No. 95 November, December 2008 Upcoming Retreats with Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Photo: M. Farmer 2009 Argentina Tashigar Sur Jan. 5–8 SMS Base Exam Jan. 9–13 SMS I Level Training Chögyal Namkhai Norbu entering the teaching hall in Barcelona, Spain. Photo: H. Hansen New Zealand Jan. 23–25 Weekend Teaching Retreat Australia Kunzang Jaku – The Rainbow Sydney Jan. 30 –Feb. 1 Weekend Teaching Retreat www.dzogchen.org.au Dimension of Samantabhadra Namgyalgar, Tilba Tilba A Dzogchen Upadesha teaching of Powo Terton Duddul Dorje (1615–1672) Feb. 9–15 Retreat Barcelona Retreat, 14th–20th November 2008 Feb. 17–19 Santi Maha Sangha Base Exam Nina Robinson Feb. 20–26 Santi Maha Sangha I Level Training he Barcelona Dzogchen Com- and relaxed. Everyone felt welcomed and dul Dorje and his friends were playing at munity is well known all over the well looked after. consecrating the temple and throwing rice Caloundra T world for its effi ciency in organiz- at the walls. The rice that Duddul Dorje March 16–21 ing large retreats with Chögyal Namkhai Although Rinpoche was still recovering threw didn’t bounce off; it stayed on the Teaching Retreat Norbu. This time fewer people than usual from his recent illness and suffering pain wall. Some monks saw this and recog- Melbourne attended, probably because of the fi nan- in his back he taught with all his usual nized that he was no ordinary child. Later April 3–5 cial situation and also the easy availabil- clarity, vigour and compassion. He began he and his mother wanted to go to Cen- Weekend Teaching Retreat ity of web-cast teachings. The venue in a by explaining the origin and lineage of this tral Tibet and had to cross the Yangtse huge sports centre by the sea is spacious terma teaching of Terton Duddul Dorje and river. Since they were very poor they wait- Namgyalgar enough to accommodate about seven also the manner in which he received it. ed at the riverside for some kind person to April 10–15 dance mandalas as well as ample room offer them a passage on the ferry. While Retreat for all the participants to listen comfort- Powo Terton Duddul Dorje revealed this they were waiting Duddul Dorje wrote April 17–22 ably to the teachings and for the Shang and other termas in the 17th Century. He OM A HUM on a rock. The syllables sank Retreat Shung Institute and ASIA stalls, 2 bars showed signs of his extraordinary capac- deeper and deeper into the rock. Namkhai serving meals and drinks and several other ity from his earliest youth. When he was 10 Norbu Rinpoche has seen them and says Singapore stalls. The headache for the Spanish gaky- years old the building of the very large tem- they are like holes in the rock. May 1–3 il is heating. Such a huge space is diffi cult ple at Derge Ganchen monastery had just Weekend Teaching Retreat and costly to heat so late in the season. But been completed and monks came from sev- When Rinpoche was living in China he Japan the atmosphere of the retreat was warm en monasteries to the inauguration. Dud- sometimes visited his uncle in Tibet. On May 8–10 >> continued on page 10 Weekend Teaching Retreat Russian Federation Teaching Teaching Overview Moscow May 15–19 Retreat Chögyal Namkhai Yeshi Silvano Baja Mexico Germany Norbu Namkhai and the May 27–31 The Supreme The moment California Teaching Retreat Purifi cation of death and Community the moment of living >> continued on page 2 » Page 2 » Page 4 » Pages 11–13 THE MIRROR · No. 95 · November, December 2008 2 oday we have instructions on the practice of shitro. In general we say wang, lung, tri. Wang means ini- T tiation and belongs mainly to the Vajrayana tradi- tion. Lung means giving the lung, transmission, so that you can at least read and follow the teaching. Tri are pre- cise instructions on how you should do the visualisation, etc. Of course if you are seriously interested in a teaching, you must receive instructions. Some people are more or less familiar with some Vajrayana teachings, they have re- ceived the lung of the instruction books and they have read them so then maybe they can also realize [that teaching]. But it is not always easy and we can make a lot of mistakes. For that reason, today we have these instructions. I told you that the principle of the shitro we are doing is based on the namchö shitro because the namchö shitro is easier; there are not a lot of complicated words for the vi- sualisation. We always need to have a bit of an idea about the different visualisations etc., when we follow any type of Anuyoga teaching. And you know that shitro