Rigpa
Encyclopedia
Rigpa is the knowledge that ensues from recognizing one's nature i.e. one knows that there is a primordial freedom from grasping his or her mind (sems). The opposite of rigpa (vidyā, knowledge) is marigpa (avidyā, ignorance).
. Lhun grub (natural formation) is the Dzogchen view of dependent origination. Throughout Mahayana, emptiness and dependent origination are two sides of the same coin. Kadag (ka dag) is the content of khregs chöd
. The lhundrub (lhun grub) aspect is the key to esoteric practices, such as (but not limited to) Thödgal, that spontaneously liberate the dependently originated human body into the Sambhogakāya
(rainbow body phenomenon). The symbol of Dzogchen is a Tibetan A wrapped in a thigle (see picture to the right). The A represents kadag while the thigle represents lhun grub. The third wisdom, thugjé (thugs rje: compassion), is the inseparability of the previous two wisdoms. (According to another, not any less valid interpretation, in a twofold division the wisdoms are kadag and lhundrub, and in a threefold division kadag corresponds to ngowo (ngo bo), and lhundrub corresponds to rangzhin (rang bzhin)—which is clarity or reflectiveness—and thugjé—which is unceasing manifestation and that may be notices as such when a thought begins to arise.
In Dzogchen, a fundamental point of practice is to distinguish rigpa from sems (mind). The distinguishing of rigpa and sems from each other is emphasized by Jigme Lingpa
and goes back to the seventeen tantras
.
Craig, et al.. (1998: p. 476) convey a 'stream of consciousness
' or 'mindstream
' as a procession of mote events of consciousness (C) with algebraic notation C1, C2 and C3 thus to demonstrate the immediacy of nondual awareness through a Reductio ad absurdum
argument:
In the above quotation in the Tibetan nomenclature of the 'mind[stream]' or 'continuum' , 'nondual awareness' is 'Rigpa' and 'self-awareness' is 'Rangrig'. Rigpa is a contraction of "rang rig pa" which includes both rig pa and rang rig . The latter term renders the Sanskrit svasaṃvedana/svasaṃvitti, and has different senses in different vehicles. In Dharmakīrti's work it refers to the awareness (of) dualistic consciousness at the root of reflexive consciousness, which Elias Capriles explains in redefined Sartrean terminology as nondual awareness (of) consciousness of object, where the preposition "of" is within parentheses in order to indicate that there is no relation of knowledge (i.e., no dualistic, conceptual apprehension) between that nondual awareness and the dualistic consciousness of object—their relationship being like the one that obtains between a mirror and an image reflected in it. In this sense svasaṃvedana/svasaṃvitti involves reflectivity and corresponds to Kant's 'apperception' or "awareness that consciousness is perceiving"
In the Dzogchen teachings it refers to the dissolution of the dualistic consciousness in nondual awareness, so that this nondual awareness, rather than manifesting as nondual awareness (of) dualistic consciousness of object, reveals its true condition in a nondual, nonconceptual way (and therefore in this case it is not permissible to speak either of reflexivity or of apperception, for there is no dualistic, conceptual perception [of] which nondual awareness may be aware). Some have claimed that these differences are cosmetic and that they are resolved in the practice of 'meditative trance
' . However, there is a radical difference between nondual awareness (of) the dualistic consciousness that is the core of saṃsāra and the nondual awareness in question fully revealing its own nature in nirvāṇa (the former involving reflexivity [which implies the subject-object duality] and apperception, the second being nondually aware [of] itself and [of] its true condition). At any rate, doubts in this regard can only be resolved in the direct realization of Dzogchen, Mahamudra and so on, and in the associated literatures of the deep contemplative traditions of Himalayan Buddhism (Tibetan Buddhism
, Nepal
ese Buddhism, Bhutan
ese Buddhism, etc.) and Bon, particularly Dzogchen and Mahamudra; e.g. Dark retreat
(Tibetan: mun mtshams).
