“The Dudjom Tersar lineage is fresh, vivid, direct, and with no loss of meaning, words or blessing. These teachings, coming from Guru Rinpoche to Dudjom Rinpoche, and then to us, is a direct short lineage. Therefore, because this lineage is uncontaminated and knows no degeneration by broken samayas, the blessing and attainments are immediate”.   

~ Words of Lama Tharchin Rinpoche

Hearing a recording of Lama Tharchin’s introduction to the Ngondro of the Dudjom Tersar, and feeling the dedication and genuine wish of Lama Tharchin to share with all perhaps the greatest treasure of a human birth, was as kindling to me to take up the practice of the Dudjom Tersar Ngondro. 

From the beginning, the care and concern of the Lamas, facilitators and mentors of the Dudjom Tersar at Pema Osel Ling made it impossible to resist making a commitment to practice.  In so many ways, taking up the practice has felt continually easeful, never tedious or contrived, and always seems to open doors and clarify things in both inner and outer worlds, in inconceivable ways. 

Also from the beginning, an understanding has dawned that the Ngondro will never end, fortunately so, as it now serves every day to stabilize practice and give an orientation for every moment of life.

This past week, my wife Felicia and I had the precious opportunity to visit Pema Osel Ling, and take part in the long life ceremony of Yangsi Gyana Ta Rinpoche, whose previous incarnation helped to deeply root the Dudjom Tersar in the care of Lama Tharchen and Lama Sonam.  Thinley Norbu’s voice and devotion resound on the recorded sung verses of the Ngondro that is the brief daily practice, and that  turns attention directly towards the lineage of Guru Rinpoche and the Ngondro practice that brings us to union with his enlightened intent and benefit to our present world.

The Red Dorje Drolo Stupa Mandala at Pema Osel Ling is dedicated to Dorje Drolo, a “crazy wisdom” manfestation of Guru Rinpoche who vowed to guide and bless us during the intensity of our present world conditions.  The Stupa Mandala radiates peace, sanity and the ability to attain a stability in a chaotic world: the same soothing balm that comes from the Dudjom Tersar Concise Ngondro practice.

Testimonial by Charles Smith who finished his Dudjom Tersar Ngondro in the Fall of 2024

When I first began my ngondro right before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic I was planning on finishing within three years. I had assumed I was dedicated and focused enough to manage to practice at least a couple hours a day and finish within that time frame. Within a couple months, however, my initial burst of motivation had burned out. I was only accumulating a decent number of any of the sections in sporadic bursts, and even when I did sit down to practice (or stood up in the case of prostrations) it was not always the case that I was focused, or that I really meant all of the words I was reciting in the liturgy. There was certainly a part of me that really did, and actually considered the Vajrayana path the most important part of my life, but at the same time my time and attention was caught up in a dozen other parts of my life.

Part of the issue was that my initial connection with the dharma was more on the intellectual and emotional side of things. I would spend time studying and carefully considering everything I was reading, but that activity was not necessarily closely integrated with how I would spend my time on a daily basis. That is not to say I would treat people poorly, behave in overtly self-destructive ways, or that whatever connection I felt with the Dharma was “just words”, but rather that most of my time was still spent on relatively pointless activities. It was easy to waste away endless hours on cheap entertainment and distractions, or even at work, but somehow it was much harder to sustain even a couple hours of focused Dharma practice each day.

In many ways it was a question of renunciation and refuge. If I felt lonely, dissatisfied, disoriented or confused, if things did not go the way I wanted them to or I was dealing with pain and exhaustion, how would I orient myself towards those difficulties? Where would I look to find some kind of relief? To what extent did I still think that pursuing wealth, entertainment, romance, or worldly success would bring lasting satisfaction to the restless desire and dissatisfaction that drove me on a daily basis? That is not to say that these things have absolutely no value or are strictly “bad”, but what portion of the desire and motivation I felt on a daily basis, and perhaps more importantly what portion of the time and effort I would expend on a daily basis, was directed towards worldly goals (both large and small) as opposed to the Dharma? And if I told myself that I had chosen to follow the Vajrayana path, and that all these things could be carried onto that path, to what extent was I actually doing that?

More often than not when I sat down to practice in the morning I was already anticipating everything else I wanted or needed to do during the rest of the day, or recalling the events of the previous day, and the session would become a tug-of-war between ngondro and whatever else was drawing my attention away. Even when I was more focused, it was still far too easy for something as profound as the recollection of the Four Thoughts at the beginning of a session to become merely another habit. Like entering into a room I had seen a thousand times before, I did not look very closely but instead simply skimmed across the surface of the meaning of the words.

