Christmas 2025!
Christmas 2025
Dear All
I hope you have all had a good year. For the Sangha as a whole it has been a wonderful year of Dharma activity on all fronts – so many different LAH streams all going on at once. I am sure I only know half of it.
It’s been a quiet year for me compared with last year. Two trips to Nepal. Khenpo Rinpoche passing away, Rigdzin Shikpos stupa consecration and then the drama of storm Darragh!
This year I am happy to say has seen a lot of solitary retreat going on alongside group retreats and the rest of our Dharma activity. The cabin Lama Dashon spent his two year retreat in has been in almost constant use as well as the lower cabin and Tyn y Gors has also seen quite a bit of retreat going on – mainly solitary. It is great that we are seeing Dharma activity taking place on all fronts like this. Thank you everyone for your efforts – it all contributes to the whole sangha mandala.
This year I have been able to make it down to Ty Pren for almost a week each month until September, since then I have been busy with this and that trying to sort various things out that have been long neglected. Around that time I got the first rough draft of the Mandala Principle book from Liz who had been working on it for just over a year. She had done a terrific job but unfortunately – at least in some ways – my thinking had moved on so much by that time that I felt the whole thing needed rewriting! However, on due reflection I decided to approach the topic in a completely new way by giving a series of talks on Mondala Principle and then see how well they could be transformed into a book form alongside question and answer sections. Many of you have signed up to join these impromptu talks over the next few months and the feedback so far has been encouraging. Thank you also all of you have volunteered to transcribe them and help with the editing.
Much of this year has been taken up with discussions about the future of the Hermitage and Tyn y Gors. There are various possibilities in the offing, and it is a matter of deciding where we want to focus our resources both personally and as a Sangha. It will be up to Lama Dashon as Dharma Director to decide what direction to lead us, but part of that process is to consult with all concerned. It is a wonderful stage to be at in our Sangha’s development, isn’t it? We have options all of which are good ones!
Over the course of this year, we have had a Steward (Elliott King) stepping in under the loving care and guidance of Lama Tamsin our Hermitage Manager and Lama Tara as resident Lama alongside myself. It has been hard work for Tamsin juggling all her various responsibilities, but she has enjoyed the balance of plenty of outside work in the garden and caring for the horses with office administrative work on the computer. The horses are a great favourite with residents and visitors. They keep the trees free of brambles and weeds which is what we got them for. They do need a lot of care and attention though. Meanwhile, the stupa garden has been the focus for a major transformation carried out by volunteers led mainly by Karuna (Jenny Kenyon). It has been looking wonderful – lots of colour and variety as the seasons change. The vegetable garden has also been yielding crops of various kinds.
The latest news is that the finial – the ornament for the top of the pagoda over Rigdzin Shikpos stupa at Tyn y Gors has arrived from Nepal and is being filled with jewels and mantras. See picture. That will complete Mike’s (Mebar’s husband) Swan Song project as he calls it. He has spent a year on it using all his skills in the carpentry, metal and stonework involved in the building of the pagoda. He has regarded it as an act of devotion and not wanted to be paid for a large part of the work. It is indeed quite a work of art!
We are busy planning for next year at the moment. It being my 80th year feels rather special. I am thinking of making it the occasion for a series of special events and pilgrimages. Also, as a time to reconnect with various friends. Elizabeth Callahan is planning to spend a week with us at some point and I hope my cousin Tina will come again soon and perhaps my brother and his family. Tina and i managed to meet up at the British Museum in October when I gave my weekend course on Mandala Principle at the Shambala Centre in Clapham. It was very well attended (about 70 people) maybe nearly half of whom were AHS. Many old faces and new. Including of course Serlingma who sadly passed away after a heart attack a matter of a few weeks later. Serlingma will be buried in a meadow by an ancient oak forest at 11:15-11:45 UK time on Monday 8th December. For those of us who would wish to come together to remember her in our thoughts and meditation Toby (Serlingma’s son) has set up a Zoom room to coincide with her burial. You can join in using these details:
Invitation to Zoom meeting: Remembering Sheila
Monday 8th December at 11.15am UK time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82029467434?pwd=wRZXAJfOpmMTPanwPWqAM6wNh1kcYc.1
Meeting ID: 820 2946 7434
Passcode: 454633
I feel a strong connection to the Shambala centre where I have given weekend courses on a number of occasions over the decades, and it is where Trungpa Rinpoche himself gave a talk back in the 1980s. I was staying in the room and possibly the bed he stayed in and somehow it felt a very blessed place
This year was supposed to be focusing on the 6th area of the LAH training all about ritual: symbolism and mandala principle come into that very strongly. I have spent quite a bit of time developing my own understanding of all of this and have given a few talks on it over the course of the year. However as with all the LAH areas covered over the last 6 years – I have barely scratched the surface of them – they are each such vast areas. I will continue developing this year’s theme over the coming year while simultaneously responding to requests for teaching and Q and A questions on all the other areas.
Lama Tara and Lama Agnes led the way for my introducing the Tara practice to members of the sadhana group in September. This group will discuss a framework for how and when to make these practices available to the AHS as a whole. Lama Agnes and her sangha have been devoted to Tara practice for decades and were delighted to participate in this process. Lama Tara has instigated a monthly Tara day prayers and dance session – Tara day is the 8th of the Tibetan Luna calendar – that is of course two days before Guru Rinpoche Day each month. As I said – as a sangha we are moving forward on all fronts at once and this is just another example!
At the Hermitage we will be having a Christmas day feast – it is one of my favourite times of year with the fire puja at the solstice and then the next ten days of celebrating and resting and enjoying the season and the sense of a new year’s cycle about to begin……….the dying of the old year and birth of the new! The coming of the light into the world- the Christmas story, carols and memories of childhood.
It feels like a time for connecting to family, including sangha family and of friends old and new.
So, the Season’s greetings to you all and a happy new year.
Shenpen