Pettit (1999: p. 129) holds that rangrig , which he renders as 'apperception,' is key to Mipham's (1846–1912) system of epistemology and hermeneutics as discussed in the DRG and in Mipham's Commentary to the Ninth Chapter of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra. However, in Padmasambhava
, Karma Lingpa
, Gyurme Dorje, Graham Coleman and Thupten Jinpa (2005: p. 480), we find the following clarification of the difference between the sense of the Tibetan rangrig and the Sanskrit 'svasaṃvitti' or 'svasaṃvedana' in Indian Buddhist epistemology and in particular in the writings of the lauded logicians Dignāga
and Dharmakīrti
, and their meaning in the Dzogchen teachings—in which the translators render the term by the English expression 'intrinsic awareness' :
Williams, et al. (2000, 2002: p. 264) conveys an epistemological commonality held by Dharmakīrti
and Śāntarakṣita which holds that all is sentient consciousness
:
In the language of Zhangzhung, 'rang rig' (Wylie) is 'nges de shin' where 'shin' equates to 'shes pa'. The Zhangzhung lexical item 'shin' is found in many compounds (Martin, 2004: p. 158) where it contributes a meaning of 'to know' and 'knowledge' to both nominal and verbal/process oriented lexical item
s.
.
Sogyal Rinpoche gave the name 'Rigpa' to his work and to the vehicle he was developing to serve the Buddha's teaching in the West. Now an international network with centers and groups in 23 countries around the world, Rigpa seeks:
After five years teaching in the West, Sogyal Rinpoche gave the name 'Rigpa' to his work. At that time, Rigpa had just one centre, in north-west London.
1980s
By 1980, Sogyal Rinpoche was teaching in the UK, France, the United States, Ireland and Holland. Rigpa centres opened in a number of major cities, and in each country Rigpa was established as a non-profit organization. A progamme of Easter and summer retreats began, and Rigpa’s first retreat centre, Dzogchen Beara, was set up on the west coast of Ireland.
Rigpa invited His Holiness the Dalai Lama
, or sponsored his teachings or empowerments, on a number of occasions; in Paris in 1982, London in 1984 and San Jose in 1989. Five and a half thousand people attended the teachings in San Jose, in what at the time was the largest gathering of practitioners and masters of Buddhadharma
in America, and possibly in the West.
Other masters who taught at Rigpa centres or events during the 1980s included His Holiness Sakya Trizin
, Dilgo Khyentse
Rinpoche, Dudjom Rinpoche
, Kalu Rinpoche
, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche and Trulshik Rinpoche
.
1990s
In 1990, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche taught and gave empowerments to 1,500 people at Rigpa’s summer retreat near Grenoble in the French Alps.
In 1992, the Dzogchen Monastery in Kollegal in India, sponsored by Rigpa, was officially inaugurated when Dzogchen Rinpoche invited His Holiness the Dalai Lama to give empowerments. In the same year, Rigpa opened its main retreat centre, Lerab Ling near Montpellier in the south of France. Thich Nhat Hanh
, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok
and Penor Rinpoche
were among the masters who taught there in the years that followed.
In 1993, Sogyal Rinpoche published The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
, the success of which led to a great expansion in the work of Rigpa.
A Spiritual Care Education and Training Programme was set up, and in 1996 Rigpa presented a major conference on care for the dying, near Munich, which had a considerable influence on the emerging hospice movement in Germany.
In 1999, Trulshik Rinpoche
founded the basis for a monastic community within Rigpa by ordaining the first nuns.
2000 onwards
In 2000, His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited Lerab Ling, and gave five days of teachings entitled The Path to Enlightenment, attended by more than 10,000 students of Tibetan Buddhism from around the world. The teachings given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama have been published in a book entitled Mind in Comfort and Ease: The Vision of Enlightenment in the Great Perfection.
The Rigpa Shedra, or study college, took place for the first time the following year, and in 2002, Lerab Ling was officially recognized as a ‘religious congregation’.
In 2006, a traditional three-storey temple at Lerab Ling was completed, including a seven-metre high statue of Buddha Shakyamuni. Rigpa's first three-year retreat began, with over 300 people remaining in closed retreat at Lerab Ling from 2006–2009, and over 3,000 students following a 'home retreat' programme in their own countries.
In 2007, work began on Rigpa's Spiritual Care Centre at Dzogchen Beara.
Apperception and beyond
Rigpa has three wisdoms, two of which are kadag and lhun grub. Kadag (primordial purity) is the Dzogchen view of emptinessShunyata
Śūnyatā, शून्यता , Suññatā , stong-pa nyid , Kòng/Kū, 空 , Gong-seong, 공성 , qoγusun is frequently translated into English as emptiness...
