people acknowledge Padmasambhava, who cannot be denied because of historical accounts, but not Guru Rinpoche, which is due to sectarian jealousy. Also, at the time of Padmasambhava, the garments worn by Padmasambhava were those of scholars and monks. Sometimes intellectual scholars and learned ones who are still attached about material aspects of form think that Padma Jungne, who does not wear these same garments, is different from Padmasambhava. Historically, at the time when Buddhism flourished in Tibet with enlightened beings such as Guru Rinpoche and Vimalamitra, some scholars in Indian institutes became jealous and spread much slander in order to cause disturbance by claiming these enlightened beings were not actual saints but phony siddhas, attempting to prevent Vajrayana teachings from flourishing in Tibet. However, in the general Mahayana, and especially in the Vajrayana, the state of enlightenment is the Three Kayas: the Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya. Sambhogakaya is always abiding in pure Akanishtha Heaven, the state of fully enlightened Buddhas’ phenomena. From that state, in order to benefit beings with many varieties of faculties, Nirmanakaya manifests. The meaning of Nirmanakaya is that there is no reality of birth or death because mind is only wisdom, but Nirmanakaya’s aspect can reflect anything according to beings’ impure and pure phenomena in order to guide them. So, the aspect of manifestation can reflect anything according to various beings’ faculties. There is not an iota of contradiction about the infinite aspects of sublime beings for those who believe in the Mahayana or the Vajrayana; these aspects are just one’s choice. Those who follow Guru Rinpoche’s teachings pray to Guru Rinpoche with many different names, such as the names given in the Eight Manifestations and in the Barche Lamsel prayer, including Pema Jungne, Tsokye Dorje, and Sangchen Dorje Drakpo Tsal. There are many more manifestations and special names beyond these. Countless manifestations logically exist according to even ordinary beings’ phenomena, so different aspects cannot be denied or prevented.

~ Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
A Cascading Waterfall of Nectar
Shambhala Publications
Footnote #51