GSTDL 2015 Newsletter - Gaden Shartse Thubten Dhargye Ling

May 29, 2016
GADEN SHARTSE
THUBTEN DHARGYE LING
2015: THE YEAR IN REVIEW (TIBETAN YEAR 2142)
GESHE TSULTIM GYELTSEN'S
PASSING INTO PARINIRVANA
Saturday, February 13, 2015
In an evening ceremony, at the GSTDL monastery, in Long Beach,
California, the monks and community of Tibetan Buddhist
students held a special Tsog Puja ceremony in honor of the sixth
anniversary of Geshe Tsultrim Gyaltsen's passing into parinirvana.
Geshe Gyeltsen was the original founder of Thubten Dhargye
Ling, a center for the study of Tibetan Buddhism and culture. This
center was named Thubten Dhargye Ling (Land of Flourishing
Buddha) by H.H. Dalai Lama, and initially located in Los Angeles,
California. Geshe-la first started teaching students here in 1978.
Geshe Tsultrim Gyeltsen was born in the Kham region of Tibet.
He entered monastic life in his local monastery, at the age of seven.
When he was 16 years old, he joined the Shartse College of
Ganden Monastery, in Lhasa, Tibet. In 1959, Geshe-la followed
H.H. Dalai Lama to India, where he completed his studies earning
the Lharampa Geshe degree.
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His reincarnation, Tulku Tenzin Thardoe, has been recognized by
His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Tenzin Thardoe was born July 5,
2011, in Mundgod, in the same Tibetan settlement where Gaden
Shartse Monastery is located in South India. He has been formally
admitted to the Monastery and has started his formal monastic
education. He is also a student at a private English preparatory
school.
LOSAR ( ལོ་གསར)
Tuesday, February 19, 2015
In the early morning hours, many people gathered at the GSTDL
monastery to celebrate Tibetan New Year (Tibetan year 2142), Year
of the Female Wood Sheep. Inside the Gompa, under the warm
glow of the "butter lamps," everyone participated in the chanting
of traditional New Year morning prayers. After the chanting,
celebrants were served the eagerly awaited Tibetan butter tea,
sweet rice, and a small bag of elegantly handcrafted holiday breads.
Due to time constraints of contemporary American life, some
people scurried off to work or school, though many in the group
moved on to the residence area of the monastery and enjoyed a
light breakfast.
LATI RINPOCHE'S PASSING
INTO PARINIRVANA
Sunday, April 12, 2015 12:00PM
Immediately after The Sunday teaching, under the guidance of
Khensur Rinpoche, the GSTDL monks and community held a
special Tsog Puja to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Lati
Rinpoche's passing into parinirvana. Lati Rinpoche was a Tibetan
master of the highest rank, and Abbot Emeritus of Shartse College
of Ganden monastery in Mungod, South India. Lati Rinpoche was
born in the Kham region of Tibet, in 1922. When he was very
young, he entered Ganden monastery in Lhasa, Tibet. Upon
completion of his studies, he earned the Lharampa Geshe degree,
and then attended the Tantric College of Upper Lhasa. He was
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Geshe Tsultrim Gyaltson's teacher and close friend. Lati Rinpoche
gave initiations, and taught many times, at Thubten Dhargye Ling.
It has been announced that his reincarnation was identified in
Nepal, however, details have not been made public, at this time.
FAREWELL CELEBRATION
Sunday, April 19, 2015
From R to L: Geshe Tenzin Tsether, Khensur
Rinpoche Dakpa Tenzin, Venerable Lobzang Namgial,
Geshe Jampa Lobsang
The GSTDL community hosted a celebration, in order to
acknowledge the two years of dedicated service by our resident
teacher Khensur Rinpoche and his supporting staff (Geshe Tenzin
Tsether, Geshe Jampa Lobsang, Venerable Lobsang Namgyal,
Venerable Jangchup Tharchin) and to show their appreciation for
the excellent work this group of monks had done. Geshe Tsether,
our expert manager director remained at the monastery to provide
continuity in the monastic administration, and to provide a
seamless transition for the incoming group of monks and GSTDL
students. Khensur Rinpoche, Geshe Lobsang, and Venerable
Lobsang headed back to their monastery of Gaden Shartse, in
Mundgod, South India.
ADVANCE PARTY OF MONKS
ARRIVES AT THE GSTDL
MONASTERY
Tuesday, May 5th, 2015 3:00PM
An advance party of two monks, Geshe Lobsang Gyaltsen and
Venerable Thubten Gyaltsen arrived at Ganden Shartse Thubten
Dhargye Ling monastery. They came from their home monastery
Ganden Shartse, in Mungod, South India, to replace the group of
monks which had headed back to India. This is the second tour of
duty, at GSTDL, for these monks.