. Lhun grub (natural formation) is the Dzogchen view of dependent origination. Throughout Mahayana, emptiness and dependent origination are two sides of the same coin. Kadag (ka dag) is the content of khregs chöd
Kadag Trekchö
Kadag Trekchö is a Dzogchen term and practice meaning "thorough cut" or "cutting through". 'Kadag' may be rendered as 'purity' and specifically "primordial purity"...
. The lhundrub (lhun grub) aspect is the key to esoteric practices, such as (but not limited to) Thödgal, that spontaneously liberate the dependently originated human body into the Sambhogakāya
Sambhogakaya
The Sambhogakāya is the second mode or aspect of the Trikaya. Sambhogakaya has also been translated as the "deity dimension", "body of bliss" or "astral body". Sambhogakaya refers to the luminous form of clear light the Buddhist practitioner attains upon the reaching the highest dimensions of...
(rainbow body phenomenon). The symbol of Dzogchen is a Tibetan A wrapped in a thigle (see picture to the right). The A represents kadag while the thigle represents lhun grub. The third wisdom, thugjé (thugs rje: compassion), is the inseparability of the previous two wisdoms. (According to another, not any less valid interpretation, in a twofold division the wisdoms are kadag and lhundrub, and in a threefold division kadag corresponds to ngowo (ngo bo), and lhundrub corresponds to rangzhin (rang bzhin)—which is clarity or reflectiveness—and thugjé—which is unceasing manifestation and that may be notices as such when a thought begins to arise.
In Dzogchen, a fundamental point of practice is to distinguish rigpa from sems (mind). The distinguishing of rigpa and sems from each other is emphasized by Jigme Lingpa
Jigme Lingpa
Jigme Lingpa was one of the most important tertöns of Tibet. He was the promulgator of the Longchen Nyingthik, the Heart Essence teachings of Longchenpa, from whom, according to tradition, he received a vision in which the teachings were revealed...
and goes back to the seventeen tantras
Seventeen tantras
In Tibetan Buddhism, specifically in the literature and practice of Dzogchen, the seventeen tantras of the esoteric instruction cycle are a suite of tantras belonging to the textual division known as the "esoteric instruction cycle" .-History and tradition:The seventeen tantras, though not...
.
Stream of consciousness (psychology)
Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware of can form the content of this stream, not just verbal thoughts...
' or 'mindstream
Mindstream
Mindstream in Buddhist philosophy is the moment-to-moment "continuum" of awareness. There are a number of terms in the Buddhist literature that may well be rendered "mindstream"...
' as a procession of mote events of consciousness (C) with algebraic notation C1, C2 and C3 thus to demonstrate the immediacy of nondual awareness through a Reductio ad absurdum
Reductio ad absurdum
In logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the proposition's being false would imply a contradiction...
argument:
That nondual awareness is the only possible self-awareness is defended by a reductio argument. If a further awareness C2, having C1 as content, is required for self-awareness, then since there would be no awareness of C2 without awareness C3, ad infinitum, there could be no self-awareness, that is, unless the self is to be understood as limited to past awareness only. For self-awareness to be an immediate awareness, self-awareness has to be nondual.
In the above quotation in the Tibetan nomenclature of the 'mind[stream]' or 'continuum' , 'nondual awareness' is 'Rigpa' and 'self-awareness' is 'Rangrig'. Rigpa is a contraction of "rang rig pa" which includes both rig pa and rang rig . The latter term renders the Sanskrit svasaṃvedana/svasaṃvitti, and has different senses in different vehicles. In Dharmakīrti's work it refers to the awareness (of) dualistic consciousness at the root of reflexive consciousness, which Elias Capriles explains in redefined Sartrean terminology as nondual awareness (of) consciousness of object, where the preposition "of" is within parentheses in order to indicate that there is no relation of knowledge (i.e., no dualistic, conceptual apprehension) between that nondual awareness and the dualistic consciousness of object—their relationship being like the one that obtains between a mirror and an image reflected in it. In this sense svasaṃvedana/svasaṃvitti involves reflectivity and corresponds to Kant's 'apperception' or "awareness that consciousness is perceiving"
In the Dzogchen teachings it refers to the dissolution of the dualistic consciousness in nondual awareness, so that this nondual awareness, rather than manifesting as nondual awareness (of) dualistic consciousness of object, reveals its true condition in a nondual, nonconceptual way (and therefore in this case it is not permissible to speak either of reflexivity or of apperception, for there is no dualistic, conceptual perception [of] which nondual awareness may be aware). Some have claimed that these differences are cosmetic and that they are resolved in the practice of 'meditative trance
Trance
Trance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...
