སློབ་དཔོན་བཀྲིན་ཆེ།།

when I look back now, 19 years have passed being princess of my parents.  As a student I did my home works in time and studied smartly for the exams. It was fine to change ambitions regularly, sometimes i would think of becoming a doctor or sometimes an engineer. It depended upon the scores of the subject. Till 10th grade my life was pretty well. In the process of becoming an adult, i lost my dream. I was confused with who I am and what I want to do. I must say it took two years to actually discover my potential.
Landing here at Sherubtse was blessing in disguise. Moreover I thank myself for opting  media course  without giving a second thought during that time. Coming here and  having professor Dorji Wangchuk was another blessing. I thank him for inspiring me to restart with my forgotten dreams. Apart from the academic lessons, Sir has never failed to inspire and motivate us with his own life examples.

He has taught us to dig out the potential that every one of us possess. To accept the challenges and Obstacles  and to face them with all your abilities. The  best thing was, introducing us to the beauty and charm of photography. I have loved taking photos but never realized the beauty of it until now. I should say, I find beauty in everything and I get an urge to capture it. Thank you sir, for shaking and molding us to what others would call a better human being. For giving us the lessons that are beyond the text book. For believing in our potential and more than anything, Thank you for your inspirations.

Clouds are simply beautiful, nature never fails to inspire us.

We have the key,  so just unlock the door to success.

sky is the only limit.

Statue of monastery at Barshong.

who would have guessed, staircase in the college library is just beautiful. 

Dungkarchoeling or most commonly known as Rongthung.

Thanks to our seniors.....

Every living creature is beautiful in their own way.

Just opposite to my place, stands a small community called Pam. 

Magnificent Monastery of Barshong

 

Although the sun rise every day, every time has its own beauty.

these are few photographs that i took during my summer break.

Degree Hostel I of Sherubtse College

view from Sangaygang

across the kurichu stands a beautiful stupa.

view of tiger's next from the top

the magnificient Gangtey Gonpa

song of realization

Buddhism has produced one of the amazing practitioners. Despite the fact that Buddhism in Tibet was sob divided into various sect. each sect have their master who made a remarkable achievements in compilation of text. Many of the earlier master have showed that it is possible to achieve enlightenment during this very lifetime.

Milarepa the great yogi

One of the most famous was the yogi Milarepa, who during his earlier times killed many people through black magic. He had a reason to do that. Later with deep regret he set his journey in search of a master from whom he can practice. It was not that easy as he has thought. His spiritual master known as the great translator Marpa was very strict with him. He was very tempered in nature. It was the Marpa who trained him thoroughly not with the teachings but made him work. He was asked to build a house but before the completion it was dismantled several times. It was during this time when he really proved himself obedient to his master.  Then after many years of struggle, finally he was given the sacred teachings.

Milarepa exceled in his practice. He is considered as one of the best example of hoe dedicated we should be to our master. He is also famous for the Gurma(spiritual song of realization). The song that I have translated is a prayer called Seven branches of offering (ཡན་ལག་བདུན་པ ). this was sung dedicated  to his master.

མ་དག་གདུལ་བྱའི་སྣང་ངོ་ལ།།

In the eyes of deluded people

སྣ་ཚོགས་སྤྲུལ་པའི་སྐུར་སྟོན་ཅིང་།།

Display himself in numerous forms

དག་པའི་འཁོར་གྱི་གདུལ་བྱ་ལ།།

In the eyes of people with pure mind

ལོངས་སྤྱོད་རྫོགས་སྐུར་འཆར་ལ་འདུད།།

I bow to the one appearing as the sambhogakaya Buddha.

ཡན་ལག་དྲུག་ཅུའི་ཚངས་དབྱངས་ཀྱིས།།

Melodies of sixty branches

རང་རང་སྐད་དུ་དམ་པའི་ཆོས།།

In which the dharma is taught in our own language

བརྒྱད་ཁྲི་བཞི་སྟོང་གསུམ་མཛད་པའི།།

Written down in 84003 volumes

གྲག་སྟོང་དབྱེར་མེད་གསུང་ལ་འདུད།།

I bow to the sound of empty nature.

