Dear All
The last time I wrote a letter about my news was just after my birthday on March 1st. Since then life has been continuing to go well for me. I have given quite a few at various occasions - including just over a week ago when I gave three talks about the Heart Sutra which Younten will be using to lead a group through a 12 week course on the Heart Sutra. You will all soon be able to access these talks, so watch this space! There is so much meaning in the Heart Sutra to tease out and reflect upon. Everyday (more or less) I find deeper and deeper meaning in it. Every line is packed with meaning all pointing to the same timeless, ungraspable unceasing essence! I am anticipating many questions from the group that I will enjoy addressing in the months to come.
I am keen to do more talks on the Shakyamuni and the Guru RInpoche prayers that we do each day so that everyone has a better sense of their significance and importance. Repetition is an important aspect of ritual - simply repeating sacred words and actions on a daily basis creates a mandala structure and dynamic that may seem like not much - but i am coming more and more to the conclusion that there is far more power in it that our ordinary scientific materialistic outlook on life can encompass. We find quantum physics strange but believable - i think we may find the power and effectiveness of ritual even stranger yet true than that even!
I always think to myself that at the moment i realise i am dying or dead - there will be nothing i can do except remember and repeat ritual words and actions - and keep going! The Buddhas and all my lineage heart connections will do the rest. I just need enough faith to repeat the words or names of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and they will be able to keep me connected to the path to Awakening.
It is still Saga Dawa - the month that Tibetan Buddhists treat as an especially sacred time of year and especially the Full Moon day - when we celebrate the birth, Enlightenment and passing away of the Buddha into Parinirvana. The day before we held our annual vow taking day. There were about eight people taking Refuge Vows and 12 taking Bodhisattva vows - about 15 people were here to do that in person and the rest were online in various parts of the world, listed here:
Refuge vow takers
Jane Marriner - Drimey Ka
Aedan Day - Mijigpa Jinpa
Usanee Nuchanong - Ngonshey Jigten Leyndey
Thomas Pott Jinlab Damzig
Kris Shu Chen - Nyi Shawa
David Slater - Pema Gesar
Ericca Perruzza -Chodrok Gewa
Simon Redfern - Yeshe Sal
Bodhisattva vow takers
Irene Delemore - Sangjay Shi
Annette Matthews (Gewar) - Tangnyom Tatuk
Danielle Clarksmith (Drogön Jinpa) -Hlenchik Kyepa Tingdzin
David Miles (Gagme) - Yangdak Gawa
Ed Rothfusz (Yangchen Dewa) - Tsurntu Drenpa
Mary Dixon (Jigdral Palmo) - Palden Jaylay
Phil Owen - Rirab Gyalpo
Stewart Easton (Namyang Ngu) - Murpa De
Sue Evans (Urgyen Tsomo) - Zurpa Semche
Tejapushpa Entwhistle - Taye Tinley
Thomas Pott - Tsultrim Tenbo
Jess Clapham (Metok Chimay) - Metok Hlamo
Alexsandra Rehlinger - Ösel Tendzin
As usual one of the highlights of the day was the receiving of Refuge and Bodhisattva names. Not everyone chooses to use their Refuge names but it is still very meaningful to receive them. It is unusual to be known by one’s Bodhisattva name. Also it is not unusual to take the Bodhisattva vow from different Lamas at different times, Again it is significant to receive a new name. There is something magical about how names are so often indicative of tendrel connections. Again the way names occur, as if meant, is not working according to how our scientific materialistic world view would have predicted! You can see some images of the day HERE
Here at the Hermitage various changes have been taking place. For a while I have been thinking about how we will manage as times get more challenging in terms of the affordability and supply of fuel and food. One precaution is to open up the fireplace in my sitting room and install a wood stove including an oven. We have plenty of wood around here so in an emergency - such as in storm Darrah a few years ago - we can cook and keep ourselves fed.
Over the last few weeks Mike has been working on that and is making a beautiful feature of it.
Over recent months we have been discussing various long standing development project proposals such as upgrading and extending the large cottage kitchen (it is in need of a new roof too). The main long anticipated big project is building a purpose-built Dharma Hall. As you know Jayyasiddhi got us building permission for one several years ago and it looks like the time has come to carry that forward. Lots of preparatory work is needed but it looks like we will be ready to go ahead with that at the beginning of 2028. You will be hearing more about that in the next few months as plans get firmed up and approved by the SMG and the Trustees.
Meanwhile a lot is happening at Tyn y Gors - the retreat centre 20 minutes away that I inherited from my husband Rigdzin Shikpo and where his ashes are enshrined in a stupa in a pagoda on an island in a lake. This has become a regular and beloved pilgrimage place for retreatants at the Hermitage. I have appointed Jonathan Shaw as custodian of the place and he is in the process of moving up to live there with his wife Sarah. Both Sarah and Jonathan have been members of the Longchen Foundation for many years. We hope Jonathan and Sarah will be fully moved in by the end of the year but there is a lot to do at Tyn y Gors still before they can move in. This week a mixed group of Longchen and AHS students are engaged in a work retreat building a wooden cabin to serve as a dining area for group retreats as well as a storage area to replace the old tin shed that was damaged by storm Darrah a few years back. Sudhana is permanently living there as caretaker taking care of retreatants who come to use the facilities and shrine room in the main part of the house.