As much as all of this may sound relatively self-critical, I really do not mean any of this in a harsh or self-deprecating way. Working my way through all of this, to whatever extent I have managed to begin that process, has been important and necessary. I was not born with my life and daily habits already structured in a way that was integrated with Dharma practice. I did not even grow up with a close connection with any Buddhists, nor did I really know (or seek out) any other Buddhists for the first five or so years after beginning to connect with the Dharma. I simply grew up around other members of my generation and developed my daily habits along the same lines as most everyone else in modern secular America. The inertia of all of those habits was not something that easily dissipated simply because I chose to begin practicing ngondro, and transforming those habits is something that takes time and effort.

Fortunately, even if there was something habitual and repetitive about the manner in which I engaged with ngondro most of the time, even just skimming across the surface of the meaning of each section each day would keep everything close to the surface of my mind. At times the significance of one or another of the sections of the ngondro would hit me in a much more meaningful way, but often that was not actually during sitting practice but rather while just driving to work or going about my daily activities. However, as time went on those moments became more and more frequent, and most importantly they began to become more integrated with my baseline state of mind and daily habits.

After a couple years of sporadic practice I reached the point where I had finally become relatively consistent in my practice, and beyond that I was becoming increasingly exhausted by the parts of my life that consumed my time but meant relatively little to me. I was not in a place in life where it would make sense to engage in a full-time retreat, but at the very least I could take finishing my ngondro seriously.

Around the same time Pema Osel Ling began to open up again after the first couple years of COVID restrictions, so I was able to go to the yearly ngondro retreat for the first time. That time I just stayed for the first weekend, but the year after that I stayed for the full retreat and really enjoyed my time there. In many ways the value of going to the retreat, at least for me, had more to do with beginning to form a connection with the community at Pema Osel Ling than clarifying the practice in a more technical sense. The Dudjom Ngondro Program has plenty of resources available to help make all of the details of the practice clear and easy to follow, there are many wonderful ngondro commentaries in publication at this point, and I had already been practicing for a couple years before I first went. However, in the Vajrayana so much depends upon human relationships, and there really isn’t a substitute for connecting with others in-person. Everyone there was extremely welcoming and helpful, and I really had the sense that it was a community that could support me not just for ngondro, but for however far along the Vajrayana path I was able to travel in this life.

During those last couple years I managed to push through and finally finish my ngondro. In the end one of the main benefits was simply learning how to carve out space in my life for practice, and cultivating the motivation that drove that process. On many levels I still feel like I am just beginning to work on all of the foundational aspects of the path laid out in the ngondro, on renunciation and refuge, on Bodhicitta and generosity, on maintaining stable mindfulness in practice and life, and all the rest. But in many ways these “basics” are both the foundation and the final aim in the Vajrayana, and everything I aimed to cultivate in the ngondro will remain a central focus of my practice and life going forwards.

Following below is a page from the Lotus Light Newsletter from 1997 with testimonials from the the first three drupta graduates: Marc Schmitz, Stefan Graves and Marc Nyima Olmstead Lotus Light was an early printed newsletter publication for the Vajrayana Foundation. It was published quarterly and mailed by USPS to everyone on the mailing list, member and non-member alike.

Drub Nyiy Döjö Gatsal Three-Year Retreat “The Joyful Grove that Provides Both Kinds of Accomplishments”

Drub Nyiy Döjö Gatsal is a three year retreat center in the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, specifically in the Dudjom Tersar Lineage. It was was established by Lama Tharchin Rinpoche in 1992 as part of a far reaching vision to bring the study and practice of the Dharma in its entirety to the West, where he taught and continuously, oversaw many three year retreats, until his Parinirvana in 2013.  JOINING THE NEXT RETREAT The Vajrayana Foundation is now accepting applicants for the next three year  retreat, which will begin after Tibetan New Year in early 2024. If you have been contemplating taking a leap with your practice and if this long-term traditional group retreat setting resonates with you, please write a preliminary letter of intent using the questions asked in the Preliminary Motivation Letter as a guideline and email it to drubdra@vajrayana.org. We have begun the process of reviewing applications and look forward to hearing from you.

