Dharma Activities in Dublin

I just spent three days in Kagyu Samye Dzong, Dublin, Ireland, teaching and so forth. The Centre had invited me for many years, but I was too busy to accept. So I am happy that, after many years, I could eventually visit again.

I wish you all well.

Drupon Khen Rinpoche’s time in Samye Dzong was short but jam-packed with Dharma activities. Arriving at the Centre in the afternoon of May 11th, he taught that evening on the Essential Points of Dharma Practice.

The next day, on the 12th, he gave several personal interviews and then met with some of the Centre’s trustees and members of the management committee, who wished to inform Rinpoche of the Centre’s current activities and future plans.

During this meeting, Rinpoche helped them select a location for the construction of a stupa and then performed a land consecration ritual for it.

That afternoon, Rinpoche gave teachings on Mind and Meditation, answering several well-considered questions from the participants. He also bestowed the reading transmission for the Thirty-seven Practices of a Bodhisattva.

In the evening, Rinpoche taught how important it is to find good circumstances for the practice of the Dharma and how strongly our surroundings influence us. He also taught on the need for Ireland to produce its own local teachers, scholars and practitioners, rather than relying on people invited from the outside.

The next day, May 13th, at the request of Ani Yonten, the Centre’s resident nun, Rinpoche gave teachings on refuge, the Three Jewels and then bestowed refuge to around 15 new Buddhists.

In the afternoon, he continued to answer the participants’ questions, to teach on Mind and Meditation and, in particular, how one’s work and daily life can be transformed into an arena rich for Dharma practice. He explained in depth how to look beyond the external forms of practice and tradition to distinguish practitioners from non-practitioners and identify what defines them.

In the final teaching of his visit, he continued to take questions and then briefly explained and gave the reading transmission for Jetsun Milarepa’s doha, “The Song of a Yogi’s Joy”.

ཕྲན་ཨ་ལེན་བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་བསམ་ཡས་རྫོང་ལ་འབྱོར་ནས་ཆོས་ཁྲིད་སོགས་ཉིན་གསུམ་ཙམ་རིང་བྱས། ཁོང་རྣམས་པས་ལོ་མང་རིང་རེ་བསྐུལ་བྱས་སོང་ཡང་ལས་བྲེལ་གྱིས་འོང་མ་ཐུབ། ལོ་མང་རྗེས་སུ་ཡང་བསྐྱར་སླེབ་ཐུབ་པ་དགའ་བོ་བྱུང་སོང་། ཐམས་ཅད་བདེ་པོ་བཞུགས།