EPISODE FOURTEEN: Tashi Namgyal’s Rime Loyalty

EPISODE FOURTEEN: Tashi Namgyal’s Rime Loyalty

It was the early 1960s and throughout the Himalayas it seemed like everything was falling apart. Monasteries had been destroyed. Great masters had been killed. Families were displaced. Then Tsewang Paljor left his post as chagzöd of Khyentse Labrang and many people...
EPISODE THIRTEEN: The Grandeur of Labrangs

EPISODE THIRTEEN: The Grandeur of Labrangs

Probably the most spiritually materialist phenomenon in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is this entity called labrang. The word labrang contains, “la” which is part of the word “lama” and brang, which means something like “nest” and...
EPISODE TWELVE: I Am Buddha

EPISODE TWELVE: I Am Buddha

I have not a single doubt that I am Buddha. This certainty is not a result of reading texts, such as the Uttaratantra, where it says that my defilements are temporary and not my true nature; I am not one of those people who has the wit to rely on logic and reasoning,...
EPISODE ELEVEN: A Variety of Heroes

EPISODE ELEVEN: A Variety of Heroes

Before I was sent away to Sikkim for my training, I was raised in remote villages in Bhutan, mostly by my grandparents and my mother. My father was away working in Kurseong, near Darjeeling, as an All India Radio announcer and newsreader. The only radio around was...
EPISODE TEN: Mum

EPISODE TEN: Mum

I studied Buddhist philosophy for almost a decade in my teens, even though I may not have succeeded in learning much. I did succeed in becoming narrow minded by developing a high regard for the skeptical mind. My studies made me arrogant and blinded my pure...