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Kagyu Gunchoe Winter Teachings 2023 • Day 1 14 January 2023 Before the first session of the 2023 Kagyu Gunchoe Winter Teachings began, His Eminence Kyabje Goshir Gyaltsab Rinpoche, Kyabje Bokar Rinpoche Yangsi, and Khenchen Lodro Donyo Rinpoche made a mandala offering to His Holiness the Karmapa. Sweet dresil rice and tea were offered to all those present. His Holiness offered his greetings and remarked that after a two-year wait due to the pandemic, we could now resume the Gunchoe. In addition, he explained that this year’s Gunchoe is especially memorable and fortunate for all, as Kyabje Gyaltsab Rinpoche has...
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Bokar Shedra Öbar Chime Ling 22 December 2022 After a Covid-19 enforced hiatus, the Kagyu Gunchoe – the Winter Dharma Gathering for Monks – is able to unfold once again with renewed exuberance. Located in West Bengal’s verdant countryside of forests and tea gardens teeming with birds, the stunning Bokar Shedra Öbar Chime Ling comes to life as Kagyu Gunchoe participants pour in from eleven of the Kagyu Monastic Colleges based in Nepal, India and Bhutan. Within the shedra's expansive gardens, lush with banyans, palm trees, flowers and sacred fig trees, on the banks of a dry, sandy river, groups...
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The Mar Ngok summer teachings concluded with the Gyalwang Karmapa leading the monastic communities in a Shakyamuni puja. The recitations included the Karmapa’s newly composed “Praise of Shakyamuni Buddha,” based on Mātṛceṭa’s “Hymn to the Buddha in 150 Verses” (Śatapañcāśatka), an extensive and complex work. The sadhana for the main puja also included new writing by the Karmapa, and one new melody composed by the Karmapa which was used during the Mandala Offering and the Guru Yoga (later a shorter sadhana of this puja was provided by the Karmapa for daily use). As was the Karmapa’s specific intention in compiling...
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My voice is locked. I’m not sure if I’ve got much to say, I’m losing my voice. I’ve been spending a month teaching, and so I really don’t feel like I have much to say. In general, in the current situation, it is not easy for me to go to India, as you all know. All of you members of the sangha and the monasteries in India know that when I was in India, I had many difficulties. It was very difficult for me to travel, no matter where I wanted to go. Even if I wanted to go up...
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Mar Ngok Summer Teaching 2022: Day 14. In today’s shorter teaching, the Gyalwang Karmapa concluded his discussion of the First Council and the compilation of the baskets of the Sūtra and the Vinaya. He focused particularly on what various scholars have said about its structure, its time and location, the participants, the schedule, and questions raised about its authenticity. The order of events at the Council According to the Indian scholar, Professor S.R. Goyal, Mahākāśyapa presided over the council, whereas Upāli and Ananda led the group recitation or compilation of the Dharma and the Vinaya. Goyal maintains that there were...
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The Mar Ngok Summer Teachings 2022: Day 13 In today’s part of his long exposition on the “Origins of Secret Mantra”, Gyalwang Karmapa related emotive vignettes from Upāli’s life, followed by accounts on his recitation of the Vinaya, then closed the teaching session with a comparative exploration of contemporary scholars’ findings on the process of the Vinaya’s compilation (First Council). Before his teaching, the Karmapa announced the transmission of Ju Mipham Rinpoche’s “Wangdü: The Great Cloud of Blessings: The Prayer which Magnetizes All that Appears and Exists” (སྣང་སྲིད་དབང་དུ་སྡུད་པའི་གསོལ་འདེབས་བྱིན་རླབས་སྤྲིན་ཆེན) to be given before the intermission. It was at the...
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Mar Ngok Summer Teaching 2022 Day 12 His Holiness explained that he would continue speaking on the second of the two accounts, as taught in the “Great Commentary on the Hundred Thousand Prajnaparamita” attributed to Nagarjuna. The teaching session began with an explanation of Ananda’s six offenses. There are primarily ten different accounts of Ananda’s offenses: The five offenses according to the Theravada “Khandhaka” The six offenses according to the Mahīśāsaka “Five-Part Vinaya” The six offenses according to the Sarvāstivāda “Ten Recitations of the Vinaya” The seven offenses according to the Mahāsāṃghikā Vinaya The eight offenses according to the Mūlasarvāstivāda...
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