' . However, there is a radical difference between nondual awareness (of) the dualistic consciousness that is the core of saṃsāra and the nondual awareness in question fully revealing its own nature in nirvāṇa (the former involving reflexivity [which implies the subject-object duality] and apperception, the second being nondually aware [of] itself and [of] its true condition). At any rate, doubts in this regard can only be resolved in the direct realization of Dzogchen, Mahamudra and so on, and in the associated literatures of the deep contemplative traditions of Himalayan Buddhism (Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India . It is the state religion of Bhutan...
, Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
ese Buddhism, Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...
ese Buddhism, etc.) and Bon, particularly Dzogchen and Mahamudra; e.g. Dark retreat
Dark retreat
Dark retreat refers to advanced practices in the Dzogchen lineages of the Nyingmapa, Bönpo and other schools of Tibetan Buddhism.The time period dedicated to dark retreat varies from a few hours to decades. Dark Retreat in the Himalayan tradition is a restricted practice only to be engaged by the...
(Tibetan: mun mtshams).
Pettit (1999: p. 129) holds that rangrig , which he renders as 'apperception,' is key to Mipham's (1846–1912) system of epistemology and hermeneutics as discussed in the DRG and in Mipham's Commentary to the Ninth Chapter of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra. However, in Padmasambhava
Padmasambhava
Padmasambhava ; Mongolian ловон Бадмажунай, lovon Badmajunai, , Means The Lotus-Born, was a sage guru from Oddiyāna who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighbouring countries in the 8th century...
, Karma Lingpa
Karma Lingpa
Karma Lingpa , a great tertön, is embraced as a reincarnation of Chokro Luyi Gyaltsen , a great master, and accepted as the revealer of the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead. Karma Lingpa took body in southeast Tibet as the eldest son of Nyida Sangye , the great Tantric practitioner...
, Gyurme Dorje, Graham Coleman and Thupten Jinpa (2005: p. 480), we find the following clarification of the difference between the sense of the Tibetan rangrig and the Sanskrit 'svasaṃvitti' or 'svasaṃvedana' in Indian Buddhist epistemology and in particular in the writings of the lauded logicians Dignāga
Dignaga
Dignāga was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian logic.He was born into a Brahmin family in Simhavakta near Kanchi Kanchipuram), and very little is known of his early years, except that he took as his spiritual preceptor Nagadatta of the Vatsiputriya school, before being...
and Dharmakīrti
Dharmakirti
Dharmakīrti , was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian philosophical logic. He was one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism, according to which the only items considered to exist are momentary states of consciousness.-History:Born around the turn of the 7th century,...
, and their meaning in the Dzogchen teachings—in which the translators render the term by the English expression 'intrinsic awareness' :
...term svasaṃvedana refers to the apperceptive or reflexive faculty of consciousness, for which reason it is sometimes rendered as 'reflexive awareness' or 'apperceptive awareness'. However, in the view of the Great Perfection (rdzog-pa chen-po) and in the context of the present work[ The Tibetan Book of the Dead] , the same term refers to the fundamental innate mind in its natural state of spontaneity and purity, beyond the alternating states of motion and rest and the subject-object dichotomy. It is therefore rendered here as 'intrinsic awareness'. As such, intrinsic awareness gives the meditator access to pristine cognition [ye-shes; jñānaJnanaJñāna or gñāna is a Sanskrit and Pali word that means knowledge. It has various nuances of meaning depending on the context. The idea of jnana centers around a cognitive event which is recognized when experienced...
] or the buddha-mind [thugs, cittaCittaCitta was one of the chief lay disciples of the Buddha. He was a wealthy merchant from Savatthi. His life and character were so pure that near his death, had he wished to be a chakravartin, it would've been granted. However, he turned down this wish as it was temporal...
] itself, and it stands in direct contrast to fundamental ignorance ([ma-rig-pa,] avidyā), which is the primary cause of rebirth in cyclic existence ([ 'khor-baSamsarathumb|right|200px|Traditional Tibetan painting or [[Thanka]] showing the [[wheel of life]] and realms of saṃsāraSaṅsāra or Saṃsāra , , literally meaning "continuous flow", is the cycle of birth, life, death, rebirth or reincarnation within Hinduism, Buddhism, Bön, Jainism, Sikhism, and other...
