TaraNet
March 12, 2009

Dzinpa Rangdröl, "Self Liberation of Clinging" Date Change
New Dates: May 15-24, 2009

We have just heard from Tulku Sang ngag (Gochen Rinpoche) that he will not be able to come to Tara Mandala in April because of a very important meeting he must attend in Nepal in order to support his community there. Because of this, we will move the Dzinpa Rangdrol retreat from April 17-26 to May 15-24. May 15-18 will be Part One: Ngondro and May 19-24 will be Part Two, requiring ngondro completion, White Dakini, and Troma as before.

We will also provide space for the ngondro practitioners to stay on and do a practice retreat during Part Two (May 19-24). During this time we will offer several question and answer sessions for the ngondro participants with Rinpoche so you can stay on and get established in the practice if you wish.

Sometimes important teachings and transmissions are difficult to receive; there can be tests and obstacles on the way and we have a feeling this will be a special retreat. This is really the beginning of the whole terma cycle at Tara Mandala so that might cause obstacles. They say that greater the teaching the greater the obstacles. The Dakini Dance retreat will also be held during this time.

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New Retreat Offering: Dakini Dance with Lama Jigme
May 17-24

Lama Jigme will come to teach the Dance of offering performed by the practitioners dressed as Dakinis during Tibetan ritual gatherings such as the Drubchen, (Great Accomplishment Ceremonies) when it is performed every evening for the descent of the blessings.

Lama Jigme was attendant to H. H. Dudjom Rinpoche. He comes from a family of Nyingma Yogis and completed nine years of study at Khetsun Zangpo's College (Shedra) in Kathmandu. He will teach the Dakini Dance morning and afternoon during the second half of Tulku Sang nag's retreat.  Those trained at this retreat will do the Dakini dance at this summer's Drubchen August 23-31, but even if you aren't coming to this Drubchen you can learn this dance.

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Catalyst School of Homeopathy
May 3-9 / July 19-25 / Sept. 28 - Oct. 4

Dear Friends,

This year we are bringing the Catalyst School of Homeopathy to Tara Mandala. The faculty will be some of the best homeopathy doctors in the country and will combine the teachings of homeopathic medicine with spiritual teachings in the Buddhist and Shamanic traditions with guest teachers as well as the core teachers Christopher Beaver and Melissa Burch. Homeopathy and Vajrayana Buddhism have some interesting commonalities in their approaches.

Both traditions use the transformed poisons as their medicine. In homeopathy, minute amounts of the very poison you are plagued with are introduced. Some of the animal, plant, or mineral sources from which homeopathic remedies are prepared are highly poisonous in their base state. For example, heavy metals, snake and spider venoms, and poisons such as arsenic and strychnine could never be used as medicines in their crude form but are safe, effective agents for disease treatment when placed into potency.

The founder of homeopathy, the late 18th century German physician named Samuel Hahnemann, through experiments formed his theory that like cures like, or the Law of Similars. This law states that when a substance in large doses causes certain symptoms, in small doses it can cure these same symptoms. Some treatments in conventional medicine rely on this like-cures-like principle; vaccines, for instance, introduce small doses of an illness-causing agent to prevent disease.

Other important principles of homeopathy are dilution and succussion. Remedies are diluted and then "succussed," or shaken, in order to increase their potency. The process of successive dilution and succussion is called potentization. This imprints and amplifies the therapeutic nature of the original substance onto the water and alcohol mixture; the dilution stages of the process remove the chemical residue of the original substance. If dilution removes the toxicity of a substance, succussion releases and amplifies its therapeutic effect. For this reason, something that has no medicinal value in its crude form can become highly active when succussed and placed into potency.  By the time the remedy has been potentiated, it is unlikely that a single molecule of the original substance will remain. The remedy becomes a "sub-molecular" medicine that will not poison or produce toxic side effects - no matter how large the dose.

