Pathgate News
New Film on Zangdok Pelri Pema Odki Phodrang
New to the Pathgate Theatre is a film offering a virtual tour of the Zangdok Pelri Temple at Namdroling Monastery in South India. The construction of Zangdok Pelri Pema Odki Phodrang (the Light Rays Palace of Padmasambhava on the Golden Copper Coloured Mountain) began in 2002 and was completed in 2004.
The exterior wall of the Zangdok Pelri is finished in four different colours to symbolise crystal, lapis lazuli, lotus ruby and sapphire in accordance to the depiction in the tantra. The altar at the ground level shrine hall contains seven statues such as Buddha Shakyamuni, Guru Padmasambhava, and Chenrizig. A separate entrance by the side of the temple leads you to the Zangdok Pelri Pema Odki Phodrang. On the first floor, inside the Nirmanakaya mansion at this level is the statue of Guru Padmasambhava surrounded by his eight manifestations such as Padma Jungnas, Padma Gyalpo, Nyima Odzer, Senge Dradrok and Dorje Drolo.
On the next level is the Sambhogakaya mansion, which houses the statue of Lord Avalokiteshvara, surrounded by the Eight Noble Bodhisattvas. At the upper level is the Dharmakaya mansion, which has a statue of Lord Vairocana surrounded by the Family of Five Primordial Buddhas.
To view this film click on the Dharma Theatre.
New Pathgate Study Groups in Portugal
Lama Dondrup Dorje has just been to the Mediterranean region where he gave Dharma teachings in Greece, Italy and Portugal.
The first stop was Athens where Lama Dondrup Dorje gave four days of teaching at the Pathgate Dharma Centre. This centre is now in full operation. In residence are two of our ordained sangha of the Palyul Nyingmapa Buddhist Association (Greece): Dawa Loday and Dorje Gyaltsen, who will serve as the main facilitators for Dharma activities there. Lama Dondrup Dorje’s next visit to Greece will be for the Pathgate Summer Retreat from 23rd July to 3rd August. For more details, click Summer Retreat.
At Rome in June, Lama Dondrup Dorje gave teaching for the first time in Italy. It was warmly received by both local students of Rome and a group who travelled from Sardinia for the teaching.
The next stop on the tour of the Mediterranean region was Portugal. Lama Dondrup Dorje first visited Portugal in March this year when he gave a talk on Buddha Dharma.
Due to the public interest he generated, he was invited to return for a second time in June to give a weekend of Dharma teaching, meditation and Qigong. Students not limited to Portuguese attended the seminar. There were students from Italy, France, Germany, Bulgaria and the USA. A new Pathgate Study Group has now been formed for weekly practice of Puja and meditation. The Study Group will be facilitated by long-time students of Lama Dondrup Dorje; Sawaswati and Shyam.
We would like to congratulate the forming of a new Pathgate Study Group in Melbourne, Australia. Tsering Lhamo is the facilitator of the Study Group. She has received Dharma teaching and Qigong instruction from Lama Dondrup Dorje over a number of years. Members of the Melbourne Study Group will meet weekly for Meditation, Qigong practice, Puja and Dharma discussion. To lend support to the forming of the new Study Group, Lama Dondrup Dorje visited Melbourne in late March to give a weekend seminar on Buddha Dharma, Meditation and Classical Qigong to a group of local students. They were joined by other students from Sydney who flew in specifically to invite Lama Dondrup Dorje to give similar teaching to the Asian community they represented in Sydney in his next visit. Lama Dondrup Dorje has now agreed to return to Melbourne and Sydney around late June and early July. To know more about Lama Dondrup Dorje's next visit to the Mediterranean region and Australia, please visit Teaching Schedule.
Tse Thar: Life Release in Hong Kong
As part of the accumulated practice of the Prayer Week for the Long Life for His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, the Hong Kong Palyul Centre organised a ceremony of Tse Thar: The Practice of Ransom and Life Release aboard a hired ferry in the coastal waters of Hong Kong on Saturday 24th March 2007. Lama Dondrup Dorje, who was in Hong Kong at the time, attended the ceremony and took part in the puja led by Chodak Rinpoche, Head of the Hong Kong Palyul Centre.
The ferry set off at 2.30pm from the sea front of Victoria Harbour towards the coastal waters off Lamma Island. There it met up with a fishing boat laden with catches of close to 2000 marine lives including cockles, octopus and sea fishes of various sizes. The entire stock was transferred onto the ferry to receive blessing before being released back to their natural habitat of the sea.
Tse Thar: The Practice of Ransom and Life Release is highly revered as a great Act of Compassion and as an expedient means of Mind Training by all three Buddhist traditions of Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. The Great Buddhist Master Nagarjuna deemed Life Release as the supremest of all virtuous activity. Its many benefits and the store of merits it may generate are recorded in numerous sutras and tantras. When performed with the right motivation for the benefit of all sentient beings, it has the power to remove obstacles, repay karmic debts, overcome sickness, promote good health, nurture longevity, create auspicious conditions, increase prosperity, and generating merits for the deceased. The ultimate goal of Tse Thar is to enable one to attain the two-fold fulfilment of lasting benefit for oneself and others.
The Life of Guru Rinpoche - A film trailer
A project to add Tibetan and English subtitles to the 12-hour video presentation of The Life of Guru Rinpoche produced under the directive of His Holiness Penor Rinpoche was first considered in the 1990’s but was never realised. Under an initiative by the Pathgate Institute of Buddhist Studies and the Ngagyur Nyingma Institute, the Tibetan dialogue of the entire video has finally been translated into English. The next stage of this project may involve this video being re-released in the DVD format and the publication of a companion book in both Tibetan and English. Meanwhile The Life of Guru Rinpoche - a trailer of this film was recently shown to His Holiness Penor Rinpoche who was very pleased with the result. To see this trailer, please click Dharma Theatre.
Qi Dynamics, Electromagnetic Energy and Buddha Nature
New to the Pathgate Theatre is a film recording of an extract from a Two-Day Seminar given by Lama Dondrup Dorje in 2004 in Singapore on the practice of Classical Qigong with focus on Qi Dynamics, Electromagnetic Energy and Buddha Nature.
This, being the first of a series of Masterclass seminars given in Singapore, took place at the Singapore Police Headquarters in November 2004. During the two-day seminar Lama Dondrup Dorje explained how the energetic structure of the human body comes into being due to the resulting fusion of the original essence that we inherited from birth with that of the heavenly energy which is positive by nature and the earth energy which is negative by nature; and which together give rise to the constitution which the Classics refer to as the fusion of Heaven, Earth & Man. He also explained how the proper grounding of the positive ions of the human energy can displace the negative ions in the ground to give rise to the emerging of an energy bubble around the body which serves as an electro-magnetic field. Lama Dondrup Dorje also explained the inter-related dynamics between the circulation of qi and blood; body mechanics, emotional mechanics, mind mechanics; and the reason why the vast number of practitioners of the classical internal arts are often practitioners of the Buddhist Path. To view this film visit Pathgate Theatre.
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