by Esther Oswald

As a Ngondro practitioner I highly recommend attending the Vajrayana Foundation’s Ngondro Retreat. Since I started my Ngondro practice at the end of 2019, I have been attending this retreat every year, initially online during the pandemic and last year and this year in person. Whilst participating in this retreat online has certainly great benefits, for me it made a huge difference to attend this retreat in person. Being at POL, connecting with the Lamas and the Sangha is a powerful experience. What comes to mind when I think about my experiences in the Shrine Room is that it is a truly magical place. Practicing in the Shrine Room felt so much more powerful than my practice at home. The blessings of Guru Rinpoche are palpable. If you’ve ever wondered what teachers and practitioners are talking about when they describe their experience of suddenly becoming tearful without knowing why or a specific reason, then all you’d need to do is come to Pema Osel Ling and practice in the Shrine Room! During my time at Pema Osel Ling, I felt such a connection with the Lamas, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, which has truly supercharged my practice again, and provided lots of inspiration and motivation to keep focused on the path. I also greatly benefitted from my personal interview with Tulku Thadral Rinpoche and from connecting with Amy and Ivan again and to tap into their wealth of experience and knowledge, which they (in addition to their wonderful teachings) were always so generous to share with us in between sessions as well, during breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. A big thank you also to Regina and Stefan for their super helpful accumulation sessions. The “less talking, more doing” mantra has definitely been ingrained in my mind stream!

Finally, I would also like to send my heartfelt gratitude to everyone at Pema Osel Ling who organized, participated, helped and shared this experience with me. I always learn so much by just being able to connect, hear about your path and to be able to bombard you with lots of questions.

May all beings benefit!

Esther is currently in our Dudjom Tersar Ngondro Program.

I was in my mid-forties when my husband, our two very spirited children, moved to California from Ohio. It was a difficult move which left me upended on several fronts. During this turbulent time, I was given a book which addressed the meaning of life and the main tenants of Buddhist thought. It was so sensible and logical: there was nothing about, “having to take the teachings on faith”, which I heard many times in my Christian upbringing. Buddhism opened my mind to the vastness and beauty of a reality that I had no idea existed, and yet, was accessible. This gave me a path to follow in a difficult time.

Soon after I found a sangha and a teacher and became dedicated to pursuing the Dharma. As I progress on the path I started Ngondro. What an undertaking! My kids were needing more attention and between them, and a full time job, life was becoming more complicated. Even thought I set aside time in the morning for practice, it was rather hit or miss. Yet, reading the Ngondro liturgy and explanations on how to practice, gave me comfort and confidence in my life, and the hope, that one day I’d figure it out how to get more practice time in.

I was able to attend retreats over the years, which were so inspiring. I had the opportunity to receive teachings from some of the greatest masters alive. This gave me such an appreciation for the wisdom that has been preserved, and the hard work that was done by the lamas and lineage masters, for our benefit.

Then one day I “woke up” to find that I was 68 years old and realized I really had been just fooling around in my practice. Because of a serious situation in my sangha, my practice had become quite disrupted. I found myself a bit lost in the wilderness. Additionally, I had become more involved in the mundane world because of more demands at work. Despondency temporarily overcame me, when I realized by adding up, how much more I had to do to complete my Ngondro.

Soon after that, I went to a weekend teaching at Pema Osel Ling and found out about their Ngondro Program. I had heard a few online teachings from Lama Sonam Rinpoche and about 3 weeks later got to meet him at a Treasure Vase consecration. I was enamored by his joyful and humble presence and thought to myself, “this is the Lama for me.”

Because of Lama Sonam Rinpoche’s perfect teachings, the support of my mentor, and the Ngondro Program staff, and the monthly online accumulation meetings, I was able to create and maintain the disciplined practice I had been hoping for. Finally, at the age of 72, I completed all my accumulations. So, it’s never too late to invest in present and future lifetimes!

One bit of advice – try not to be intimidated by prostrations. 

I was truly astounded by the flexibility and strength I acquired, and not spiritually. As Rinpoche said to a young frustrated student, during on of online Question and Answer sessions, “They’re better than plastic surgery.”

Thank you a million times over to Lama Sonam Rinpoche and the Ngondro Program (Regina, Stefan and Sonam) for sharing the teachings and your support and experience with this wonderful community of Ngondro practitioners that you have created.

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Though I am far from alone in having what I experience as a meandering and questioning path in life, I cannot understate the benefits of making efforts toward- as Lama Sonam says it- practicing nicely. Ngöndro is transformative and so real, though I am most definitely the least among the many examples of the miracle of experiencing the gifts of the Dudjom Tersar lineage in this life. I strive to never forget that I have so much to learn, and so much to grow on. The difference is that, with steady practice, all of this remains true for me – thinking, feeling, exploring, questioning – within the invitation to devotion, to staying committed to doing what we are taught.

I’m reinstating my formal engagement with the program after taking a break to think about some things. Thank you, everyone for the opportunity to do so.