In Vajrayana Buddhist practice we recognize that the inherent energy of the five poisons: ignorance, anger, pride, craving and jealousy when transformed, purified and potentiated through transmission become the medicine, in this case the five wisdoms.   The method of depth meditation, mantra recitation and visualization over extensive periods are the potentization and succussion process in Vajrayana. Also in the five-step practice of "Feeding Your Demons" the very same energy that was caught in the demon becomes the ally when the demon is nurtured.

Our Catalyst School of Homeopathy at Tara Mandala will be a unique meeting of Vajrayaana Buddhism and Homeopathy. Never before have these two disciplines come to together in this way, and this year they will meet in the beautiful living mandala of the new Tara temple. I look forward to the evolution of the Catalyst School of Homeopathy at Tara Mandala and trust it will be an amazing creative development in our curriculum.

Lama Tsultrim

More about the Catalyst School of Homeopathy...

Long Term Retreatants and Ordination at Tara Mandala

On Losar (Tibetan New Year) we first had a beautiful sunrise Sang, a fragrant juniper smoke offering in front of the temple and then visited various homes of staff members, eating and drinking something different in each cabin, and culminating in Lama Gyurme and Yudron's new cabin where they have a traditional Tibetan shrine, a kitchen and a bathroom with running water! They offered us delicious Tibetan momos at lunch time.

Lama Gyurme in his new cabin

The Losar group in Sarah's cabin, Juniper

Outside Lizzy's home, Tara Yurt

Lama Tsultrim, Beth Lee-Herbert, and her parents, Judy and William, outside the Tara Temple

In the afternoon we had a ceremony in which Beth Lee-Herbert said goodbye to the community and then entered her year-long retreat in Karuna cabin. Beth worked at Tara Mandala for three years, and many of you may remember her as retreat manager. After a one month retreat last year she longed for more, so Lama Tsultrim suggested she enter a year retreat and she jumped at the chance. After pilgrimage to Nepal and Bhutan in the fall and setting all of her affairs in order, she was ready. Her parents Judy and Billy Herbert came out for the "tucking in" ceremony and are sponsoring her retreat. They also offered one of the treasure columns for the temple in Beth's honor. Each column's corbel has different termas (treasure texts) hidden inside. Beth chose the one with Longchenpa's Way of Abiding inside. It was beautiful to see the family come together in this way to support the Dharma. In the course of Beth's development as a practitioner her mother Judy has come to retreat at Tara Mandala and now she also has a regular Green Tara meditation practice at home in New York.

Beth receives baby Thinley in the Dharmakaya Level of the Tara Temple

Jampa Dorje at his poetry reading before entering his one-three year retreat

In early January, Jampa Dorje (Richard Denner), "our monk," who has been involved with Tara Mandala since its inception fifteen years ago and used to run the bookstore, also entered retreat. He committed for one year but hope to stay for three.

Jampa has been our resident poet and is known in the Beat poetry world for his chap books. In 1965, he attended the Berkeley Poetry Conference, what John Bennett, in 'Air Guitar' (an Ellensberg Daily Record column), has called, “an event creating white light intensity that rivaled any drug high and had more staying power.” This convergence of the Black Mountain, San Francisco Renaissance, Beat and Northwest Schools gave Richard the pivotal opportunity to study under such avant-garde poets as Charles Olson, Ed Dorn, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Joanne Kyger, Lew Welch, and Jack Spicer. Later he would study with Robert Bly, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Denise Levertov and Carolyn Kizer. But it was Jack Spicer’s molding of series poetry into little books that had the most important effect. His Collected Poems: 1961-2000 was published by Comrades Press in 2001. He left Tara Mandala to care for his aged mother and stayed ten years, during which time he was ordained by Ad.zom Rinpoche. After her death he sold everything and came "home" to Tara Mandala in 2008. He is in retreat Luminous Peak, a cabin he helped build with Jeff Tipp and Joe Saviers in the mid-1990's.

