One day very special event with Lama Wangdu Rinpoche!
Rinpoche will bestow the Chöd empowerment and the oral transmission for the Khandro Kegyang ("the Bellowing Laughter of the Dakinis"), and guide us in a group Chöd puja. It will be the first empowerment in our fully completed Yuthok temple, and we are honored to have one of the greatest living Chöd masters come to help initiate our new space here.
Lama Tsering Wangdu Rinpoche is a lineage holder of the Longchen Nyingthig, Shije, and Chod traditions. Born in 1935 in Tingri Langkor, Tibet, he received transmission and training from his root Lama, Naptra Rinpoche, and completed the traditional 108 charnel ground Chod pilgrimage before he was twenty. Naptra Rinpoche sent Lama Wangdu to Nepal on pilgrimage shortly before the Chinese closed the border in 1959. A well-trained and experienced yogi, he has lived in Nepal ever since, spending much of his life in retreat and serving the Tibetan refugee community.
Today, Lama Wangdu Rinpoche is the Abbot of Pal Gyi Langkor Jangsem Kunga Ling Monastery in Boudha, Nepal, which he founded in 2000, and a well-known teacher and healer. He spends part of each year in Portland, Oregon, USA teaching and leading retreats and the rest of the year training monastics at Pal Gyi Ling in Nepal. To learn more about Rinpoche, please visit www.lamawangdu.org.
Logistical Information:
Schedule
9:30 – Doors open
10:00-11:00 – Opening reception and tour of Pure Land Farms
11:00-1:00 – Chöd Empowerment with Lama Wangdu Rinpoche followed by Tsok (feast offering ritual)
1:00-2:00 – Break
2:00-3:30 – Group Khandro Kegyang practice and Closing
Our afternoon session will be followed by a khata line for Lama Wangdu. During this time you can make a personal offering and receive individual blessings from Rinpoche.
Registration & Cost
$50-108 (Sliding Scale) Suggested Donation.
Plus $100 minimum suggested dana offering for Rinpoche (cash only, directly to Rinpoche)
Space is limited and pre-registration is mandatory. There will be no registration available at the door.
Please note that your donation goes towards event overhead costs, Rinpoche’s travel, and tsok food. In order to thank Lama Wangdu for his generosity, and to create positive tendrel (auspicious interdependence), please bring a cash dana offering for Rinpoche along with a khata (we will have some khatas/offering scarves available to borrow or purchase during the break).
Transit & Parking
Due to limited parking at Pure Land Farms, there will be an available shuttle service from nearby Woodland Hills. Information will be sent to those who have registered. We request that LA locals please carpool to Topanga, which we can assist in coordinating. If you would like to be added to our carpool email list, please e-mail us and we will create a list. (Your email address will be visible to other local attendees).
The connection with the Yuthok Nyingthig cycle of practice:
Yuthok and Machig Labdrön, the matriarch of the Chöd tradition, share a very important connection with the same master - Dr. Traba Ngönshé (1012–1090). Traba Ngönshe was an esteemed tertön, physician, and Dzogchen master, credited with the revelation of the Four Tantras of Tibetan Medicine from Samyé monastery. According to Sangye Gyatso's Mirror of Beryl, these Four Tantras were passed along to Yuthok by way of Upa Dardrak and Tönchen Könchok Kyap (whose life was saved by a preteen Dr. Yuthok). Traba Ngönshe was also one of the first and most influential teachers in the life of Machig Labdrön. She studied the Prajnaparamita Sutra with him when she was young, and may have even received medical instructions from him, as evidenced by teachings on anatomy and physiology left behind in her oral lineage. Yuthok is also credited with authoring root texts on the body offering, which have been versified and incorporated into Yuthok Nyingthik practice by lineage masters over the past millennium. What's more, Traba Ngönshe is the tertön who introduced the Dharmapala Shanglön Dorje Duddul, the chief protector of the Medical tradition & Yuthok Nyingthik, as well as a prominent protector in the Chöd tradition.