འོད་གསལ་ཆོས་སྐུའི་ནམ་མཁའ་ལ།།

In the sky of clear light dharmakaya

མཚན་མའི་སྒྲིབ་གཡོགས་མེད་བཞིན་དུ།།

There is nothing to obstruct the nature

ཤེས་བྱ་ཀུན་ལ་ཁྱབ་མཛད་པའི།།

Has accomplished all the knowledge of phenomenon

འགྱུར་མེད་ཆོས་སྐུའི་ཐུགས་ལ་འདུད།།

I bow to the unchangeable mind of dharmakaya.

ཆོས་དབྱིངས་དག་པའི་ཕོ་བྲང་ན།།

In the palace of pure expanse of reality.

མི་འགྱུར་བདག་མེད་སྒྱུ་མའི་སྐུ།།

Is the body of unchangeable without grasping

དུས་གསུམ་སངྱས་བསྐྱེད་པའི་ཡུམ།།

Mother of all the buddhas of three times

ཡུམ་ཆེན་བདག་མེད་ཞབས་ལ་འདུད།།

I bow to the great mother Dagme

ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་བསྡུས་པའི་སྲས་རྣམས་དང་།།

All the sons gathered by you and,

བཀའ་བཞིན་སྒྲུབ་པའི་སློབ་མའི་ཚོགས།།

Group of those obedient disciples

འཁོར་དང་བཅས་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་ལ།།

To all the ones related and those gathered here

ཟོལ་མེད་གུས་པས་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ།།

I humbly prostate without any doubt

འཇིག་རྟེན་ཁམས་ནི་ཐམས་ཅད་ན།།

1.In all the realm of the beings

མཆོད་པའི་ཡོ་བྱད་ཅི་ཡོད་དང་།།

Whatever is present as the object of offering

བདག་ལུས་ཁྱེད་ཀྱི་སྤྱན་སྔར་འབུལ།།

And with that I offer my body

སྡིག་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་སོ་སོར་བཤགས།།

2. I confess all my sinful acts

བསོད་ནམས་ཀུན་ལ་རྗེས་ཡི་རང་།།

3. I rejoice on all the virtuous deeds

ཆོས་འཁོར་རྒྱ་ཆེན་བསྐོར་དུ་གསོལ།།

4.I request to turn the wheel of dharma

འཁོར་བ་མ་སྟོངས་བར་དུ་ནི།།

5.Untill the time of emptying the samsara

དཔལ་ལྡན་བླ་མ་བཞུགས་སུ་གསོལ།།

6.Let the great master also remain

དགེ་ཚོགས་སེམས་ཅན་དོན་དུ་བསྔོ།།

7.I dedicate all the merits for the sentient beings

I have tried my best to translate the meanings as far as possible. still then then there is always a room for improvement. I would highly appreciate your comments if there is any misinterpretation.

Bumthang: the blessed valley

kurje temple at bumthang.

Bumthang is a place regarded as one of the sacred land blessed by the 8^th century Indian master Guru Rinpoche. With regard to this His eminence Tertoen Rinpoche has written a poem telling us about those important figures to whom we must be grateful. The poem is a beautiful piece giving us the jest of what happened in Bumthang during the 8^th century. It also tell us the significant role played by each of the member. The poem is focused mainly about kurje ney (body print of Guru Rinpoche).

Tertoen Ugyen Sangda Ralpi Dorji

With the prior permission from Rinpochela I tried my best to translate the meanings. My main motive is to let those who does not have time to study or read history books, understand the significance of what Bumthang actually stands for.

ལྷོ་ཕྱོགས་འཛམ་གླིང་ས་ཡི་ལྟེ་བར་རུ།།

In the center of the southern realm of human beings

ཨོ་རྒྱན་གནས་ཆེན་མོན་ཡུལ་བུམ་ཐང་ཆགས།།

Bumthang, the great place blessed by guru Rinpoche is located in Bhutan

ལྷག་པའི་ལྷ་ཆོགས་གུ་རུ་པད་འབྱུང་གི།།

Pema jungne, the master of our previous destiny

ངོ་མཚར་སྐུ་རྗེ་མཇལ་བ་ཨེ་མ་ཧོ་།།

Alas! How great it is to encounter with your miraculous body print.

སྔོན་ཚེ་བུམ་ཐང་རྒྱལ་པོ་སིན་ཏུ་ལ།།

Sintula, the ancient king of Bumthang

རྐྱེན་ངན་གྲོགས་སུ་ཤར་བའི་རྟེན་འབྲེལ་གྱིས།།

With the connection of taking misfortune as his companion

སངས་རྒྱས་གཉིས་པ་བྱོན་པ་བསྐལ་བ་བཟང།།

 Fortunate to be visited by the second Buddha.