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VENERABLE GESHE
PHUNTSOK GYALTSEN
RETURNS TO GSTDL
Tuesday, June 2, 2015 10:30AM
A small group of ten highly motivated students navigated their way
through early morning Los Angeles traffic, in order to extend a
warm welcome to the next resident master teacher of Ganden
Shartse Thubten Dhargye Ling, Geshe Phuntsok Gyaltsen. Geshela was returning to GSTDL for his second tour of duty. After
greetings and blessings at LAX, everyone drove back to the
monastery in Long Beach where Geshe Phuntsok performed a
brief prayer ceremony.
SAGA DAWA ( ས་ག་zl་བ་)
Tuesday, June2, 2015
In an evening ceremony, the monks and students of Ganden
Shartse Thubten Dhargye Ling celebrated Saga Dawa with a
special Tsog Puja.
Saga Dawa is one of the four major holidays and the single most
important month in the Tibetan Buddhist calendar. Saga Dawa
commemorates Shakyamuni Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and
parinirvana. Shakyamuni Buddha was born in the Limbini area of
(present day) Southern Nepal, enlightened in Bodh Gaya, India,
and entered parinirvana in Kushinagara, India.
Saga Dawa is called the month of merits, as it is thought that any
merit, either positive or negative generated during the month will
be multiplied by a factor of millions. The Tibetan yearly calendar
consists of 12 lunar months. A Tibetan lunar month begins and
ends with a full moon. The full moon day in the middle of the
fourth lunar month is Saga Dawa. "Saga" is the name of the most
prominent star in the sky, during the fourth month, and "Dawa"
means month in Tibetan.
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TENZIN GYATSO, H.H. the 14th
DALAI LAMA OF TIBET IN
ORANGE COUNTY
In honor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, monks from Namgyal
monastery, in Dharamsala, India, created a Chenresig mandala, at
the Phineas Banning house on the UC Irvine campus. The monks
worked for nine days and almost 115 hours constructing the
mandala. This mandala represented the abode of the
enlightened being Chenresig(Tibetan) or
Avalokitishvara(Sanskrit). Tenzin Gyatso, the
14th Dalai Lama of Tibet is considered to be
an emanation of this Buddha of Compassion.
The mandala was completed on July 2nd,
consecrated and presented to HHDL on July
7th, at 10:00AM. It was dismantled later in
the month and the sand was dispersed into
the waters of the Pacific Ocean, on July 29th,
at Corona Del Mar State Beach, near the UCI
campus.
HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI
LAMA AT THE HONDA
CENTER IN ANAHEIM,
CALIFORNIA
Sunday, July 5th, 2015
On this day, His Holiness celebrated his 80th birthday, before an
audience of 18,000 people, at the Honda Center, in Anaheim,
California, and kicked off the first day of a three day "Global
Compassion Summit." The three day summit was designed with
the intention of inspiring compassionate action within His
Holiness' diverse global audience, as well as to celebrate HHDL
lifetime devotion to spreading the message on the value of peace,
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kindness, and universal compassion throughout the world, and to
spark discussion on the roll of compassion in the arts, the
environment, and youth leadership. HHDL spoke to the audience,
and then engaged professional musicians, artists, academics, actors,
and comedians, in discussion on "Awakening Compassion: the
Transformative Power of Creativity and Art." When asked why he
was so motivated to share compassion, especially at a time when
other people would be taking it easy, he said, "It is because this is
my only profession. As a Buddhist practitioner and student of the
Nalanda masters, I have learned about how the mind and emotions
work, and it seems that due to this experience, I can be of service
to other human beings. Everyday, I pray for the welfare of all
mother sentient beings. If I were to pray and do nothing, it would
just be hypocrisy." His one birthday wish was: Compassion for All.
H.H. DALAI LAMA AT THE UCI
BREN EVENTS CENTER
Monday, July 6, 9:30AM to 11:30AM
Today, during the morning session there was dialogue and
discussion between His Holiness and a panel of experts with a
focus on a "Compassionate Planet: The Effects of Climate Change
and Taking Action to Resolve this Global Issue." Climate scientists
presented the conclusions of their lifetime of work on climate
change: global warming is real, it is not an intractable problem,
humans are responsible, methods and resources exist to fix the
climate change problem, and immediate action is necessary. The
scientists suggested the key is to compel the top one billion
humans (out of the almost seven billion people on the planet) the
people who have the methods and resources to resolve the
problem, to act out of compassion, for all beings on the planet, and
to fix the global warming problem so as to prevent the
immeasurable suffering which will result, if the process of global
warming is not halted. The scientists thought we need to
effectively communicate the Dalai Lama's message of universal
compassion to world leaders, as the solution to the problem will
require action on the part of world leaders.