,] samsara). The direct introduction to intrinsic awareness is a distinctive teaching within the Nyingma school.... This practice is a central component of the Esoteric Instruction Class ([man-ngag-gi sde,] upadeśa[varga]MenngagdeIn Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Menngagde , , is the name of one of three scriptural and lineage divisions within Dzogchen, teachings...
) of Atiyoga, where it is known as Cutting Through Resistance (Khregs-chodKadag TrekchöKadag Trekchö is a Dzogchen term and practice meaning "thorough cut" or "cutting through". 'Kadag' may be rendered as 'purity' and specifically "primordial purity"...
).
Williams, et al. (2000, 2002: p. 264) conveys an epistemological commonality held by Dharmakīrti
Dharmakirti
Dharmakīrti , was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian philosophical logic. He was one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism, according to which the only items considered to exist are momentary states of consciousness.-History:Born around the turn of the 7th century,...
and Śāntarakṣita which holds that all is sentient consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
:
There is also an epistemological argument found in thinkers like Dharmakīrti and Śāntarakṣita. How does consciousness know ‘external’ physical objects, when consciousness itself is of a completely different order from matter? Consciousness has a reflexive quality of knowing (svasaṃvedana), while matter has no such reflexivity. Clearly only things of the same basic order of reality can contact each other. Thus either all must be matter, or all must be consciousness. But if all were matter then there would be no experience at all. Since there patently is experience, all must be consciousness.
In the language of Zhangzhung, 'rang rig' (Wylie) is 'nges de shin' where 'shin' equates to 'shes pa'. The Zhangzhung lexical item 'shin' is found in many compounds (Martin, 2004: p. 158) where it contributes a meaning of 'to know' and 'knowledge' to both nominal and verbal/process oriented lexical item
Lexical item
A Lexical item is a single word or chain of words that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon . Examples are "cat", "traffic light", "take care of", "by-the-way", and "it's raining cats and dogs"...
s.
The Rigpa organization
Rigpa is also the name of an international Buddhist organization founded by Sogyal RinpocheSogyal Rinpoche
Sogyal Rinpoche is a Tibetan Dzogchen Lama of the Nyingma tradition. He has been teaching for over 30 years and continues to travel widely in Europe, America, Australia and Asia...
.
Sogyal Rinpoche gave the name 'Rigpa' to his work and to the vehicle he was developing to serve the Buddha's teaching in the West. Now an international network with centers and groups in 23 countries around the world, Rigpa seeks:
- To make the teachings of Buddha available to benefit as many people as possible, and
- To offer those following the Buddhist teachings a complete path of study and practice, along with the environment they need to explore the teachings to their fullest.
The history of Rigpa
1979After five years teaching in the West, Sogyal Rinpoche gave the name 'Rigpa' to his work. At that time, Rigpa had just one centre, in north-west London.
1980s
By 1980, Sogyal Rinpoche was teaching in the UK, France, the United States, Ireland and Holland. Rigpa centres opened in a number of major cities, and in each country Rigpa was established as a non-profit organization. A progamme of Easter and summer retreats began, and Rigpa’s first retreat centre, Dzogchen Beara, was set up on the west coast of Ireland.
Rigpa invited His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...
, or sponsored his teachings or empowerments, on a number of occasions; in Paris in 1982, London in 1984 and San Jose in 1989. Five and a half thousand people attended the teachings in San Jose, in what at the time was the largest gathering of practitioners and masters of Buddhadharma
Dharma (Buddhism)
Dhamma or Dharma in Buddhism can have the following meanings:* The state of Nature as it is * The Laws of Nature considered collectively....
in America, and possibly in the West.
Other masters who taught at Rigpa centres or events during the 1980s included His Holiness Sakya Trizin
Sakya Trizin
Sakya Trizin or Sa'gya Gongma Rinboqê is the traditional title of the head of the Sakya Order of Tibetan Buddhism.The Sakya Order of Tibetan Buddhism was founded in 1073, when Khon Konchog Gyalpo , a member of Tibet’s noble Khön family, established a monastery in the region of Sakya, Tibet,...
, Dilgo Khyentse
Dilgo Khyentse
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was a Vajrayana master, scholar, poet, teacher, and head of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism from 1987 to 1991.-Biography:...