གནས་འདིར་བྱིན་གྱིས་བརླབ་པ་ཨེ་མ་ཧོ།།

Alas! How great it is to have the place being blessed.

མོན་ཡུལ་ལྷ་ལྕམ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཁྱེའུ་འདྲན་གྱིས།།

Tashi kheudren, the princess of Bumthang

ཨོ་རྒྱན་པདྨའི་གསང་གྲོགས་མཐུན་རྐྱེན་སྒྲུབ།།

Fullfilled the need of Guru Rinpoche’s secret consort.

ལྷ་སྲིན་དམ་རྟགས་ཟབ་མོའི་བརྟུལ་ཞུགས་བརྡོལ།།

Showed the sign of subduing the devas and rakshasas

བཀའ་དྲིན་བླ་མེད་ཡབ་ཡུམ་ཨེ་མ་ཧོ་།།

Alas! How thank full we are to the great father and mother.

པདྨའི་དངོས་སློབ་དེ་མངས་རྩེ་མངས་གིས་།།

Demang tsemang the true disciple of Guru Rinpoche

གནས་འདིར་བྱོན་ནས་མོན་གྱི་སློབ་དཔོན་མཛད།།

Visited and became teacher to the people of mon

ཁ་སྐད་་བྲིས་ཀློག་ཡོན་ཏན་སླབ་ཚུལ་སྟོན།།

Taught language of written skills

བསྟན་པའི་སྲོལ་བྱེད་མཁས་པ་ཨེ་མ་ཧོ།།

Alas! How great to have a scholar initiate the tradition of Buddha’s teaching

བྲག་དམར་རྡོ་རྗེ་རྩེག་པའི་ཕོ་བྲང་འདིར།།

In the palace of red cliff with the stacked vajra

ལྷ་སྲིན་ཡོངས་ཀྱིས་རྒྱལ་པོ་ཤེལ་གིང་གིས་།།

Where Shelging, the king of all devas and rakshasas

སྲོག་སྙིང་ཕུལ་ནས་པདྨའི་དམ་ཚིག་ཟུངས།།

Offered his heart and life force and kept the promise with Guru Rinpoche

བསྲུང་ཞིང་སྐྱོབས་པའི་འཕྲིན་ལས་ཨེ་མ་ཧོ།།

Alas! How great it is to have him protect and guard the place.

གཏེར་བསྟོན་ཨོ་རྒྱན་གསང་བདག་རིལ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ནས་གང་ཤར་དུ་བྲིས་པ་དགེ།།

Written by Tertoen Ugyen Sangda Ralpi Dorji on Sunday, 25th may 2014.

Translated by Tenzin Gyelmo.

what do we know about the ladies?

Where ever we visit the temple or the monastery, we will see the statue or the mural paintings of the famous three figure. They are Guru Rinpoche accompanied by two consorts or khandro known as yeshi Tshogyal and Mandarava. The term khandro(མཁའ་འགྲོ་) is a tibetan term translated as the “sky walker or sky goer” ,In Sanskrit it is known as “Dakini”. Every one of us know how important guru Rinpoche is in the history of Buddhism. He subdued the demons and propagated the teachings in those places where Buddhism has not prevailed. His teachings were the highest level known as the vajrayana. Bhutan is blessed by him throughout his three times visit during the 8^th century.

guru rinpoche at the centre, right khandro Mandarava,left khandro yeshi Tshogyal

The two ladies depicting in the statue or the paintings, the right one is khandro Mandarava. She was an princess born to king Arshadhare and queen Hauki of west Bengal. From the very young age she showed sign of great compassion, she was an exceptionally beautiful. However she showed no interest in getting married and becoming a queen. Rather she requested to take up spiritual practice.  She met with Guru Rinpoche and started receiving teachings from him. The relationship between the guru and the princess was of a master and student. It was not easy for both of them to cope up with the king. Thinking that the guru was luring the princess, he tried to burn him alive and placed the princess in the pitch of thorns. Guru with his magical power turned the fire into the lake and remained there surrounded by thousands of dakini. King after perceiving this he regreted his actions and asked forgiveness to the master and the princess. He willingly offered his daughter to the master with great sense of devotion and regret. Guru Rinpoche then gave  profound teachings of Dzogpachenpo or the great perfection to the and his people thus leading to the path of liberation.