Costanzo Allione days before entering his year-long retreat

On February 4, Costanzo Allione (Ösel Dorje) entered his second one year retreat. He also hopes to stay for three years but it depends on whether he needs to go to Tibet and see his teacher Ad.zom Rinpoche. He spent most of the last year in Kathmandu studying Tibetan and overseeing the statues and carpets and Drubchen articles that are being made there for the temple.

When he returned to Tara Mandala he spent the late fall fixing up his cabin, Dragon's Nest, on land adjoining Tara Mandala which was given to him by Lama Tsultrim. He installed more water collection and a new floor, which is already being put to good use as he does prostrations and works his way through his fourth Ngondro (Preliminary Practices).

Now three people are in long term retreat. In addition, Susan Purcell finishes a three month sojourn in April and our beloved Devon Ward-Thommes is in a one month retreat.

Annalis Prendina and Devon Ward-Thommes during the Losar ceremony in the Tara Temple

We appreciate the strength of their commitment to serve all beings in this powerful way. This fulfills one of the primary visions for Tara Mandala: creating a place for depth retreat similar to what was possible in Tibet. We have been given a grant for $15,000 for a new cabin and need to match that to begin construction. Please be in touch with Lama Tsultrim or Cady Holtkamp if you'd like to help sponsor a cabin. This is really needed as our current cabins, except one month in Ratna, are booked until March 2010! If we get the funds, work will begin on a new cabin this spring.

Annalis Prendina, from Switzerland, recently took over the bookstore from Vanessa Liste after her five years of building the business and establishing it as one of the best Dharma Center stores. On Losar, Annalis took novice ordination as a nun, and she is called Anila Jazer Khandro. She now has a shaved head and wears robes. She looked radiant and joyful and said this was the fulfillment of a long held dream. She hopes to eventually receive full ordination. She is currently in Bosnia for a few weeks, teaching at the school of Cranial Sacral Therapy she established there to work with war trauma victims.

Tara Temple Update

Spring is arriving here at Tara Mandala and as Mother Nature begins to adorn the ground with the first flowers of spring, the temple too blooms with beauty. The corbels have been painted and installed, inside which the Dzogchen treasure texts (termas) are hidden, wrapped in silk and spreading blessings in the temple. The shape and artistic embellishments of the corbels give the effect of large lotus petals blossoming. The carvers have begun work on the throne, carving and shaping a magnificent raised seat on a base like a stupa.

Temple Corbels are painted and installed!

We recently received a shipment from Nepal with three more Tara statues, each as beautiful and glowing as the first. Shrine objects are also arriving from Nepal, including a large embroidered inner mandala curtain for the Drubchen mandala this summer. To accommodate our continued production of the Temple's artistic elements, the dining room in the Community Building has been transformed into a painting studio, and local community members have volunteered to assist with the painting. We still need funds, and the carvers were offered to return to Bhutan because we couldn't afford to pay them as we had been. They immediately said that they wanted to finish everything, because the temple was for all beings. So we are now only able to pay them a fourth of what we were previously offering. There are also no floors in the temple or library. So please consider continuing support. Let's finish the temple! 

One of three new Tara statues, just in from Nepal

Drubchen Mandala Curtains

New Teleteaching with Lama Tsultrim now available for download

Lama Tsultrim's March 1, 2009 teleteaching is now available for free download. She shared news from Tara Mandala and answered a number of questions from sangha members.

Download here...

Seeking Traveling Companion for Bhutanese Carvers

We are looking for someone traveling to Asia in the next few months, who would be willing to escort three Bhutanese carvers from the Durango, CO to Bangkok. We're somewhat flexible on dates, and could work around your schedule. If you're interested, please contact Cady Holtkamp at cady@taramandala.org.

House Adjoining Tara Mandala for Sale

A single family house with adjacent beautiful retreat cabin on 35 acres, with spectacular above tree-line views of Chimney Rock and surrounding mountain ranges, is available for purchase. Beautiful sloping meadow land, perfect for horses or walking. Vast views and luminous sunsets, this is a very special property. Please contact David at david@taramandala.org for more information.