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PRESERVING & ENHANCING GECHAG GOMPA It is Tulku Wangdrag Rinpoche's dream to fully support and enhance the precious treasury of practise that is unique to Gechag Gompa. Currently the Nuns experience intense hardships. Food and clothing are difficult to obtain, and accommodation is substandard. A poignant example of this being the recent collapse of a 3 year retreat building which left 19 nuns with no place to continue their retreat. There are no medical facilities in the area. The nearest medical clinic is at least a 2-day horse ride. While the nuns' spiritual education is very high many of them have never received a basic education in Tibetan language, grammar, math or science. | ||||
| Educational access is very limited in this remote area. In order to remove this difficulty, Tulku Wangdrag Rinpoche wishes to build a school. The school would house 108 nuns and provide education from the basic level up to the most advanced studies of Buddhist philosophy. Thus, over time all the Nuns could gradually receive an education. |  | |||
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SUPPORTING GECHAG GOMPA The noble act of supporting these remarkable women and ensuring the continuation of this unique and precious female practise lineage will bring great benefit both to you and to our world as a whole. o US$ 25 pays for food and clothing for a nun for a month, less than a dollar a day o US$ 300 pays for one year in retreat for one nun o US$ 106 pays for the annual 3 day inner heat 'Tumu' testing ceremony o US$ 2,O89 pays for a 7 day Drubchen performed by 306 nuns | ||||
The total cost for building the school is estimated at: US$ 80,000. This includes : Main shrine room : US$ 15,000, Kitchen & Store : US $3,125, Dining Hall : US$ 4,000, Reception Hall : US$ 2,000, 4 Classroom : US$ 3,750 each, 56 Bedrooms US$ 720 each |
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| GECHAG GONPA | ||||
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THE YOGINI NUNS OF GECHAG GONPA In a remote valley in Eastern Tibet, the Gechag Gompa Nunnery is home to a unique community of highly accomplished female spiritual practitioners famed through out the land for their profound wisdom and radiant compassion. Though officially founded in 1892, the Nunnery's development dates from when disciples of the first Drubwang Tsoknyi Rinpoche started to gather around him in Nangchen, Eastern Tibet. Great numbers of women practitioners were attracted there to live and practise. Believing fully in the capacity of his female students Tsoknyi Rinpoche the first thought that women should have the same opportunities as men. A startling thought at that ame, as even today Tibetan as well as Chinese lay women suffer severe discrimination, not to mention nuns. Tsoknyi Rinpoche envisioned a totally different and unique training System fur superior to what most monks receive. He and his heart sons implemented a remarkable system of practice chat the nuns follow faithfully to this day, despite desperate living conditions. This unique system, imbued with great devotion, is what makes these women renowned spiritual practitioners throughout the world. Today more than 345 nuns are living and practicing in Gechag Gompa. It is one of the largest nunneries in Eastern Tibet and follows the Tibetan Buddhist lineages of Terton Ratnalingpa of the Nyingma tradition and DrubwangTsoknyi and his heart sons of the Kagyu tradition. Renouncing worldly life and firmly dedicated to the benefit of all sentient beings the nuns engage in various Tantric practices and the practice of Dzogchen or the Great Perfection to develop wisdom, loving kindness and compassion. The community is divided into 17 different houses or practice groups. Each house maintains an unbroken continuity of it's practise of specialization. The nuns also participate in a number of monthly ritual practices and 19 animal Drubchens: intensive periods of group practice each taking 7 days. | ||||
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There are two traditional three-year retreat facilities. Currently thirty-mine nuns are in retreat, intensively practising the elaborate Tantric rituals at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism. Upon completion these nuns will join one of 17houses according to their personal deities and dedicate the rest of their lives to practise. |
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INTRODUCTION BY TSOKNYI RINPOCHE III "There were three notable students of the first Tsoknyi Rinpoche, the main one being Tsangyang Gyatso. Together, they founded Gechag Gompa. Their incarnations were subsequently recognized and they became known as the Three Tulkus of Gechag Gompa. The present Tulku Wangdrag Rinpoche is one of these three, Born in 1964, he was officially recognized by H.H. Sakya Trizin. I enthroned him as the lineage holder of Gechag Gompa. Tulku Wangdrag Rinpoche received his monastic ordination at the age of eighteen from the mahasiddha Karma Norbu. He studied the five major philosophical subjects: Madhyamaka, Prajnaparamita, Abhidharma, Pramana and Vinaya as well as their subsidiary topics at the Dzongzar Shedra (monastic college) in Kham for nine years and | ||||
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obtained the degree of Khenpo. He also studied and practiced Dzog Chen and Mahamudra under learned and accomplished masters like Trachog Khenpo Karma Tsetan, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and mahasiddha Tsejor and many
Tulku Wangdrag Rinpoche is sincerely dedicated to the Gechag Gompa nuns and to the preservation and development of this precious practise tradition. I urge you to support Tulku Wangdrag Rinpoche and the Gechag Gompa nuns. |
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