The greatest achievement of khandro Mandarava along with Guru Rinpoche was the attainment of the stage Tsewang Rigzin or “Long life awareness holder” (ཚེ་དབང་རིག་འཛིན.) It was the practice done at Maratika cave at Nepal that they the vision of lord Amitayus or god of long life (ཚེ་དཔག་མེད .)It is said that due to this attainment she has overcome death and she is alive even today just like the Guru. For that reason she is depicted holding a vase of long life(ཚེ་བུམ) in her left hand.  On her right hand carries a stick hanging the five color cloth piece(ཚེ་དར). Mandarava is considered as the mother who gives the blessing of long life.

The second on the left side is famously known as khandro Yeshi Tshogyal. She is dressed in Tibetan style holding a skull with with amrita (བདུད་རྩི) ་Born to the lord Kharchen Pelgi Wangchuk and queen Getso with auspicious sign. Her beauty attracted the attention of the kings of neighboring countries. When she was asked to choose herself a bride she refused saying that she would pursue spiritual practice. She runs away from the palace and undergoes numerous hardships. Then she is taken by the Great king Thritshong Detsun who later offers to guru as a gesture of gratitude for the teachings. Guru seeing her capabilities happily accepts her as his dakini and give teachings. Khandro with her inevitable devotion and dedication she accomplishes whatever she is made to practice. Because of her innate natural wisdom she acts like a great vessel where the teachings of guru are poured.

Besides being spiritual consort of the guru, she is also considered as one of the 25 major disciples in Tibet. She practiced at Paro Taktshang, singye Dzong and many other places. So many hand, foot and body print are kept on the rocks of sacred places in Tibet and Bhutan. She requested Guru to give many important teachings which still remain.  Along with the master they concealed many teasures(གཏེར) for the future beings. Those treasures some are being discovered by the destined teasure revealer (གཏེར་སྟོན་པ)   and some will be discovered in the future. She complied the entire secret teachings of Guru Rinpoche and concealed it. Her sign of accomplishment was bringing the death back to life. She contributed in spreading the teachings of guru and worked tirelessly till her final attainment of rainbow body(འཇའ་ལུས). After Guru Rinpoche left she became the main holder of the sacred teachings. The other disciples clarified doubts from her. She became insperable from the Guru.  She lived for up to 200 years and finally went to the pure realm of the copper colored mountain(ཟངས་མདོག་དཔལ་རི ) without  discarding the human body. She is the like mother to all the beings of Tibet.

killing your own blood

three month fetus

What do we know of a mother who aborts the baby? Every one of us will assume her as very rude, heartless and a bad mother. Is it all? How can we judge someone without knowing what they are going through? One of the drawback in the humans is that we overlook at somebody’s situation. We blame and gossip rather than trying to understand her feelings.

Let us try to understand the situation of an 18 years old girl who is pregnant for three months. Her parents are very strict and would never accept the child. She is in the second year of her college. The boy who is in same college has accepted the baby but they decided that it was not a good time to start a family. So without anyone’s knowledge they secretly made plan to go to samdrup jongkhar. The boy has made appointment through his friend with the Indian hospital. It was a tough situation for both of them. They both loved the baby so much and it was the sign of their love. It was a heartbreaking moment to remove the symbol of love.

When they were ready to leave the next day, the girl could not sleep. She could feel the movement of her baby and that made her heart cry. So she woke up and decided to write a letter to her baby. She writes.

My Dear baby,

Firstly I want you to know that your mama loves you so much. I know that your dad loves you as much as I do. I am really sorry dear I could not fulfill the duty of a good mother. She should be happy by the news of having a baby, she should make everyone happy by giving her good news to the family members. But I could not do this. Dear I don’t want to bring you to this world of people disgracing us. People will blame us, they will disgrace your mama and her family. Your father will be defamed in front of everyone. It is not that we hate you it is just that the timing is bad. If we bring you here even your grandpa and grandma won’t accept you. My friends will gossip and say that I have been a whore. My teachers will say that I have wasted my time in the college. May be they are true, maybe we are the ones who made mistake. But dear I want you to know that your parents loved each other so much. I wonder sometimes whether loving is a crime. Forgive us dear baby if not we will have to leave with the guilt throughout our lives. You have been growing inside me and it is unimaginable that I won’t have you tomorrow. So this whole night I want be with you, talk with you and feel your presence.

I love you so much dear baby and you will always be in my memory. I fear that tomorrow our fate will separate us. I am so sorry dear……………..do forgive us.