At the end of the discussion, the scientists presented HHDL with
a placard acknowledging that a new species of marine life had been
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named for him. The centipede looking creature lives deep within
the ocean waters, far beyond the reaches of the sunlight, and is
unique in that it gives back more to the environment than it takes
in. The name of the new species is "Sirsoe dalailamai."
Monday, July 6, 2015
In the afternoon session, the moderator engaged His Holiness and
a panel of Nobel Laureates in dialogue and discussion with a focus
on the topics of "Wisdom, Vision, and Experience." When asked
what his thoughts were on these topics, he said experience comes
first, then, when combined with human intelligence wisdom
results, and from wisdom comes vision. Since there are many
different traditions with many different meanings and beliefs about
wisdom, he said what we need is to "develop a sense of oneness
among the 7 billion humans on the planet...our beliefs are on a
secondary level...we need to think interns of the more fundamental
level...at the level of being a human being. Normal human beings
can easily communicate as human beings." He said we can combine
our human experience and intelligence to investigate what reality
is, and then by doing this investigation, we can develop realistic,
long term interests which we call Wisdom. It is from this type of
wisdom that vision comes, e.g., a peaceful, compassionate world.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
The topic for dialogue with His Holiness and the panel discussion
with youth leaders was "Youth leadership and The Significance of
Education in Advancing Universal Human Values." It was
concluded that education for 21st century youth should include
education of one's inner world, with the cultivation of such values
as peace, kindness, and ethics. One effort to achieve this goal is a
privately endowed scholarship program which was established, in
2004, at the University of California at Irvine, after the Dalai
Lama's first visit to the UCI campus. Under this scholarship
program, UCI students develop projects concerned with Peace,
Compassion, or ethics, and find real world applications for their
projects. UCI is also now offering courses in Peace, Compassion,
and Ethics and it is expected that 7,000 to 8,000 students will
enroll in these classes each year. In addition to the Dalai Lama
Scholarship program, at UCI, a Dalai Lama Fellows program which
is based in San Francisco has also been established within the last
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five years. To date, there are over 100 Dalai Lama scholars and
fellows working throughout the world.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
HHDL, speaking in Tibetan, spoke to the American Tibetan
community.
CHOKHOR DUCHEN
(ཆོས་ལཁོར་duས་ཆེན)
Monday, July 20, 2015
The Gaden Shartse Thubten Dhargye Ling community held a
special Tsog Puja to commemorate the first turning of the wheel of
Dharma.
There are different temporal or topical classification systems by
which the Buddha's teachings can be organized, but according to
Tsongkapa, The Wheel Of Dharma Sutra, in which Buddha taught
his five original students the Four Noble Truths three times, is the
actual first turning of the wheel of dharma. Chokhor Duchen is a
holiday in celebration of the first turning of the wheel of dharma.
It is one of the four major holidays in the Tibetan Buddhist
calendar, and is celebrated on the fourth day of the sixth month. It
is thought that any merit, either positive or negative, accumulated
on that day, will be multiplied by a factor of millions.
After attaining enlightenment, at the age of 35, in Bodh Gya, India,
Shakyamuni Buddha went to the Dear Park, on Vulture's Peak, in
Saranath, India and taught his students the Four Noble Truths.
Four Noble Truths
1 The truth of suffering
2 The truth of the causes of suffering
3 The truth of the cessation of suffering
4 The truth of the path
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YAMANTAKA (rd/་rj1་འཇིགས་byེད་) SELF
INITIATION
Sunday, July 26, 2015
A Yamantaka Self Initiation was held at the GSTDL monastery.
Prerequisites for participation were a Yamantaka initiation,
commentary, and Yamantaka retreat with fire Puja, all by a
qualified master.
YAMANTAKA (rd/་rj1་འཇིགས་byེད་)
SOLITARY HERO RETREAT
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Today, in the early morning hours, a
small group of ten highly motivated
individuals arrived at the GSTDL
monastery, in order to undertake a
three week, Solitary Hero Yamantaka
retreat. Prerequisites for the retreat
were: a Yamantaka initiation and
commentary by a qualified master. The
retreat was presided over by Geshe Phuntsok Gyaltsen and
administered by the resident monks, Geshe Tsether, Geshe
Lobsang, and Venerable Thubten. This was a hugely successful
event and all participants were most grateful and appreciative for
all the hard work and guidance by our monks which facilitated a
very meaningful experience for all in attendance. All participants
completed the retreat and each received an official certificate of
competition of the three week retreat.
