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Over the years I have had many discussions on the topic of Dzogchen[1] and Vedanta, particularly Advaita Vedanta, with friends and practitioners of Yungdrung Bön[2] and various schools of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Recently, this topic came up again in conversation when a friend  brought to my attention a section of Loel Guiness’ book Rainbow Body that contains an exposition of the Dzogchen view. We had a lively discussion about what was written there after my recent talk at Watkins Books in London and it is this discussion that has prompted me to write this article since, from the perspective of Dzogchen Read more

Today is the anniversary of when Mucho Demdrug (Tib. Mu-cho ldem-drug), one of the seven sons of Buddha Tönpa Shenrab Miwoche, turned the Wheel of Bön. When Tönpa Shenrab passed into nyangen ledepa (Tib. mya-ngan las-‘das-pa – parinirvana) in 7817 BC, Mucho Demdrug became Tönpa Shenrab’s Regent (Tib. gdung-sob). He descended on Earth from the realm of Cha (Tib. phywa) when the period of the Teachings of Body (Tib. sku-yi bstan-pa) was completed in 6016 BC and took charge of the Yungdrung Bön doctrines and their propagation in the new 10,000-year cycle of the Teachings of Speech (Tib. gsungs-gi bstan-pa). Read more

Today, on the 10th day of 6th lunar months, Bönpos all over the world celebrate Drenpa Yabse Duchen – the anniversary of Drenpa Namkha and his twin sons Tsewang Rigdzin and Pema Thongdrol. Tsewang Rigdzin is an emanation of Buddha Sangwa Düpa and Pema Thongdrol is an emanation of siddha Tagla Mebar. According to traditional Bönpo chronology, the boys were born to Drenpa Namkha and his Indian consort Wöden Barma in Zhang Zhung in 888 B.C. Drenpa Namkha and Wöden Barma later separated. Taking the younger twin Pema Thongdrol with her, the mother went to Uddiana while Tsewang Rigdzin stayed Read more

It’s six years since this Foundation, set up with the blessing of Yongdzin Rinpoche, received its official status as a UK charity, so this weekend we are celebrating another anniversary. ‘Hardly a day goes by without me reading at least one or two pages from your books’ (sangha member) Each year when we come to prepare the Annual Report for the UK Charity Commission, we think we didn’t manage to do much this year, but then I look over the last twelve months and see that in fact we released several books of teachings, as well as prayers, videos, Zoom  Read more

Today we honour Kyabje Lungtog Tenpai Nyima Rinpoche, the late Menri Tridzin, who was born on this day, 1929, in Amdo, East Tibet. ཨེ་མ་ཧོ།། E MA HO! རབ་འབྱམས་ཕྱོགས་བཅུའི་རྒྱལ་བ་སྲས་བཅས་ཀྱི།། You are a supreme scholar among the sons of the Victorious Ones of the Ten Directions, Великий ученый муж череды сынов Победителей десяти сторон вселенной; མཁྱེན་བརྩེའི་ཡེ་ཤེས་ངོ་བོ་གཅིག་བསྡུས་པ།། The Omniscient One in whom the essence of Primordial Wisdom is gathered, Всеведущий, в котором собрана сущность изначальной мудрости; ཟབ་རྒྱས་གཤེན་བསྟན་སྤེལ་བའི་འཕྲིན་ལས་ཅན།། Through your Buddha-activities, you spread far and wide the profound Teachings of Shenrab, Вашими просветленными усилиями, широко распространились глубокие учения Шенраба; ལུང་རྟོགས་བསྟན་པའི་ཉི་མར་གསོལ་བ་འདེབས།། I pray to you, Read more