With lots of love

Yours mama.

At the same time the boy also wrote a short letter to his baby. It says

Dear baby

Your papa is so ashamed in front of you. He is so sorry that he could not be a responsible dad to bring you here. If you come here I will not be able to give you and your mother the comfortable life which I want to give. I am so sorry I could not be what I should be. From the core of my heart I loved you dear baby. I fear of losing your mother, she is the best thing that is in my life. Now I fear of losing you and that fear haunts me so much. Always remember we have loved you and will always be loving you

Yours

 loving dad.

They exchanged the letters next day and started their journey. They took the risk of aborting the child. It was very tough for both of them but they had to cope up. They realized that it was their mistake and their simple mistake brought a huge impact. They felt like a murderer and murdering their own blood was not easy. Not only in Bhutan millions of babies are aborted worldwide. It is sad that parents are becoming killers. The lesson that we need to learn from them is being responsible for our action. We need to be careful about what we do and decide. Sometimes our infatuated emotions which is so blur could change the course of our life. As a student we need to understand the priorities whether studies are important or the love? We need to balance our life in such a way that we are not distracted. We are the hopes of our parents and as a student we must try to uphold this.

Diary of a girl

We have read many news about rape cases. It takes my heart away to read that story. Rape is the worst inhuman behavior. I remain struck with lots of questions after reading. I wonder how she is coping up.  The story of victim does not end there yet it is just the beginning. How would she cope up with the love of her life? Will the incident haunt her throughout? The article that I have published is written from the rape victim point of view. I thank my source (who was a victim in 2011), she willingly shared her experiences to me. I am sorry to the readers because I don’t want to reveal everything about the incident. My article is not about 5Ws and 1H, it is not written in the hard news format. Rather as per her wish I have written down in the first person view.  We decided to write in the diary form. It could be taken as an excerpt from her diary. Here it goes…….. 

“God what I ask from you is freedom to leave my life without fear. I know my life has been so unfair with me. May be the pain I have undergone at that age was beyond what I could tackle. But even today I wonder whether that incident has made me strong or not. Still today I am wondering with those questions in my mind. Dear god, if you really have compassion to the sentient beings. I want you to kindly answer my few questions. I would like to know the reason why did it happen to me? You know very well that I was too innocent to believe anything especially as I was waiting for someone who would take me with him. Was my mistake that I had too much faith in you that made me undergo such pain?

If it was to happen with me then why is it that all the people had to know, how about my father’s reputation which he earned for lifetime was shattered by me. God, you really made me realize that I am the worst human ever.  I have realized that I have not been a good daughter to my parents and now I realized that I even cannot be a good girl friend to him. I am so sorry my dear love I wish to be a better one but I am shattered from inside. I have lost my pieces and I fear that it would never be complete. I respect individuality because similar things never happen to everyone. Those pain that I have to undergo, please let me be the last person. I can’t imagine to let anyone suffer as I did.

Looking at my present situation, my life from the audience point of view looks so perfect. My friends says they envy my life. They find it so comfortable and thinks that I’m lucky. Who would be seeing what I am going through? It is always true that we cannot judge a book by its cover and that is so applicable in my life. Things that have happened and those still happening I just wonder the cause for that. The girl that I used to be 12 years ago would be surprised to find the type of lady she is becoming. She might never have imagined that she would grow up to be a heartless and useless lady. Sometimes I wish if I could go back and be that girl so engrossed with books.

Life is unpredictable, that’s the greatest lesson I have ever learned so far. I never expected that I will have to see this phase of my life. I thought my life would be simple but it is just horrible. It is very tough to keep things about yourself with you because sometimes you run out of strength to bear that pain. It takes a lot to regain the hope to live. When you get lost in your own thoughts sometimes you find your existence meaningless. You realize that you have made no difference. May be I will never be able to make a difference.

I am so sorry not being able to understand you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me but the timing was bad. It takes my heart away, I love you so much and I want the best things to happen to you. For that I want to go away because I am not the right one for you. I will not be able to stand up to your expectation. I wish you all my luck and love more than enough so that you will move on without me. I know I just came for a while in your life and I might not have that huge impact. I had one of the most memorable time with you and I thank you for that because I will always have it to cherish.

I don’t blame anyone for my fate, it just happened. Now I try to move on and shape myself for a better future. The person I can be now is normal. It is tough actually to act as if nothing happened in your life.  Maybe that incident has made me strong and I shall continue to be stronger”.