Rinpoche, Dudjom Rinpoche
Dudjom Rinpoche
Dudjom Rinpoche is the title of a prominent line of tulkus of the Nyingmapa order of Tibetan Buddhism. Dudjom Rinpoche was born in 1904 on the tenth day of the sixth month in the year of the wood dragon in Southern Tibet in a region called the "hidden land" of Pema Ko. He died on January 17, 1987...
, Kalu Rinpoche
Kalu Rinpoche
Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche was a Buddhist meditation master, scholar and teacher. He was one of the first Tibetan masters to teach in the West.-Early life and teachers:...
, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche and Trulshik Rinpoche
Trulshik Rinpoche
Trulshik Rinpoche Ngawang Chökyi Lodrö born in Yardrok Taklung, Central Tibet was one of the main teachers of HH the 14th Dalai Lama and of many of the younger generation of Nyingma lamas today including Sogyal Rinpoche...
.
1990s
In 1990, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche taught and gave empowerments to 1,500 people at Rigpa’s summer retreat near Grenoble in the French Alps.
In 1992, the Dzogchen Monastery in Kollegal in India, sponsored by Rigpa, was officially inaugurated when Dzogchen Rinpoche invited His Holiness the Dalai Lama to give empowerments. In the same year, Rigpa opened its main retreat centre, Lerab Ling near Montpellier in the south of France. Thich Nhat Hanh
Nhat Hanh
Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist who now lives in France. Born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo, Thích Nhất Hạnh joined a Zen monastery at the age of 16, and studied Buddhism as a novitiate. Upon his ordination as a monk in 1949, he assumed the Dharma name...
, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok
Jigme Phuntsok
Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok was a Nyingma lama from the Dhok region of Kham Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok (1933 – 2004) was a Nyingma lama from the Dhok region of Kham Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok (1933 – 2004) was a Nyingma lama from the Dhok region of Kham (in what is now the modern Chinese province of...
and Penor Rinpoche
Penor rinpoche
Kyabjé Drubwang Pema Norbu Rinpoche was the 11th throne holder of the Palyul Lineage of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, and said to be an incarnation of Vimalamitra. He was widely renowned in the Tibetan Buddhist world as a master of Dzogchen...
were among the masters who taught there in the years that followed.
In 1993, Sogyal Rinpoche published The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche, gives a comprehensive presentation of the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, exploring: the message of impermanence; evolution, karma and rebirth; the nature of mind and how to train the mind through meditation; how to follow a spiritual...
, the success of which led to a great expansion in the work of Rigpa.
A Spiritual Care Education and Training Programme was set up, and in 1996 Rigpa presented a major conference on care for the dying, near Munich, which had a considerable influence on the emerging hospice movement in Germany.
In 1999, Trulshik Rinpoche
Trulshik Rinpoche
Trulshik Rinpoche Ngawang Chökyi Lodrö born in Yardrok Taklung, Central Tibet was one of the main teachers of HH the 14th Dalai Lama and of many of the younger generation of Nyingma lamas today including Sogyal Rinpoche...
founded the basis for a monastic community within Rigpa by ordaining the first nuns.
2000 onwards
In 2000, His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited Lerab Ling, and gave five days of teachings entitled The Path to Enlightenment, attended by more than 10,000 students of Tibetan Buddhism from around the world. The teachings given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama have been published in a book entitled Mind in Comfort and Ease: The Vision of Enlightenment in the Great Perfection.
The Rigpa Shedra, or study college, took place for the first time the following year, and in 2002, Lerab Ling was officially recognized as a ‘religious congregation’.
In 2006, a traditional three-storey temple at Lerab Ling was completed, including a seven-metre high statue of Buddha Shakyamuni. Rigpa's first three-year retreat began, with over 300 people remaining in closed retreat at Lerab Ling from 2006–2009, and over 3,000 students following a 'home retreat' programme in their own countries.
In 2007, work began on Rigpa's Spiritual Care Centre at Dzogchen Beara.
Primary resources
External links
- Rigpa Shedra Wiki - an online encyclopedia and media library of Tibetan Buddhist teachings designed especially for students of Rigpa and Sogyal Rinpoche
- Rigpa organization homepage
- Rigpa USA homepage
- Rigpa Glimpse of the Day email service
- Lerab Ling - Tibetan Buddhist sanctuary founded by Rinpoche