TTC on the passing of America's composer Marvin Hamlisch.

We are sadden to learn of the passing of America's (and NYC's) composer Marvin Hamlisch.
Our condolences go out to Terre, his wife of 25 years. We continue to pray for both our friends Marvin, Terre and family. 

A Celebration of Life, services in honor of Marvin Hamlisch, is open to the public this Sunday and Monday.

For information go to http://www.marvinhamlisch.com/

Visitation & Funeral Information
Visitation : OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Date: Sunday, August 12th, 2012
Date: Monday, August 13th, 2012
Hours:2:00–5:00pm
AND 7:00–9:00pm
Venue: Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home
Address:1076 Madison Avenue (@ 81st Street) 

New York, NY 10028

 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche congratulates Khen Rinpoche Nicholas on appointment

 Zopa Rinpoche congratulates Khen Rinpoche Nicholas on appointment in the new July 2012 Mandala magazine..."Nicky's actions have been that of a serious and proper disciple of [Khyongla] Rinpohce. He as built Rato Gompa with so much thought and research, he deserves to be abbot." ~ Lama Zopa Rinoche

Pick up the new July / Sept 2012 edition of Mandala for this and other fpmt articles. 

http://www.mandalamagazine.org/archives/mandala-for-2012/july/

Press Release: Venerable Nicholas Vreeland appointed Abbot of Rato Dratsang

Press Release –

The Tibet Center is proud to announce that His Holiness the Dalai Lama has appointed its Director, The Venerable Nicholas Vreeland, as the new Abbot of Rato Monastery, which is based in India.  This is a historic moment; this is the first time that a Westerner has been appointed as abbot of an important Tibetan Buddhist monastery.  On making the appointment, in Long Beach California on April 20, 2012, The Dalai Lama stated, “Your special duty (is) to bridge Tibetan tradition and Western world.” 

Vreeland will split his time between The Tibet Center in New York and the monastery in India. The original Rato Monastery, located on the outskirts of Lhasa, Tibet, was established in the 14th Century to preserve the teachings on Buddhist logic. By 1959, Rato had grown to 500 monks, with scholars from all the great monastic universities of Tibet converging there every year for a month of intense philosophical and logical study and debate.  In 1983, the monastery was reestablished in a Tibetan refugee settlement in the south Indian state of Karnataka, where two years later Vreeland became a monk and began his monastic studies.  He sat for his Geshe degree (Doctorate of Philosophy) in 1998, after which he returned to New York to assume duties as the Director of The Tibet Center —Kunkhyab Thardo Ling — where he had first begun his studies of Buddhism with the Center’s founder, the Reverend Khyongla Rato Rinpoche in 1977. 

The Tibet Center has been a co-host, with the Gere Foundation, of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visits to New York a number of times, including two public talks in Central Park and teachings at Radio City Music Hall.  Vreeland has edited the New York Times bestseller, An Open Heart, and the recently released, A Profound Mind, both authored by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. 

Though there are over 1,000 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, Rato Monastery is one of only a dozen important Tibetan Government monasteries under the Dalai Lama’s patronage.  Today there are approximately 100 monks at Rato ranging from the age of 6 to 90. 

Vreeland has been a photographer since he was 13 years old, and assisted Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. A recent exhibition of his work, entitled Photos for Rato, toured major cities around the world and raised most of the funds needed for the construction of Rato Monastery’s new campus and temple, which was inaugurated by the Dalai Lama on January 31, 2011.

TTC remembers Adam Yauch

 

 

The Tibet Center and all its students are deeply saddened and mourn the loss of our brother and fellow student Adam Yauch. A true music pioneer, he influenced a generation. His many charitable works have been of enormous benefit to the cause of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan people. We will miss his warmth and friendship. The Tibet Center sends prayers to his family. May he be born in a completely pure realm.

Liner notes from 'Compassion in Emptiness' DVD...

"First of all, let me say that there is no one on this earth who I have greater respect for than His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. In my  younger years, I would have hesitated to bow before anyone. These days, I no longer feel that, and bow before His Holiness without hesitation. By any ability I have to tell, His Holiness' intentions are 100% pure. He is a living, walking Buddha. He will claim that he is not, but that humbleness is part of the Buddhist tradition, and I am honored to count myself among his students...and being able to be involved with putting together this set of DVDs and helping to make copies of his words, thoughts and images available to people is the greatest work that I can imagine being involved with."

~ Adam Yauch

 


Photos: Vensa Manua Lazar

Book Release !! A Profound Mind: Cultivating Wisdom in Everyday Life

AVAILABLE NOW AT BOOKSTORES AND AMAZON.COM 

(click on photo to buy on amazon.com)

Excerpted from A PROFOUND MIND, the new book by  H. H. the Dalai Lama (Author), Nicholas Vreeland (Editor), Richard Gere (Afterword).

Available now on amazon.com. Copyright 2011. Reprinted with permission from The Crown Publishing Group

Venerable Dagpo Rinpoche at The Tibet Center

  The Venerable Dagpo Rinpoche discussed Boddhicitta at The Tibet Center. @ University Settlement 273 Bowery (and Houston St)

Watch the lecture here... 

Dagpo Rinpoche was born in 1932 in Tibet and at a very young age was recognized by the thirteenth Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of an important Buddhist teacher.
When he was six years old he entered the Bamchö monastery in the Dagpo region where he learned to read and write and also learned the basic principles of Buddhism.
At thirteen years of age he entered Dagpo Shedrup Ling in order to study Buddhist philosophy. Eleven years later he continued his studies in the large monastic university of Drepung, close to Lhasa. There he was admitted to Gomang Dratsang, one of the four colleges of the university.