Meanwhile here at the Hermitage we have just said good bye to Elliot after his 18 month stint at the Hermitage as a steward. He has been keeping things going working hard behind the scenes - I have noticed him mostly at his regular mowing activity and keeping up the shrine room routine and offerings at the stupa. His special flare has been flower arrangement and cooking….especially cakes! My 80th birthday cake was Baileys and white chocolate!
Tara had her 60th birthday on May 15th and we celebrated it with her sister and husband and children with a play created by Pati on the theme of Tara’s life. It focused particularly on her pilgrimage around Mount Kailash - you can read about the whole story in a book called ‘in my teachers footsteps’ by Nick Scott. It is a gripping read.
Tara has been recording interviews about the life stories of some of our older members for our archives. So far she has done one with Yeshe and another with Jean Dearenaley - their life stories tell us a lot about the early days of the Awakened Heart Sangha and how it has developed over the decades! I always find it inspiring to read people's stories - especially their spiritual journeys and how they found the Dharma.
I have made a couple of recorded interviews with Tara herself about her life and we are preparing another one with more about her part in how the sangha and the hermitage developed over the years. I really recommend students listen to her interviews - especially the very personal one about what it is like to keep going when you have to deal with chronic illness for decades and how it becomes a Dharma journey.
Yesterday we received the news that Lama Lodro passed away over night on June 7-8th. Lama Rabsang was there to do Powa for him at midnight. He has been practising in semi retreat at Karma Ling Edgebaston Birmingham for several decades. He came there several years after the centre was founded in the 1970s - it was founded by the 16th Karmapa at the time I arrived back from India - I mentioned how the Birmingham bombings happened the eve of HH Karmapa arriving in Birmingham in Keeping the Dalai Lama Waiting,. I lived at the centre for a while before going to Oxford. Lama Lodro arrived with Lama Thubden, another great Yogin, and over the years I have visited them from time to time - especially at times when Khenpo Rinpoche was visiting Karma Ling. Lama Lodro was very helpful to me when Rigdzin Shikpo Rinpoche passed away by giving me advice about what to do with the body. It was a great comfort to me to have his reassurance and advice at that time. We always remember him when toasting all our Lamas at our feasts.
I imagine all my friends associated with Karma Ling over the years will be meeting up to practise together to honour our connection with Lama Lodro - a great practitioner and example to us all, who has been compassionately blessing Birmingham the heart of Britain with his presence, prayers and meditation. I am sure that has had a profound effect on the whole country and world now and for generations to come in ways that we cannot see yet nonetheless are very real. Our condolences and best wishes are with all of Karma Ling and especially Lama Simon, Tsering Chodren and Alan who have cared for Lama Lodro so devotedly for so many years. May we all meet again and again in this and all future lives working together forever in order to bring all beings to Awakening.
Sadly our dear friend Kalyanavati passed away on 5th of this month. You probably were aware that she has been ill for the last year or so with Bulbar Palsy. In December last year I gave her the Bodhisattva vow from her sick-bed on-line surrounded by her partner Jnanottara and other members of her family. It was a very moving occasion and she was given the name Ozair Ta-ye which means limitless rays of light - a name that she loved and very similar to the name of Amitabha - the Buddha of Limitless Light. Jnanottara felt at her passing that she passed very peacefully as if directly into the presence of Amitabha.
She will be sorely missed by all her family and friends both in Triratna and Awakened Heart Sanghas.
A number of us recited the Samantabhadra- charya- pranidhana in front of the stupa with her family and friends from both sanghas on-line dedicating the punya to her safe onward journey and to be able to meet again and again in all our future lives in order to work together to bring all beings to Awakening. Sarva Mangalam!
Other news is that we have Nyima here as a steward and Juul is volunteering here for just over two months. Julian was here for a week to support the Hermitage while Lama Tara was down in Ty Pren. I spent a week there last week. It is always such a joy to spend time in that sacred place. Rachael and George were here cooking for us over the Vows weekend. They are planning to come for another week soon and potentially for the whole of next year.], we will hopefully know more about this in September. It would be such a blessing to have the two of them on site to take care of Lama Tara and myself. It will take a lot of the pressure off us. Lama Tara in particular.
I should mention, too, the work retreat we had some weeks ago at the Hermitage. It was such a delightful group of volunteers and they managed to get such a lot of work done - painting the cabins, brambling, gardening and all sorts of things! Thank you everyone for your joyful spirit of generosity and service.
On 16th June it is Katie Morrow's 70th birthday - our hearts, thoughts and best wishes will be with her as she celebrates from her two month home retreat. So many of our lives have been enriched and benefitted from her presence in the Sangha both as an MYG member as well as a beloved teacher. She always brings that flavour of the Vidyara Trungpa RInpoche's presence to every Dharma discussion. Thank you Katie for being the inimitable you!
I’d better close here as this letter is getting much too long! Many other things have been happening that are well worth mentioning. Maybe they will go into another newsletter in the near future.
Wishing you all many happy Dharma days to come! I look forward to seeing you soon either in person or online
With much love
Shenpen.