Sikkim Bhutia Lepcha Apex Committee (SIBLAC)

Upper Syari, P. O. Deorali - 737102, East E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.siblac.org Ph. +91 9434144224

Press Release

On hearing the passing away of the Kyabje , the Convenor of this organization Mr. Tseten Tashi Bhutia immediately rushed to the AIIMS, New Delhi accompanied by Spokesperson Tenzing Bhutia and offered Khadas to the Kudung of the Rinpoche . With utmost bereavement, we pronounce the physical passing away of His Holiness the present Lachen Gomchen Trulku Rinpoche, today at New Delhi. He was an extremely important master and a senior incarnate of the tradition. He was extremely beneficial to the Nyingma with its many monks and nuns. The institute of higher learning, retreat facilities, and the tradition of the rituals - everything was maintained perfectly in his monasteries under His dispensation. His main monastery is the Lachen Monastery, and was especially renowned for his in-depth realization of Sikkimese spiritual accomplishments and its preservation. Kyabje Rinpoche’s physical death is the mark of , which affects everything that is composite. Rinpoche’s body was subject to impermanence and what follows impermanence is death. But his wisdom mind and realization do not die because they continue at the level of absolute reality. Eventually and most hopefully, there will be an emanation that will appear once again. Above all, Rinpoche’s altruistic intention was to benefit beings and to create conditions of mental peace, loving kindness and compassion that lead to the ultimate bliss. We should try to fulfill his intentions and, of course, although we may be sad at his passing, the most important thing is to try to bring about these intentions. As our Sikkimese lineage teaching would say when a is alive, his enlightened mind is still confined within the body. When the body dies and at that point, the wisdom which is at the level of absolute reality, is totally unbounded and embraces all. Since that lama still has an intention to remain in our world and not go to some other dimension, we can feel the presence of that boundless mind more so than when it is still confined within a body. This organization has declared week long mourning in honor of the late Kyabje Lachen Gomchen and also requests the government of Sikkim to kindly accord full State Honor to his Kudung, given the peculiar tradition and history that the ‚Institution of Lachen Gomchens’ reserves in Sikkimese history.

Pem Tshering Lepcha, General Secretary Dated: September 19, 2012