is consid- ered to be a very powerful practice for purifi cation. Purifi cation very often exists in all the Buddhist tradi- tions even in Sutra teaching which says that we have our three existences of body, speech and mind. For purifying our body we should do prostrations, for purifying voice we chant mantras and for mind we do visualisations. This is purifi cation, but not purifi cation like the shitro. It is a very preliminary purifi cation. If there is a small child and you want to teach them how to do something, you can’t teach them something complicated because a small child won’t understand. That is an example. In the teaching there are different kinds of purifi ca- Photo: M. Farmer tion. When we start with Vajrayana teaching, even in all the lower tantras up to the higher tantras, Anuttaratantra, they all use purifi cation with Vajrasattva. In the tantra it ex- plains that when we chant the one hundred syllable mantra The Supreme Purifi cation only once, we can purify the negative karma accumulated for a bum of kalpas. A bum means a hundred thousands kal- From the Shitro Khorde Rangdrol Retreat pas and you know what kalpa means. It doesn’t mean only and Chang Chog Rite for the Dead a few years. It doesn’t mean centuries. A kalpa is the period of time from the moment a planet was created until it is Merigar West, November 2, 2008 destroyed. And we have transmigrated in that way. So when we do Vajrasattva practice, also in the shitro, rifi cation that has its value. This means being ignorant. thing concrete, real – by means of that potentiality, all your we transform and use the one hundred syllables. Why do In Vajrayana, when we talk about people who have no ca- obstacles, negativities, everything is consumed. we use that mantra, and why does it have one hundred syl- pacity, we are talking about those types of people, people So you see, that is the potentiality of the shitro. And even lables? Because the main manifestations of shitro called who go to the temple, bringing butter lamps, incense etc., though we are not in the bardo of dharmata, we are trans- ‘shitro tampa rigya’ (zhi khro dam pa rigs brgya) are one while others think that this is fantastic. But it is relative. It formed into Vajrasattva, we apply that method and enter hundred manifestations. Why are they limited to one hun- is not important at all. If you have the capacity to remain in our real condition, then that purifi cation is much more dred? Because they are mainly limited with the energy just a little in the state of guru yoga, it is much better. elevated than others. This is something that is very impor- functions of the individual. For example, we talk about So you see that when we are learning shitro, the shitro tant to understand. the fi ve aggregations, the fi ve elements, six senses and teaching makes us understand that when we are dying, the objects related to them and the six consciousnesses of the moment of death is called the ‘bardo of the moment of Transcribed and edited by Liz Granger the senses. These are specifi c functions and when we put death’. It means that at that moment, the functions of our them all together there are one hundred main functions. senses, the elements, everything, dissolves internally, so This is the reason that ‘shitro tampa rigya’ has one hun- we can have very strong feelings and experiences of death >> Upcoming Retreats continued from previous page dred manifestations. at that moment. If you see someone who is dying, you can But of course we cannot always limit this to one hun- see how diffi cult it is. After this, there is death and there is Romania dred and even if you want to know the one hundred mani- no longer this kind of continuation. Then one passes into Merigar East festations one at a time, nobody can manage to have that the ‘bardo of dharmata’, just like in the evening when we fall June 12–21 presence. But you can have a little global knowledge and asleep. When you fall asleep, you cannot see or hear any- Teaching Retreat then the manifestations are infi nite, they say, just like a thing until you have some dream. In the teaching this is June 2–28 vase fi lled with sesame seeds, which means infi nite mani- called the ‘natural light’; ‘natural light’ if you have knowl- SMS Base Exam festations. But in the ‘shitro tampa rigya’ the most impor- edge or methods of practice. June 29–July 6 tant are one hundred in number and the one hundred syl- In the shitro it explains that when you arrive at the ‘bardo SMS I Level Training lables are also connected with these manifestations.