Guided by some of the greatest twentieth century Tibetan masters including the mentors of the Dalai Lama, Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, the fourteenth Dalai Lama himself  AND the Mongolian master Geshe Ngawang Nyima, Dagpo Rinpoche was educated in the purest and strictest monastic tradition. Under their guidance Rinpoche studied the Five Great Texts, Tantra (Rinpoche received many initiations and performed many retreats) and astrology, grammar, poetry and history.

In 1959 Dagpo Rinpoche fled to India. Less than a year later he was invited to France to assist French tibetologists in their scientific research. From 1961 until his retirement in 1993 Rinpoche taught Tibetan language and civilisation and Buddhism at the School of Oriental Studies, (I.Na.L.C.O.) a part of the Sorbonne. He has co-authored a number of books on Tibet and on Buddhism. Now retired, he continues his personal research, practice and studies.

In 1978 Rinpoche founded a Dharma centre in France, which received Buddhist congregation status from the French state and became Ganden Ling Institute in 1995. In 2005 a new temple was opened in Veneux-les-Sablons, where study weekends and retreats under the guidance of Dagpo Rinpoche are organized regularly.

Since the late seventies Rinpoche has shared his vast knowledge of Buddhism with a wide public. On their request he teaches in various European countries, in Asia and in the United States. He has founded  Dharma centres in France, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Indonesia and India. He travels to India yearly to maintain contact with his teachers and  monasteries.

In 2005 Dagpo Rinpoche completed a long term project, the reconstruction and transfer of the Dagpo Shedrub Ling monastery to the Kullu valley in Northwest India.

The Dagpo Educational Fund @ www.thedagpofund.org

 

 

Oscilloscope Laboratories Release of Compassion in Emptiness (2011)

Hitting streets today is COMPASSION IN EMPTINESS, a four-disc special edition DVD release of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's teachings and public talk at Radio City Music Hall. The Tibet Center thanks our friends at Oscilloscope Labs and Healing the Divide for all their hard work.

If you click on the image to the right to buy the book, The Tibet Center will receive 4% of your purchase from Amazon.

June Teachings

Photo: Jane L. WechslerJune was chock full of teachings at The Tibet Center. The Venerable Khyongla Rato Rinpoche gave three lectures on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path with Ven. Nicholas Vreeland translating, and on June 28 visiting lecturer Jigme Neal taught on Tong Len.

View photos »

Tuesday June 28th, 2011 7pm ~ Jigme Neal on Tong Len at The Tibet Center ~

Jigme Neal will teach on Tong Len with a bit of meditation Q&A, in the context of the three principle paths and steps towards developing Bodhicitta as background for Tong len.

James (Jimi, Jigme) Neal was born in Trieste Italy in 1948, and grew up near Seattle, USA. Studied Acting, music and revolution at university until 1971 when he departed to India overland via Europe.  On his second journey to India and Nepal in 1974 he first met Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 7th Kopan medaocourse in Nepal and has been studying, practicing and teaching Buddhism from then up to the present time.

Jimi was a fully ordained monk from 1980 to 1995. In 1981 he was one of the founding monks at Nalanda Monastery in France at the request of Lama Yeshe. 

He has had the good fortune to have taken extensive teachings, initiations and commentaries in Sutra and Tantra from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Kyabje Song Rinpoche, Ling and Serkong Rinpoche, Kirti Tsenshap Rinpoche, Dilgo Kyentse Rinpoche, as well as his own root Lamas: Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. He has completed retreats on the preliminary practices, Vajrayogini, Heruka, Yamantaka and others over the span of the last thirty years.

He has lead retreats and taught the Dharma at FPMT centers India, Nepal, America, France and Spain as well as teaching throughout Israel.

He has lived in India for most of his adult life and presently resides near Dharamsala with his wife Valerie.

Listen to Jigme Neal lecture

ARTIST EILEEN SPIKOL’S WORKS ON VIEW Thurs May 19, 2011

  

 

Sale of Paintings and Sculptures to benefit The Tibet Center

On February 2nd, 2011 our dear friend, student and member of The Tibet Center Eileen Spikol passed away. Eileen will be greatly, greatly missed by all at TTC.

Eileen’s daughter Hannah has graciously offered to sell some of her mother’s art with partial proceeds benefitting The Tibet Center. Below are details. There will be a showing on Thursday May 19th, 2011. Please call TTC @ 718-222-0007 or Jean Lyman Goetz @ (212) 255-4460 for further details.

TTC

Sale of Paintings and Sculptures will benefit The Tibet Center

On Thursday, May 19th from 3pm to 8pm paintings, sculptures and mixed media pieces by Eileen Spikol will be shown at the late artist’s studio, and will be available for sale. The work shown ranges from mixed media, gouache and watercolor, collage, ocean twigs and skeletons, encaustic, and plaster, on paper, board, and free-standing sculpture.  Partial proceeds from the event will benefit The Tibet Center, a 501.C.3 organization.  Call Jean Lyman Goetz for more information (212) 255-4460.

Eileen Spikol’s career spanned her work at the Museum of Natural History in New York, where she supervised and prepared anthropological, paleontological and scientific replicas for distribution to museums and universities, to residencies in Haiti and the Fondations Michel Karolyi in Vence, France.  Solo shows included the Soho 20 Gallery in New York, Maples Gallery at Fairleigh Dickinson University, the Islip Art Museum and the Bronx Museum of Arts.  Her art was shown in group shows around the United States and in Europe.

Ms. Spikol was educated at the Philadelphia Musuem College of Art.  She received her BA in Fine Arts from Fordham University and an MFA in Sculpture from City College, New York.  She was Adjunct Professor of Fine Arts at St. Johns University, and taught at Goucher College in Maryland and at Brooklyn College, and developed special art workshops for children in many schools in New York and Maryland.