FIRE PUJA
Monday, August 17, 2015
Today marked the conclusion of the Yamantaka Solitary Hero
retreat, and as per requirements, a traditional fire Puja was
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performed. The fire Puja was done at the home of one of the long
time students of GSTDL. In the front yard there is a gigantic
Bodhi tree which was planted there more than 15 years ago. After
the fire Puja, as the retreatants left, they were treated to the sight
of a yellow water lily which had bloomed just that morning. After
the ceremony, everyone headed off to one of the local eateries, to
mingle with old and new friends, over lunch...which has itself
become something of a mini tradition after the fire Puja.
LHABAB DUCHEN (ལ་བབས་du་ཆེན)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015
Geshe Phuntsok Gyaltsen gave a brief talk about the importance
of this day. LhaBab Duchen is one of the four major holidays in the
Tibetan Buddhist calendar and is considered a million multiplier
day, i.e., any merit positive or negative accumulated on this day is
multiplied by a factor of millions. LhaBab Duchen is a day
celebrating Shakyamuni Buddha's descent from the Tushita
Buddha field (heaven of the 33 gods) back to earth. Buddha's
mother died 6 days after his birth, and when he became
enlightened, he knew she had been reborn in the Tushita Buddha
field. It is said that in order to repay his mother's kindness, he
wanted to teach her the Dhama so that she could be
liberated from samsara. To do this, he manifested in
Tushita Buddha field and taught the Dharma to his
mother and the community of gods living there.
Further, it is said that the gods built a stairway of gold,
silver, and beryl by which Buddha returned to earth,
and arrived in Varanasi, India. The event of Buddha's
return is marked by the " Stupa of Descent From the
God Realm."
Ganden Shartse Thubten Dhargye Ling celebrated this
auspicious event with a special Tsog Puja.
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YAMANTAKA (rd/་rj1་འཇིགས་byེད་) SELF
INITIATION
Sunday, July 26, 2015
A Yamantaka Self Initiation was held at the GSTDL monastery.
Prerequisites for participation were a Yamantaka initiation,
commentary, and Yamantaka retreat with fire Puja, all by a
qualified master.
REFUGE VOWS
Friday, December 4th, 2015 7:30PM
Geshe Phuntsok performed a refuge vow ceremony for a small
intimate group of students. Before, during and after the ceremony,
Geshe-la provided commentary on the significance of taking
refuge vows, and instructions on how to implement them in one's
daily life. The small group participating in the ceremony was
composed of students taking them for the first time as well as
those who were there to renew their vows. Lotsawa(ལོ་ʦa་བ)Tenzin
Dorjee was present and his translating helped facilitate a deeply
meaningful experience for all the participants.
NYUNG NE RETREAT
Friday, December 4th, 2015
To prepare students for the Nyung Ne retreat, Geshe Phuntsok
delineated the prerequisite requirements which were necessary for
a practitioner to have fulfilled, in order to participate in the
retreat. All retreatants were required to haven taken refuge vows
and to have had a highest yoga tantra initiation from a qualified
master. A Nyung Ne retreat invokes the enlightened being
Chenresig (Tibetan) or Avalokitishvara (Sanskrit)...the Buddha of
Compassion, and combines this invocation with purification
practices, e.g., prostrations, mantra recitation, maintaining silence,
and fasting. This regimen of practice was originally composed by
Bhlsuni Phalmo, and it is said that she achieved full enlightenment,
as a result of practicing it for 12 years.
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Saturday, December 5th, 2015
A group of 15-20 practitioners convened at GSTDL to undertake
the three day Nyung Ne retreat which was presided over by Geshe
Phuntsok Gyaltsen.
LAMA TSONGKAPA DAY
Saturday, December 5th, 2015
Lama Tsongkapa (1357-1419), also known as Je Rinpoche Lobsang
Drakpa, is considered the single most important commentator in
the history of Buddhism. He was a prolific writer composing some
18 volumes of work. These works include his, "Great Treatise on
the Path to Enlightenment" which is considered to be one of the
world's greatest monuments to philosophy and spirituality, as well
as one of the most renowned works of Buddhist thought and
practice to have been composed in Tibet. This treatise is the
"heart' of the weekly teachings at GSTDL. Additionally, Tsongkapa
founded or inspired the three great monasteries of Tibet: Ganden,
Sera, and Drepung, and instituted the great Monlam festival of
Tibet. He manifested passing into Parinirvana at his home
monastery of Ganden, at 62 years of age. The GSTDL community
celebrated this most auspicious day with a special Tsog Puja in his
honor.
VAJRAYOGINI (rd/་rj1་rnོལ་འbyོར་མ་)
SELF INITIATION
Saturday, January 4th, 2016
A small group of intrepid practitioners assembled in the GSTDL
gompa, to undertake a Vajrayogini self initiation. Prerequisites to
participate were: Vajrayogini initiation by a qualified master with
commentary, and completion of a Vajrayogini retreat with fire Puja.
In concluding year 2142
ཨཾ་མ་ནི་པdmེ་hauཾ་
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